Category: Media

News Media by Joe Wilcox
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Sifting Garbage

We are such bad Washingtonians, maybe; my family’s newspaper of choice is the New York Times—and even then we only get the Sunday paper (rest of the week is online). Today, my wife asked about Tim Russert, who had a Q&A, “All About My Father“, in the Times Sunday Magazine. Conversation took place on the Capital Beltway somewhere between US 1 and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

Tim is one of my favorite Washington journalists. He’s got a pragmatic style that rips through nonsense and gets to the point of the conversation or topic. When I worked as an editor more than a decade ago, my editor—great guy, Stephen Osmond—would repeatedly ask, “What’s the point?” Answering that question made me a better editor. In fact for years, a Post-It with the question hung over my work phone. 

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Apple by Joe Wilcox
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Where Old News is the Only News

On Friday, a good friend asked me to look at a news story about Apple legal sending an unwelcome letter to an eight year-old girl. The letter basically told her to get lost. Apparently, the third grader had sent a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs suggesting a new feature for iPods: Lyrics viewing. She got her response, not from Steve but an Apple lawyer, about three months later. Turns out that Apple has a policy against taking unsolicited ideas, which the letter clearly stated.

The news story focused on the little girl’s hurt feelings and Apple’s slap-in-the-face response. Earth to Apple: Lawyers=bad PR. Always. But the response was lame for another reason: The feature already is available on iPods. It’s just not well publicized. 

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Apple by Joe Wilcox
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When Magazines Mattered

To promote the Macintosh 22 years ago, Apple purchased all—as in every—ad space in the Newsweek 1984 election issue. That was 39 pages.

The folks over at Graphical User Interface Gallery (aka Guidebook) have preserved every page from that Newsweek issue. It was a time when magazine advertising really mattered, unlike today when the Internet undermines magazine circulation. 

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Photo by Joe Wilcox
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The D200, After All

Okay, so call me bogus. Back in February, I made clear that there would be no camera switch, as I previously contemplated—from the Canon EOS 20D to the Nikon D200. I’ve been unhappy with my EOS 20D for sometime, even as I acquired several nice Canon lenses. The Canon camera’s ergonomics doesn’t suit me, nor have I been satisfied with the photos compared to the Nikon D70. The Nikon D70 felt more like an extension of my eye, capturing images just as I saw them.

But low-light photography is important to me, and that’s one area where the EOS 20D excels over the Nikon D200, based on tests like PBase forum member Norm’s 20D-D200 photo comparison. I resigned to sticking with the EOS 20D—after all, I had some nice lenses. 

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The Arts by Joe Wilcox
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Stoning ‘Philosopher’s Stone’

While traveling this month, I started reading J.K. Rowlings’ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, with the shameful, Americanized title. The book is properly known in the UK as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Given the Potter series’ popularity (six books and four movies), I had high expectations of the bestseller, but lowered them upon reading.

Coming from Northern Maine, where remain cultural ties to Canada and Britain, I quickly picked up on the mishmash of very British references. I’d say that Rowlings includes just about every magical or ghoulish creature known on the British Isles. The book borrows heavily from literary consciousness. The lacking originality, of plopping together concepts and creatures familiar to many generations of Britons, is astounding—unless her originality is humor. I take the book to be farcical, humorous in its plopping together so many creatures steeped in British cultural heritage. 

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Photo by Joe Wilcox
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Bun Bun Suns

Washington is cooler this Sunday than the last. But a little chill isn’t stopping Spring, or Bun Bun (not her real name) getting out for a run.

Bun Bun will be three years old this year. We bought her on an August day from the Animal Exchange in Rockville, Md. The store was a pitstop to pick up pet supplies before purchasing a bunny from the Montgomery County Fair. My daughter fell in love with this lone bunny at the store. She was big, perhaps six months old, and a risk. Young kittens are easier to train and to hold. 

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News Media by Joe Wilcox
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Numbers

On the plane from Washington (DC) to Washington (State) today, I got to thinking about numbers, and the shenanigans businesses–and even journalists—get away with because of them.

Lady seated in front of me had a newspaper open with headline about some company paying $1 billion for something. What struck me was the $1, not the billion. People tend to associate with the familiar, and the numbers zero to nine are pretty familiar. The obvious association is everyday usage, which is $1 as $1, whether there is a million or billion that follows. The impact of the number’s real value is insignificant. 

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Living by Joe Wilcox
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Twisted Tales for Girls

In today’s New York Times, author Naomi Wolf looks at “cute” books for teenage girls that are anything but sweet.

Teenage girl series, such as “Clique” or “Gossip Girls”, are fitting to the adage, “You can’t judge a book from the cover”. Beneath the banal paperback covers are pages rife with status, shopping, and sex. Excerpted from one of the “A-List” series novels, one teen describes sex with her boyfriend: “We used to jump each other, like, three times a night. When we went out to the movies, we’d sit by a wall and do it during the boring parts”. 

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