Category: Media

Apple by Joe WilcoxJun 13, 201610:02 pm

Microsoft tries to trump Apple

Timing is everything, particularly in business marketing tactics. Surely it’s no coincidence that hours before Apple’s big developer conference, where questions about iPhone’s future and product innovation loom large, that Microsoft announces plans to buy social network LinkedIn. Oh, the next Xbox reveal is planned to coincide with the WWDC 2016 keynote, too. Hehe, how do you like them apples?

The merger will split tech news and analysis coverage this fine Monday and spill over to tomorrow, robbing Apple of attention it needs now to subdue rising negative perceptions about the future. Global smartphone sales are slowing and iPhone accounts for 65 percent of total revenues. Meanwhile, the fruit-logo company hasn’t perceptually lifted the innovation meter since before cofounder Steve Jobs died nearly five years ago. Apple needs to deliver wow and have bloggers and reporters giggle with glee all over the InterWebs.

News Media by Joe WilcoxJun 10, 201611:08 pm

Litigation Censorship, Gawker, and the End of the Free Press

I am super grumpy today. Angry. No—thoroughly pissed off at billionaire bully Peter Thiel’s vendetta litigation financing that resulted in today’s bankruptcy filing by new media journo Gawker Media. Thiel plunked down, admittedly, at least $10 million to back Hulk Hogan’s breach-of-privacy lawsuit, which resulted in a $140 million jury judgement against the blog network for releasing the former faux wrestler’s sex tape.

Gawker had asked the presiding judge to set aside damages during the appeals process. Denied. The amount due exceeds the company’s assets, precipitating the Chapter 11 filing that will effectively end the media company as we know it now. Gawker is on the auction block, where Ziff Davis already has an offer.

News Media by Joe WilcoxMay 31, 20163:12 pm

Defending Gawker

What do you say about milk-curdling success? Dilbert-creator Scott Adams liked one of the tweets (posted by another team member) on our Frak That Twitter today. I am less enthused and disagree with Scott’s blog post spotlighting similar topic: Billionaire backing third-party lawsuit against a news organization; Peter Thiel’s previously secret assault on Gawker Media.

“Gawker’s business model is built around destroying the lives of innocent people to attract clicks”, Scott Adams writes. “How awful is Gawker? Imagine if revenge porn and cancer decided to get married and have an ugly baby with fangs. That would be Gawker. Pure evil…I see Thiel’s campaign against Gawker as a public service, and a valuable one”. I couldn’t disagree more.

Music by Joe WilcoxMay 29, 20167:04 pm

Noon is What You’re Waiting For

For reasons even I can’t explain, I’ve slowly started to complete a number of lyrics with melodies written decades ago. The verse below is among them. I banged out the first draft, through to the chorus, during my senior year of high school. Today, I added two additional stanzas to finish the song, barring any future revisions.

“Noon is What You’re Waiting For” derives from two inspirations: My then, strong anti-religious sentiments and something discussed during literature class: Cycle of life as morning, noon, and evening (or is that twilight). Meaning: Noon doesn’t refer to time of day when the protagonist sneaks out to meet boys but to her coming of age and freedom from Catholic colloquial confines.

News Media by Joe WilcoxMay 26, 20163:45 pm

Be Careful What You Wish For, Mr. Thiel

A report available today from Pew Research Center finds that 62 percent of American adults “get news on social media, and 18 percent do so often”. Those statistics should frighten new and old media, but more so critics like billionaire Peter Thiel, who bankrolled wrestler Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker; the blog and news site lost. Depending on the outcome of a court hearing, Gawker could be shuttered or sold, if forced to put $50 million in escrow during the appeals process. The amount exceeds yearly advertising revenues.

Thiel admittedly put up about $10 million, if not more, to support Hogan’s lawsuit and unnamed others. Destroying Gawker might seem like an enviable outcome for one of Silicon Valley’s tech elite—he is a PayPal cofounder and early Facebook investor—but, as they say, nature abhors a vacuum, which replacement isn’t waiting around. Social media increasingly fills the niche that Gawker vacates.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMay 23, 201612:45 pm

Cat Cuddles

Rarely do Cali and Neko sleep together like this, but the Tortoiseshell is having an off 7 days or so. She seems unsettled. Yesterday, the petite feline watched the Apple TV Aerial screensaver for the longest time. I do mean attentively watched.

Perhaps she longs for the outdoors, which was a major part of her habitat before joining our household in October 2014. On June 5 of the same year, Cali adopted our daughter. I met Molly’s new companion the previous evening on the street.

