There are 86 posts filed in journalism (this is page 10 of 11).
Sad development in the case over the documentary film Crude:
A federal appeals court says that Joe Berlinger, the filmmaker who was ordered to give footage from his 2009 documentary “Crude” to the Chevron Corporation, could not invoke a journalist’s privilege in refusing to turn over that footage because his work on the film did not constitute an act of independent reporting.
A few weeks ago, Eric D. Snider launched a Kickstarter campaign, whereby he would agree to write 50 (almost) weekly “Snide Remarks” columns for an entire year if people pledged $5,000 for him to do it. I’ve read Snider’s “Snide Remarks” on a number of occasions and I think they’re hilarious and frequently brilliant. I’m also a fan of Kickstarter, which allows people to allocate money via Amazon Payments towards exciting projects that would never otherwise get backing. So, I threw in a few bucks for the cause. Here’s what Snider had to say about it at the outset:
I thought: How much would I need to be paid per “Snide Remarks” column for it to be worthwhile as a writing gig? The answer I came up with was $100. I did some quick math and determined that if I wrote a column every week for a year, minus two weeks off for vacation and to make the math easier, that would be $5,000.
That is my project bid for this gig. For $5,000, I’ll write a year of weekly “Snide Remarks” columns, starting the first Monday in March 2011.
I’m pleased to report that as of right now, Snider has hit his goal of $5,000! I asked Eric via IM how he felt about achieving his fundraising goal. “I’m excited to write the column again regularly and glad that at least 190 people are interested in reading it,” he said. In the past, Eric has also opined that people are generally unwilling to pay for things they read on the internet. I asked him if he still had that opinion, and he responded:
Yeah, and I still believe that. I mean, that’s not an opinion; that’s a demonstrable fact: people in general don’t like to pay for online content. That’s why the Kickstarter thing is so genius. 190 people pledged money for Snide Remarks. But if I had used a subscription model — pay X dollars per year to access it — I bet most of those 190 wouldn’t have done it (Unless the X dollars per year was something comically low, like a dollar.) With Kickstarter, it doesn’t feel like you’re paying for the content I’m producing. Everyone will be able to read it, not just those who contributed money. So it feels more like backing a good cause, which people *will* pay money for.
Indeed. Eric’s success proves that if you work hard enough at building your online persona into something distinct and entertaining, people are willing to pay to continue consuming the content that you put out. They just need the right channel through which to do so.
[I realize others have demonstrated this theory before, but Eric’s a good colleague and with the exception of people like Ebert, few have had a lot of success with this type of thing in the realm of film writing. So, I felt it worth writing about, because I think his success has implications for many of us in the online community.]
[P.S. Be sure to check out Eric’s site and his cool podcast too.]
Anil Dash says what I already tried to say, only much more articulately:
[S]ome ideas are just bigger than 140 characters. In fact, most good ideas are. More importantly, our ideas often need to gain traction and meaning over time. Blog posts often age into something more substantial than they are at their conception, through the weight of time and perspective and response.
And blogs afford that sort of maturation of an idea uniquely well amongst online media, due to their use of the permalink (permanent link), which gives each idea a place to live and thrive. While Facebook and Twitter nominally provide permalinks as well, the truth is that individual ideas in those flow-based media don’t have enough substance for a meaningful conversation to accrete around them.
Dash also points out the biggest problem with Twitter at this point: there are no publicly accessible archives. There’s no easy way to search your Twitter stream or the streams of others. This means you should fully expect anything you say on Twitter, no matter how important or profound, to be completely inaccessible and lost to the ages, unless you do something to preserve it. The fact that most people ignore these limitations makes it all the more tragic that great conversations and great ideas may never be read by people who just weren’t following their tweets at the time.
Even though I’ve tried my best to move all my Twitter content to my blog, I’m still quite active on Twitter and enjoy scanning through my feed for the latest happenings in the worlds of media, politics, journalism, and film. Here are 10 (groups) of people I’m glad I started following on Twitter in 2010 [If I follow you and you’re not on this list, it doesn’t mean your tweets aren’t awesome and that they haven’t changed my life; just that I probably didn’t START following you this year. By the way, you can always follow me on Twitter, if you wish]:
Maria Popova – If there’s one person you follow as a result of reading this list, make it this one. An incredible writer, Maria is also a master curator of interesting, artistic works from all across the internet. Must-follow!
Give Me Something to Read, Longreads, and Instapaper – Because together, these services have changed my life.
DRUNK HULK – I didn’t get on the Drunk Hulk bandwagon until 2010, but I’m certainly glad I did. Every one of this guy’s tweets always manage to give me a smile or a chuckle. My only complaint? Sometimes he sounds less like “DRUNK HULK” and more like “WITTY AND ERUDITE HULK.” False advertising.
Dustin Rowles from Pajiba and Vince Mancini from Filmdrunk – I would argue that no two people in the film blogsphere are smarter or funnier than these two guys. They also are the only two people who seem to take film and entertainment journalism with the requisite grain of salt that it requires. Many laughs have resulted from their writings, Twitter and otherwise.
Scott Mendelson from Huffington Post, Linda Holmes from NPR, Steven Zeitchik from the LATimes – Zeitchik offers a healthy dose of insight from his post at the center of the entertainment industry. Holmes is probably the most fair-minded writer on pop-culture that I’ve ever read. And I’ve really become a huge fan of Scott’s writings this past year, which are always provocative and well-said. Of course, I don’t always agree, but if I did, life would be boring…
Rachel Sklar from Mediaite – Whip smart and very witty, Sklar’s writings for Mediaite (a site for which I hope to one day write) are always a must-read for me.
