Category: Media

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‘If I Stay’ Review

Yesterday, at my suggestion, the Wilcox couple watched If I Stay, which I grabbed from iTunes. The movie is much better than expected, and, reading professional reviews later on, grossly underrated by the critics. First-time fictional director R.J. Cutler delivers a poignant, if at times disjointed, coming-of-age drama.

The tonal quality reminds of two other family-centrics films fitting the genre: The Lovely Bones, directed by Peter Jackson, and Sidney Lumet’s Running on Empty. All three focus on a teen in transition, where the family dynamics are canvas for a larger love story. The Cutler and Jackson films bring tears, while Lumet might just make a liberal, or perhaps radical, out of you. 🙂 

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Black Friday’s Best Deal is Original Content

Matt Burns’ “The Black Friday Survival Guide” is original content as it should be: Clever, funny, provocative, and unique. This piece of craftsmanship, posted yesterday to TechCrunch, stands apart from the dribble that all looks alike, because it is—lazy aggregators copying news someone else reports, or too often similarly regurgitates. Puke is gross. Let’s not remake and rebake as dinner.

His piece of brilliance evokes the classic survival guide recast to the urban landscape, where dangerous predators roam shopping malls huntings deals and around whom anyone with even 10 meters distance risks being collateral damage. The safest place to be on Black Friday is somewhere else. But if you must go out, Matt has your back. 

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Uber Should Drive Journalists to Accountability

Good for Uber for being transparent about investigating journalists. Bad for Uber for buckling to public relations pressure and renouncing an executive’s statements about the practice. Every company tracks journalists, or bloggers, covering it—to which I can attest from experience. PR pros and I have, in the past, discussed dossiers about me, because some put our relationship first. They feel dirty for keeping records and need to confess.

The ride-sharing startup would do nothing unusual by collecting the data, and there is good reason to want to use it. My profession is in a state of crisis. Sloppy sourcing practices spread rumors across the vast Internet landscape like environmental protestors throwing feces on corporate executives. Shit is shit, whether or not literal, and it all stinks. If the Fourth and Fifth Estates can’t be accountable for themselves—and they most certainly are not—victims of irresponsible reporting should protect their interests.

Cali Poses

In the daylight, I got a couple good snaps of Cali, in another off-the-cuff X100T test. One shot is from the perch and the other from the fridge. The first is Macro, by accident, f/2.8, 1/60 sec, ISO 2500. The other (right) is f/2.8, 1/60 sec, ISO 1250. Full-size shots are available from my X100T Flickr set, or, separately, here and here.

I am a bit grumbly about choosing the X100T over the X-T1 this morning. Fuji will release on December 18 a firmware update that adds most of the features that swayed me to choose the X100T, which arrived about 21 hours ago. This is good customer service, though, for existing owners, and I won’t forget the benefit. I complain today, but long term it’s way to go, Fuji. 

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credit: Roger H. Goun

When News Sourcing is Conflict of Interest

Some days you see yourself as a blithering idiot. Add Nov. 19, 2014 to my confessional. While doing my morning routine, before brain fully engages and random synapses fire fleeting inspirations, I stopped cold with chilling realization about the evils of blog or news site B sourcing A—and only A—or visa versa. What if there is unseen, or even hidden, financial benefit, such as sharing advertising networks? In a way, everyone using Google AdSense already meets that criteria. Consider me the dumb-ass (and you wouldn’t be alone) for not making the connection sooner.

I am a longstanding critic of news, or so-called news, sites sourcing someone else’s reporting. My March 2010 diatribe “The Difference Between Blogging and Journalism” is must-read for any news gatherer regarding responsible sourcing. The topic also gets big treatment in my book Responsible Reporting: Field Guide for Bloggers, Journalists, and Other Online News Gatherers. The four year-old post is free and still relevant, so start there.

Mutual financial benefit moves the sourcing problem from reporting ethics to blatant conflict of interest, whether real or perceived.

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Fujifilm X100T or X-T1?

My Fujifilm X100T arrives tomorrow (ordered from Adorama). Fabulous photos like this make me regret not choosing the manufacturer’s X-T1, which in all the samples viewed during my buying research produces sharper images. Then there is the benefit of all-weather use, as you can see.

Juan Gonzalez posted the photo last night on Google+ and gave permission this morning to use it here. The view is Times Square, f/4, 1/125 sec, ISO 800. There’s a 3-D quality and sharpness that really appeals to my photographic senses. The X100T samples produced by professional photographic reviewers all look a little soft to me, by comparison. 

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The Intercept Does Right by Matt Taibbi

Last night, when opening Rolling Stone on iPad Air, Matt Taibbi story “The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase’s Worst Nightmare” surprised and delighted. But I wondered: “What the frak?” Nearly 10 months ago, First Look Media brought on the investigative journalist to launch the second of two magazines. I nearly stopped subscribing to RS, because of his departure—instead going from print to tablet digital during my July renewal.

Matt and First Look are parted, and “The Inside Story of Matt Taibbi’s Departure from First Look Media” is surprisingly good journalism, particularly coming from First Look’s other online magazine, The Intercept. John Cook, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill share the byline. Is that sink-or-swim-together journalism? Depending on upper management’s reaction to a story that’s not the least kind. 

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I am NOT an Old School Journalist

Dumb-ass me, something seriously needs explaining. If you follow my posts, they might seem all hoity-toity with respect to blogging versus journalism ethics and tactics—that Joe Wilcox clings to past methods while the future is about a new news paradigm. If you have that impression, and I take full responsibility for creating it, let me correct the record.

My book Responsible Reporting: Field Guide for Bloggers, Journalists, and Other Online News Gatherers lays out clear principles that anything but cling to the old guard. The audience, and building and maintaining trust with it, is in my view the news gatherer’s greatest responsibility. Putting audience trust before accuracy is anything but traditional. J Schools typically make seeking truth the journalist’s primary objective and ethical responsibility. In the contextual news era, audience matters more.Â