Here’s the Dow Jones “Special Committee’s Statement” about its helplessness — which has been entirely evident from the beginning — in the wake of Murdoch’s ridding himself of the Wall Street Journal’s managing editor, a journalist who was part of the old regime.
Again, it’s his company’s paper now, and he and his team get to make these decisions. But the Not-so-Special Committee was always an unfunny joke, and clearly was designed that way.
These folks get paid $100,000 a year for their supposed work. What a crock.
They are: Susan Phillips, Tom Bray, Louis Boccardi, Jack Fuller and Nicholas Negroponte
They are apparently shameless. How do they look in the mirror?
on Apr 29th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Dan,
I’m just wondering… what would you like to get as comments? I mean, I find that Jon’s comments (and Seth’s) add a lot of value to your blog — by challenging some of the things you say, it becomes more than one person’s view on things.
Delia
P.S. Their comments may not be perfect or perfectly pleasant but they always seem to attempt to get the ball of discussion rolling (a big plus as far as I can tell). Yet most of the time… it just doesn’t seem to work. Do you just not like most of the comments you are getting? D.
on Apr 30th, 2008 at 1:42 am
As a practical matter, A-lister’s really can’t engage in much discussion. This is wholely apart from whether they are nice people or not. Their function is to be evangelists, and that means selling, selling, selling. I am in awe of the number of conferences they attend, each of which requires travel and preparation time. It’s not a leisurely way to earn a living. They’re basically traveling salesman for marketing, which doesn’t leave a lot of time to shoot the breeze with people who have nothing to offer in that game.
Moreover, good discussion is very hard to do – there’s a lot of tensions. I’ve been amused by what sometimes happens with J-Rosen, where he regularly lies down with some very mangy dogs, and then cries “Fleas! Fleas! Omigod, fleas! Get ’em off me!!!”. There are worse things than getting few comments – sometimes that’s getting a lot of comments. 🙂
[Maybe I’m proving your point! And thanks for the nice words]
on Apr 30th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
I don’t know if you are proving my point, Seth — I’d have to see Dan’s side of it also and I can’t *make* him talk… (I can only ask…)
Delia
P.S. you are welcome! D.
on May 2nd, 2008 at 9:33 am
Sorry I have no comment on the WSJ blog post above… but I’ll respond to Delia.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. I’m at the “NewsTools” conference in Sunnyvale, CA with Dan and 150 others.
I led a breakout group yesterday morning (A conversation about conversations (Dan led another group on jargon). The conversational dynamics of this blog (and others) have interested me for some time, so I’ve been writing a series on it, and the session helped my focus. I did mention this blog in the context of the de facto moderation queue if you post more than two links…
Another thing I’ve been looking into here is how people who “just want to blog” end up running communities, and are generally unfamiliar with all things that takes.
on May 2nd, 2008 at 4:46 pm
You can beat them, Jon…:)
Delia
P.S. I’ll take a look at your stuff when you are done with it if you’d like (there wasn’t much detail on the link you gave).
P.P.S. News*Tools*? hmmm… does that refer to the participants?:) Seth would probably agree that the urban dictionary definition of the word “tool” may be giving pretty good insights into just who is financially benefiting from getting people to volunteer their ideas and insights in these sort of conferences:
” tool : One who lacks the mental capacity to know he is being used. A fool. A cretin. Characterized by low intelligence and/or self-steem.
That tool dosen’t even know she’s just using him.”
(http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tool)
it’s a bit harsh… but the truth often is… D.
on May 5th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I thought it was a joke until I got to the last line.
on May 5th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I do think Seth is right — a whole lot of naives are toiling away (intellectually and otherwise) for the financial benefit of few, without even realizing that they are being exploited. (I shouldn’t have given that quote, as I said, it’s pretty harsh… but it *does* go to the core of the issue… in a funny sort of way… if you can take humor when it comes to serious issues).
Delia
P.S. I didn’t mean to offend anybody, sorry if I did. D