Jay Rosen – No other Twitter account I’ve ever followed provides a more comprehensive look at the interesting questions going on today in the world of journalism. If I wasn’t already in a Masters program, I would totally apply to be in his program in NY (which is also being taught by the genius Clay Shirky).
Adrian Chen and Foster Kamer – Speaking of journalism, these guys hail from the Gawker media empire, and it shows: both provide insightful commentary on media and journalism, with a humorous, biting twist (Kamer has gone on to work at Esquire, which will undoubtedly yield interesting results).
Matthew Seitz from Salon and Sean M Burns – Matt Zoller Seitz has forgotten more about film than I will ever know. Also, he’s a damn good writer with an appreciation for what it takes to make a good slide show and/or video essay. Meanwhile, Sean Burns offers fantastic one-sentence reviews of films from the person I know whose movie tastes most resemble Jay Sherman from The Critic. But your Twitter account is locked, Sean, preventing others from getting a taste of your film knowledge glory. WTF, mate?
Tasha Robinson, Nathan Rabin, and Keith Phipps – I’ve been blessed to be able to interact with each of these humongously talented individuals on the /Filmcast this year (and hope to have them on again frequently in the future). There’s a reason why AV Club was singled out as the one publication that would bring about the pop-culture apocalypse…
Honorable mentions: Cole Abaius, The Playlist, Hannah, Jim Roberts, Ray Pride, AdFreak
I was going to write a blog post detailing the battle currently taking place between Glenn Greenwald and Wired magazine but Blake Hounshell has already done it for me:
I love a good blog fight as much as anyone, but after reading several thousand words of accusations and counter accusations being slung between Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald and Wired’s Evan Hansen and Kevin Poulsen, I’m left scratching my head trying to figure out what, exactly, this particular dispute is all about. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, first of all: congratulations.
The New York Times recently ran a piece that compared Jon Stewart to Edward R. Murrow due to his advocacy of the Zadroga bill, which provided billions in much-needed funding for 9/11 first-responders. I’ve always thought Stewart has had more of an effect on our discourse than he himself will willingly admit, so I read the Times article was interest. Many others did too, but most commentators noted that the piece lacked the journalistic bite that usually accompanies a Times article of this sort. Why? Because Syracuse Professor Walter J. Thompson was quoted prominently.
What’s wrong with that? According to NYTPicker back in October, Thompson has been interviewed by 78 different Times reporters for 150 separate stories:
To these 78 NYT reporters, Thompson has offered a convenient shortcut past that necessary evil of journalism: the expert quote. Thompson’s superior ability to deliver short, pithy comments on a wide spectrum of topics, on deadline — along with his handy “professor” title — has made him indispensable to the hordes of NYT reporters who’ve desperately dialed him for that all-important dollop of hot air.
Referring to the new Times piece, The Observer puts it best: “The man’s brain waste literally becomes New York Times headlines! Oh to be a sophomore at Syracuse looking for a thesis advisor!”
The LATimes has the fascinating story of S. Irene Virbila, the restaurant critic for, well, the LA Times. Apparently, Virbila was at a restaurant called Red Machine when the managing partner of the restaurant, Noah Ellis, approached her, photographed her, refused to serve her and her friends, and then posted her photo on the internet. This was particularly destructive because Virbila had worked hard to maintain her anonymity for many years:
Times Food editor Russ Parsons said Virbila contacted [Ellis] after the incident and was upset by it. It was humiliating to be confronted in such a manner, Parsons said, and Virbila felt violated to have her picture taken without her permission. But mostly, he said, “She was upset because she has worked extremely hard for more than 15 years to maintain her anonymity in the L.A. restaurant scene.”
Parsons said that a truly anonymous restaurant critic is increasingly rare in a world that revolves around instant communication and a camera is as close as your cellphone. Some media outlets say true anonymity is impossible and, as a result, no longer try to go to great lengths to hide a critic’s identity.
To be fair, Ellis explained his motivation thusly: “Our purpose for posting this is so that all restaurants can have a picture of her and make a decision as to whether or not they would like to serve her. We find that some her reviews can be unnecessarily cruel and irrational…”
It’s interesting to see the parallels between food critics and film critics. Most film critics have never felt the need to hide their identity, primarily because historically movie studios couldn’t exactly “serve” film critics in the direct way that food establishments serve food critics. These days, all-expense paid junkets and set visits probably create just as many conflicts of interest for film critics, if not more, than catered parties for food critics. But food critics AND film critics from major newspapers are on the decline anyway, because it’s just hard to compete with the massive throng of unrelenting, unpaid, free workers that comprise the internetz.
Remember that NYTimes wedding announcement that detailed how the newlyweds broke up their previous marriages to be with each other? And how lots of people considered that to be tasteless?
Jeff Bercovici did something that the New York Times apparently couldn’t be bothered to: he contacted the jilted ex of the woman in the story. And let me tell you, that guy was not too happy about his family’s dirty laundry showing up in the paper:
The primary story here is not that interesting…People lie and cheat and steal all the time. That’s a fact of life. But rarely does a national news organization give them an unverified megaphone to whitewash it.
So let me get this straight. The New York Times does not bring the rigorous fact-checking might of its organization to bear on wedding announcement stories? Scandalous.