1. 29 Mar



    And in a telling sign that even the North Koreans don’t expect war, the national airline, Air Koryo, is adding flights to its spring lineup and preparing to host the scores of tourists they expect to flock to Pyongyang despite the threats issuing forth from the Supreme Command.
    — 

    “Analysis: NKorea threat may be more bark than bite,” Associated Press / Jean Lee

    The most cognizant breakdown of the North Korea situation I’ve seen yet.

     

  2. 27 Mar


    jordan-cohen:

    Me at work.

    This here is why tablets were invented.

    (Source: ohmybuster)

     

  3. 22 Feb



    On Thursday night, I moderated a boisterous debate between Andrew Sullivan and BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith about making money in journalism. Actually, those terms require some clarification. By “moderated” I mean passively refereed and by “discussion” I mean relentless verbal slugfest.
    — 

    Derek Thompson’s write up of Thursday night’s bru-ha-ha between BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith and Andrew Sullivan.

    I consider myself lucky to have been in the audience for what I consider a long-overdue critical look at native advertising. I respect the experiment that is BuzzFeed and its ad model, but many of Sullivan’s criticisms rang true to me, particularly the PlayStation 4 example. Sullivan, though, is an outlier: his entirely reader-supported model wouldn’t work with a site like BuzzFeed, where the content isn’t as unique nor supremely high-quality as it is on The Dish.

    However, I also don’t think ad-supported sites should just go off and die (not the least of which because I work for one). It would’ve been great if Sullivan was asked for his solution for sites where The Dish’s new model just wouldn’t work, because I doubt he would have one. Having said that, I do think it would be wise for advertising products to be more clearly labeled on certain sites and for editorial to be part of the conversation in what advertisers get to do and when they get to do it - such communication would’ve saved BuzzFeed any editorial embarrassment over the Sony situation.

     

  4. 25 Jan


    gifhound: Mayor Cory Booker rescues dog left out in the cold in Newark. Superhero. He’s got ASPCA in the bag.

    gifhound:

    Mayor Cory Booker rescues dog left out in the cold in Newark. Superhero.

    He’s got ASPCA in the bag.

     

  5. 23 Jan



    13WHAM News, a Rochester, New York television outlet, was recently acquired by Sinclair Broadcasting. Sinclair told all 13WHAM talent it “owns” their social media accounts. 

    Rachel Barnhart, a 13WHAM reporter with 11,000+ Twitter followers and a following all her own, retained ownership of her personal accounts and arranged it so she could start separate Sinclair-“owned” accounts. 

    “You will see minimal changes in my existing social media accounts, which I can still use during work hours,” wrote Barnhart in a blog post emplaning the situation. “However, during breaking news or when I am live tweeting an event, I may share posts from my station account or refer you to my station pages for more information. The station account will be much more 13WHAM-specific. This arrangement allows me to continue reporting and sharing news on various platforms. 13WHAM News remains supportive of my social media activities and has played a large role in my success”

    I’m glad Barnhart was able to work out some arrangement here - the idea that a media company can “own” its reporters’ online presences is ludicrous in an age where individual reporters’ brands are as important as those of the media outlets for which they work. 

     

  6. 22 Jan


    kantrowitz:

    jaredbkeller:

    taylorlorenz:

    News tweets

    I just…I can’t. 

    Community managers unleashed!

    And it’s only Tuesday.

     

  7. 15 Jan


    .

    “The Daily Show” investigates investigative reporting. This takes a turn for the absolutely awesome at approx. 4:00.

     

  8. 13 Jan



    MIT's president has released a statement regarding the death of Aaron Swartz, who died while facing felony charges over actions he took on MIT's property.

    shortformblog:

    To the members of the MIT community:

    Yesterday we received the shocking and terrible news that on Friday in New York, Aaron Swartz, a gifted young man well known and admired by many in the MIT community, took his own life. With this tragedy, his family and his friends suffered an inexpressible loss, and we offer our most profound condolences. Even for those of us who did not know Aaron, the trail of his brief life shines with his brilliant creativity and idealism.

    Although Aaron had no formal affiliation with MIT, I am writing to you now because he was beloved by many members of our community and because MIT played a role in the legal struggles that began for him in 2011.

    I want to express very clearly that I and all of us at MIT are extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many. It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy.

    I will not attempt to summarize here the complex events of the past two years. Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT. I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT’s involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it.

    I hope we will all reach out to those members of our community we know who may have been affected by Aaron’s death. As always, MIT Medical is available to provide expert counseling, but there is no substitute for personal understanding and support.

    With sorrow and deep sympathy,

    L. Rafael Reif

    Swartz, who died Friday, faced charges in regards to a 2011 incident where he used a laptop on the MIT campus to download millions of articles from JSTOR. The university has faced heavy controversy from the hacker world for the incident, with some in belief that the university acted in a way that put Swartz in significant legal danger. (ht @peteyMIT)

     

  9. 10 Jan



    We were very concerned we were pissing off people in that community,” said Jonah Peretti, co-founder of BuzzFeed, “And we’ve already removed all of those images and updated the post. It was something just designed to show how cool that sort of photography is. Sometimes I think Imgur confuses the sourcing of which images wind up out there. And we quickly corrected it when we were able to discover who the actual photographer was and that he was upset that it was used.
    — Redditors Accuse BuzzFeed of Photo Theft, Mashable
     

  10. 9 Jan



    Why Twitter's army of 'Mechanical Turks' will not conquer breaking news

    corybe:

    Breaking News blog:

    Twitter revealed this week that it uses Mechanical Turk — a crowdsourced pool of people — as an innovative way to help identify and classify search queries as soon as they’re trending. For example, the Mechanical Turks could associate the phrase “Big Bird” with a Presidential debate….

    Wait, “Mechanical Turks?”