Living by Joe WilcoxMay 16, 20165:01 pm

Reconsidering Facebook

I spent little time online the past week following the unexpected passing of my sister Annette exactly seven days ago. The reaction is strange, seeing how much Facebook, texting, and other connected activities and services enriched and changed her life during the last six months or so she walked this Earth. I was clueless.

Last year, I added Annette to my cellular account; she used Nokia Lumia Icon Windows Phone to start. This opened a new world of connection to children, other relatives, and friends by texting. In November, when switching the family to T-Mobile from Verizon and upgrading to Nexus 6P, I sent her my Nexus 6. Soon after, her fraternal twin, Nanette, helped set up Facebook. Annette’s first post was Nov. 22, 2015—a family photo with our brother-in-law Michael Bellerieve, before his death from cancer. 🙁

News Media by Joe WilcoxMay 9, 20166:40 pm

BBC’s ‘Bathroom Bill’ Story is the Worst Kind of Journalism

This analysis is not a commentary about North Carolina’s controversial bathroom law, but the irresponsible and unethical news reporting about it. I am appalled by the headline and dek of a BBC story posted earlier today. Quoting the latter: “North Carolina is suing the U.S. Department of Justice over its attempts to bar the state from upholding its anti-LGBT ‘bathroom bill'”.

While many people might agree with “anti-LGBT” as descriptor, BBC nevertheless shouldn’t use it. Doing so makes a value judgement and demonstrates bias rather than neutral news reporting. Even using LGBT without the “anti” is biased. Also, as a foreign news agency, regardless reputation, the Beeb makes moral pronouncements that may not reflect those of the country that it reports about. The headline and dek implicitly impose values, and that should not be the news report’s goal—all while diminishing, if not ignoring, the rationale behind the legislation.

Living by Joe WilcoxMay 7, 201610:05 pm

‘Bummer! Bummer!’

In Night Gallery story “Hells Bells”, actor John Astin dies in a car crash. Entering the afterlife, he knows the destination isn’t Heaven. He finds himself in a room with phonograph and stack of vinyl records, and that tempts his hippy ways until, rather than rock and roll, he hears big band music. Next appears an older gent dressed in overalls who only talks about life on the farm, followed by a couple ready to show 8,500 slides of their vacation to Tijuana, Mexico. Angry, Astin yells: “I want to see the Devil. Where are you, man? Show your ugly face!”

“Having a good time?” The Devil appears and asks. “Hell is never what you expect it to be. But for you, this is it. Don’t you like it?” “No it’s a downer”, Astin answers. “Yes it is, isn’t it,” the Devil agrees, nodding. “You know, it’s a curious thing. They have exactly the same room up there…You see, while this room is Hell for you, absolutely beastly Hell, up there the identical room is someone else’s idea of Heaven”.

I feel something similar about a package received from Photojojo yesterday. What disappoints me, and grandly, might delight someone else—although I can’t imagine whom.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 30, 20162:28 pm

Proud Paws

My cat wants to know: Where will you spend Saturday? He also asks: Where were you last Pluterday? Not that everyone gets one of those. The photo wasn’t posed. Neko jumped up on the Korg, and […]

News Media by Joe WilcoxApr 24, 20168:10 pm

The Four Bad Habits of News Sourcing

The most notable news media event of the week goes to New York Daily News, which basked in the illumination of social media’s ire over accusations that writer Shaun King had plagiarized text verbatim from a story that appeared on the Daily Beast. But like so much that rises to the top of Twittersphere. the backstory is more complicated. Turns out that an editor removed attribution, accidentally, he says. The tabloid subsequently fired him.

Unless there was deliberate and chronic attribution removal, editor Jotham Sederstrom’s dismissal after seven years service stinks of face-saving. He made a mistake, two admittedly, and takes full responsibility. In a Medium post worthy of inclusion in J-School ethics classes, he writes: “This was my fault and I accept 100 percent of the blame”. That’s an editor you want on staff. He stands behind his writer, and rightly protects the only commodity any journalist can truly offer an audience: Trustworthiness.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 16, 20168:15 pm

Momma Hummer

This hummingbird is better entertainment for our cats than TV is for humans. She faithfully sits in her nest, on a tree in the middle of our apartment building’s courtyard, with clear view from a window we leave open year around for Cali and Neko. The felines are mesmerized during the night.

The featured photo is the original, shot using Fujifilm X-T1 and Fujinon XF35mmF2 R WR lens. The image is converted JPEG from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. The second is an edited crop. Vitals: f/4, ISO 200, 1/60 sec, 50mm.