Posts from ‘November, 2008’

UPDATED The New York Times’ David Barstow has an astonishing piece in today’s paper, “One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex,” about former “drug czar” and retired general Barry McCaffrey, one of many retired military people working as supposedly independent analysts for various news organizations but who are anything but independent. The story’s biggest surprise — perhaps it […]

Every time I load a new page on the Washington Post’s website, the following pop-over ad interferes with my reading. I keep clicking the X in the corner indicating my lack of interest in participating in the survey, but to no avail. This thing won’t leave me alone. So I guess I’ll stay off the […]

I don’t plan to click through to that one… But to the rest of you: Happy Thanksgiving, our finest holiday.

Take a look at today’s Wikipedia entry on today’s Mumbai terrorist attacks — a comprehensive and valuable addition to the breaking news we’re getting from TV and other sources. There are two fundamental elements to note: the rapid updating and the long list of links at the bottom. No, we can’t fully trust what we […]

Excellent round-up and sound predictions by Jeff Jarvis today in “A scenario for news” — and some good reasons not to be pessimistic.

There are big changes afoot in the Knight Fellowships program at Stanford University: Beginning with the 2009-10 fellowship year, the program will put a new emphasis on journalistic innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership. These are among the premier journalism fellowships in the U.S., and the changes — among other things, non-traditional journalists will have a better […]

Mark Glaser: MediaShift . Can Crowdfunding Help Save the Journalism Business? Bands do it. Filmmakers do it. President-elect Barack Obama made an artform out of it. “It” is crowdfunding, getting micro-donations through the Internet to help fund a venture. The question is whether crowdfunding can work on a larger scale to help fund traditional journalism, […]

Josh Marshall observes the 8th birthday of Talking Points Memo today and suggests there’s even better to come. TPM is one of the great examples of how new media can work. Marshall is one of the best journalists of our time, helping to reinvent our craft. He deserves our continued support and praise.

Editor & Publisher: API Hosting ‘Crisis Summit’ for Newspaper Industry. The American Press Institute (API) will host an invitation-only, closed-door “summit conference” Nov. 13 in which 50 CEO-level executives will ponder ways to revive the newspaper business. The newspaper industry’s big issue is pretty simple. It’s trying to move from a monopoly position into a […]

David Cohn, one of the bright lights among new journalists, has launched Spot.us, a site that aims to persuade people from communities to send money to support excellent journalism about specific issues. I’m an advisor to this project and believe strongly that he’s onto something important. Spot.us describes itself as “a nonprofit project to pioneer […]