I’d write up the many failings of this article, but it’s just not worth it.
Category: Journalism
On Apple’s Media Tour and Scott Forstall
Two interviews with Apple executives have popped up this morning.
The first, at Business Week, includes Tim Cook, Jony Ive and Craig Federighi. It paints Apple’s executives as sure-footed. Here’s a section discussing the cry of some for a cheaper iPhone:
To Cook, the mobile industry doesn’t race to the bottom, it splits. One part does indeed go cheap, with commoditized products that compete on little more than price. “There’s always a large junk part of the market,” he says. “We’re not in the junk business.” The upper end of the industry justifies its higher prices with greater value. “There’s a segment of the market that really wants a product that does a lot for them, and I want to compete like crazy for those customers,” he says. “I’m not going to lose sleep over that other market, because it’s just not who we are. Fortunately, both of these markets are so big, and there’s so many people that care and want a great experience from their phone or their tablet, that Apple can have a really good business."
On the Comma Splice⇢
Brent Simmons steps to the chalkboard to discuss the grammatical error that drives me more insane than any other. It is shocking how many people get this consistently wrong.
ZDNet Reviews iOS 7⇢
Zack Whittaker:
For 30 days, I ran a pre-release version of iOS 7 (which iteratively improved when newer updates were released and installed) on my iPhone 4S. While first impressions are important — these were covered in part in the review of the user interface and experience changes — the critical check is the test of time.
The purpose of this particular review was to see how an average user’s productivity and user experience altered, if at all, over the course of a longer-term period, such as one month.
Not For Sale⇢
Christine Haughney:
In an interview published last week in The Daily Beast, Mr. Sulzberger (chairman of The New York Times Company) addressed rumors that a media mogul like Mayor Michael Bloomberg might purchase The Times at some point. “Imagine. People talk. What a shock,” Mr. Sulzberger is quoted as saying. “The Times,” he says, slapping his palm on the table, “is Not. For. Sale.”
Bezos Is Playing Chess⇢
MG Siegler:
Here’s the thing that most people, and certainly many in the tech press, don’t seem to understand about Amazon, and by extension, Bezos: when it comes to business, there’s a game being played almost flawlessly.
The goal is actually to not make a huge profit too early, and Bezos manages it perfectly. You want to avoid showing your cards too early as you continue to lay the groundwork for an ever-larger business. Occasionally, you’ll have to show those cards and win a hand to prove that you can. But the rest of the time you call and fold, as you await the monster to take the entire pot.
On Bezos’s Ability to Deliver⇢
Jack Shafer at Reuters:
In acquiring the Washington Post, Bezos enters a business that is not radically different from the ones he already owns. Reporters and editors like to think their literary arts are central to newspapering. But it’s better to think of a newspaper as a coordination problem that manufacturing and distribution solves daily: Copy, art, and advertising is beamed from newsroom to printing plant, bundled newspapers flow from the plant to trucks, are transferred to carriers, and are delivered to your front door. Nobody knows more about deadline deliveries and distribution than Bezos’s Amazon, which has spoiled several nations with its reliable service. I can’t imagine what plans Bezos has for the print edition of the paper—if I did, I’d be worth $25.2 billion—but I’m confident that he will maximize the value of the existing Post delivery system in novel ways. It would not surprise me to see him use the Post network of trucks and carriers to enter the local delivery business as a pilot project. Obviously, he’s learned a lot from same-day delivery he could share with the paper.
Jeff Bezos Buys The Washington Post
The Washington Post Co. has agreed to sell its flagship newspaper to Amazon.com founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos, ending the Graham family’s stewardship of one of America’s leading news organizations after four generations.
Bezos, whose entrepreneurship has made him one of the world’s richest men, will pay $250 million in cash for The Post and affiliated publications to the Washington Post Co., which owns the newspaper and other businesses.
Court Grants Chevron Access to Email Metadata⇢
Dana Liebelson:
Last month, a federal court granted Chevron access to nine years of email metadata — which includes names, time stamps, and detailed location data and login info, but not content —belonging to activists, lawyers, and journalists who criticized the company for drilling in Ecuador and leaving behind a trail of toxic sludge and leaky pipelines.
Who needs the NSA when you have federal courts?
MIT Moves to Block FOIA Release in Swartz Case⇢
Kevin Poulsen is the plaintiff in a case concerning the government surveillance of the late Aaron Swartz.
Earlier this year, the Secret Service denied requests to thousands of pages of government notes on Swartz, citing a Freedom of Information Act exemption that can apply to on-going police investigations.
Over at Wired, Poulsen writes:
When the agency ignored my administrative appeal, I enlisted David Sobel, a top DC-based FOIA litigator, and we filed suit. Two weeks ago U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered the government to “promptly” begin releasing Swartz’ records. The government told my lawyer that it would release the first batch tomorrow. But minutes ago, Kollar-Kotelly suspended that order at MIT’s urging, to give the university time to make an argument against the release of some of the material.
On Pilot Names and Sources
Last week, San Francisco Bay Area FOX affiliate KTVU-TV shared the names of the pilots on Asiana Airlines Flight 214.
(I have decided not to re-publish the list of names KTVU reported, but that link above has them in the video. They are racially insensitive, to say the least.)
This morning, USA Today reported that Asiana Airlines is suing the TV station over the report:
Asiana has decided to sue KTVU-TV to “strongly respond to its racially discriminatory report” that disparaged Asians, Asiana spokeswoman Lee Hyomin said. She said the airline will likely file suit in U.S. courts.
PCWorld Going Digital-Only
After 30 years in print, the current August issue of PCWorld will be the last, IDG announced today. The magazine will switch to a digital-only format from now on.
There are 339,000 print subscribers, per the title’s AAM audit report, and if they want it, they’ll need to register online to receive the digital version of the title.
If I have to explain why, you haven’t been paying attention to the media business for the past decade or so. The web has been awfully hard on magazines, and no category has suffered more than computer publications. Both readers and advertisers have largely moved online. Many of them did so years ago — especially the sort of tech-savvy people who once read PC magazines. At the end, PCWorld was about a quarter the size it once was in terms of pages and had lost two-thirds of its readership. I don’t even want to think about what had happened to its profits.