Classic! Who says newspapers are dead? New York Daily News delivers some of the best tabloid headlines/covers anywhere.
Category: Media
Age of Context
Robert Scoble and Shel Israel are this week’s tech media darlings, with release of their book Age of Context. Robert sent me an advanced PDF copy, which obliged an Amazon review (gladly given).
I reserve the punchier comments for here, if you want to skip past the block quote.
My first Kindle ebook gets a Face Lift
Last night I republished This Book is not a Kindle Single [The Rejected Essay] with the originally-intended title (The Principles of Disruptive Design) and major content updates. The preface and afterword are gone (as they pertained to the gimmick title) and there are updates throughout, the most considerable to the first section.
The updates deal directly with Apple iPhone 5s and 5c nd questions about Apple innovations, or lack of them.
'Comic-Con Heroes' One-Day Sale
My cat wants to know: Why haven’t you grabbed a free copy of my new ebook Comic-Con Heroes: The Fans Who Make the Greatest Show on Earth, before the promotion ends at 11:59 p.m. PDT? […]
My Second ebook publishes
Yesterday, I finally published Comic-Con Heroes: The Fans Who Make the Greatest Show on Earth to the Kindle Store. For San Diego Comic-Con 2013, I interviewed attendees and chose a dozen to profile. Their stories say much about the roles we play and who are the Con’s real superheroes.
I wrote the full-text using Google Docs on Chromebook Pixel, which combined is the best writing platform I have ever used.
My First Kindle ebook: Trials, Tribulations, and Triumph
Yesterday, my first ebook published to Amazon, with the strangest of titles, having nearly nothing to do with the contents. In May, I submitted “The Principles of Design” to the bookseller for consideration as a Kindle Single. Singles are curated, short-form works, between 5,000 and 30,000 words. Amazon acts as editor and publisher. Four weeks later to the day, I received a rejection letter, without any explanation.
That put me squarely down the self-publishing path, which is exactly where I didn’t want to be for this first work. Books are a strange frontier to me, a vaguely familiar landscape but alien—like Mars is to Earth. I wanted Amazon to walk me across this domain. Besides, to start, I plan to write mostly shorter non-fiction essays, which look to be perfectly-suited for Kindle Singles. But the rejection email, and realization that editorial approval takes up to a month, changed plans.
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.
Some Advice to the Washington Post's New Owner
Today, in the Guardian, former CIA analyst John Kiriakou accuses the Obama Administration of abusing the 1917 Espionage Act, claiming that “only 10 people in American history have been charged with espionage for leaking classified information, seven of them under Barack Obama”.
From Day One, the Obama Administration sought to plug any leaks. What’s said in the Oval Office stays in the Oval Office. That’s context for understanding the aggressive approach to whistleblowers. It’s philosophical. The current White House sees leaks as betrayals, so why not view whistleblowing as treason?
Rolling Stone's 'The Bomber' hits target
Last night I came home from San Diego Comic-Con Day 1 to find the newest Rolling Stone open, facedown on the living room carpet; the controversial cover, with Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, stared up like Jim Morrison. I had heard about the controversy over the photo, and accusations that the magazine somehow glorified the bomb suspect, for days. So had my wife, who finished Janet Reitman’s riveting account, soon as we both settled in for the evening.
Anne never reads Rolling Stone. But the cover caught her attention enough that she consumed this one article, neglecting the New Yorker, which also arrived in the mail yesterday, coincidentally containing a smart editorial defending RS editors. She doesn’t approve of the cover, and yet it clearly was effective enough. As an editor, I must commend Rolling Stone for doing with a picture what tabloids like the New York Post or online aggregator Huffington Post does with snarky headlines: Get people to read the story.
Pedal Power
My daughter broke down with our Toyota Yaris overnight. Waiting on AAA now. Lucky I have alternate transportation.
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 […]