Now this is news reporting, and in a few words: How I got T-Mobile’s CEO kicked out of AT&T’s CES party. My apologies for the late highlight. The story as told in a couple tweets is Twitter […]
Category: Blogging
Finally, a Sensible Story sets the Chromebook Record Straight
Gregg Keizer corrects the record regarding Chromebook sales. Somebody had to. Gregg is consistently a thorough reporter who actually reports rather than hypes or falls into The Echo Chamber.
NPD’s press release clearly states U.S. “commercial channels” not all retail sales, as has been widely misreported. That 21 percent number isn’t the whole pie but a much smaller portion of it. This misreading, misunderstanding, or misreporting (take your pick) fostered an echo chamber of stories predicting 2014 as the year of the Chromebook. In your dreams.
Black Friday Stinks
What a fantastic headline: (in story context): For Retailers Today Really is the Shittiest Day of the Year. Some journalists squawk at Gawker sites for cheesy, sleazy headlines and content. I see Gawker as a […]
All This Googlism disturbs Me
Today, Ian Betteridge posts: “One thing that is impossible not to notice on Google+: There’s a very distinct skew towards big Google fans in commenting. It doesn’t matter which tech site’s page you look at, the (in my view, tedious) ‘fanboy’ mentality is hotter here than on any other social network”.
I commented on his post but want to draw more attention to Ian’s observation, to which I concur. I am rethinking my social service presence because of pervasive Googlism. While now immersed in the Google lifestyle, I am not a Google fanboy. But the leanings here are quite strong now, and tipping more all the time. Also, there is increasingly less tolerance for non-Google tech posts and more criticism of those regarding competitors like Apple.
Take Back the Facts
Wow, All Things D’s Kara Swisher sure has some advice for Jeff Bezos as he takes ownership of the Washington Post.
I think her real point is this:
To me, the most important trick is to deeply inculcate the joy of Internet journalism, without losing (actually restoring to some degree, after recent cutbacks) the great editorial values and breakthrough journalism of the Post. Fusing the old-media storytelling and news-integrity values that I learned at the Post with the Internet values of speed and personality—and, well, some level of fun at the right times—is critical.
Better Place to Be
My last post on this site is dated December 2010. Luckily no squatters took residence in my absence. I stopped writing here simply because I didn’t have time. My responsibilities for BetaNews commanded too much of me, and I shifted personal blogging to Google+. Both are fine places to live—shared common areas—but I seek solitude and escape from the daily news grind; also, I’m sick to death of tech.
I’m not a computer or gadget geek. It’s just my career path. Twenty years ago this autumn, what was then Washington Journalism Review, now American Journalism Review, posted a story that changed my life: “The Future is Now” by Kate McKenna.
Bias is inevitable
All journalism is advocacy journalism. No matter how it’s presented, every report by every reporter advances someone’s point of view…to pretend there’s such a thing as journalism without advocacy is just silly; nobody in this […]
HuffPo is all Headline, no Original Content
This story exemplifies why, as a journalist , I’m no big Huffington Post fan. The large-font headline takes up the space above the fold. Surely there is a hard-hitting news story behind. Right? Nope.
The five-paragraph story, while carrying a Huffington Post byline, culls from other reports, CNBC and New York Post on the page, with links as sourcing to other HuffPo stories that also largely or wholly depend on other news services (Reuters is one).
BlackBerry Fights Back
BlackBerry’s aggressive response to Detwiler Fenton claims of high z10 return rates is shocking and refreshing. CEO Thorsten Heins statements that return rates are “right in line with the industry” while calling the report a […]
What, No Penalty for Aggregators?
A warning from Google News: Credibility and trust are longstanding journalistic values, and ones which we all regard as crucial attributes of a great news site…If a site mixes news content with affiliate, promotional, advertorial, […]
One Source is Not Enough
Continuing on my theme of accuracy about news reporting, particularly Apple and the wrongs of single-sourcing: As a rule I don’t quote FOSS Patents. There simply is too much pro-Apple bias in the analysis. I find little neutrality, yet FOSS Patents is often used as the only source on Apple legal cases by the majority of the US news media.
Even if I thought Florian Mueller’s posts were fair, I wouldn’t quote him, simply because he is so overused and so often as only so-called expert by so many bloggers, reporters, and other writers.
Nail Down Your Sourcing
In response to a BetaNews writer presenting a third-party source for a story this morning, I wrote in group chat: In human relationships there is a misconception that love conquers all, that it’s more important […]