That’s a lot of cash, Facebook. You worth it? (h/t to NYT for news alert)
About the author
Hi: I'm Doreen Marchionni (Ph.D. '09, Missouri School of Journalism). I'll be your intergalactic pilot on this journey through my dissertation. Send whiskey, please.
Recent posts
WaPo Cracks Down on Bad Comments
This kind of thoughtful yet aggressive approach to story commenting is coming way late in the business, but, hell, I’m giving it props. I especially like the Post’s attempts to not just ban the idiots but reward the inspired.
You go, girl.
Public Insight Network Launches Reporting Unit
So much love for this growing conversational news initiative. Best quote from PIN Director Linda Fantin:
”PIN is full of “unstructured data,” as Fantin calls it, “that’s never seen the light of day, because most traditional story forms are about quoting three or four people and getting a lot of context, and the rest of it is kind of buried in the reporter’s notebook.” What if, instead of three or four people, you could talk to a thousand people?
I feel like there’s a red pill and a blue pill,” he said. “And you can take the blue pill and go back to your classroom and lecture your 20 students. But I’ve taken the red pill, and I’ve seen Wonderland.
Tenured Professor Departs Stanford U., Hoping to Teach 500,000 Students at Online Start-Up - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education (via infoneer-pulse)
Kind of loving this guy — frankly, anyone who bucks the system.
— 46 notes
Kind of loving this guy — frankly, anyone who bucks the system.
(via infoneer-pulse)
Shirky: Paywalls Will Change What Users Want from News Sites
Great prognosis on how paywalls might change news sites. Now that online news consumers are paying for content, they may well demand less-intrusive advertising and higher-quality news as conversation. Already happens in public broadcasting. Way over due in other mainstream newsrooms.
DECEMBER 15: THE BILL OF RIGHTS IS RATIFIED (1791)
On this day in 1791, Virginia ratified the Bill of Rights, allowing the United States Congress to add ten amendments to the Constitution. The Bill of Rights guaranteed for the first time individual rights. Among them are freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly.
Well hello, liberty. My favorite document in the world …
Christmas tree
- Sweets: […] I would've sawed it off myself, but you won't let me touch the weapons!
- Me: [beat] And that's why. They're not weapons. They're *tools*.
- He's obviously led a sheltered life ...
Virginia Tech Student Editor No Longer In News Business
Great interview with Amie Steele, who supervised coverage of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre for the student newspaper. Breaks my heart that she left the news business after the economic downturn (or you might argue the business left her), though her gig at the U.S. Government Accountability Office doesn’t sound too shabby.
I’m most struck by the way coverage of the massacre inspired rather than tainted her love of journalism. Watching professional journalists botch things up (reporting rumors as fact, shoving cameras in students’ faces) made her realize the business needs better journalists and more of them.
Newsrooms need the presence of heroes like Steele if they’re going to survive into the future. If I ran a newspaper,* I’d hire her in a blink.
* Don’t give me any ideas
Ads: The Death of the User Experience
Today brings a terrific post from The Next Web on one of my all-time pet peeves: ads that block news content.
Rather than creating an environment of solicitation and respect for your audience — essential to conversational journalism in my book — such sites demean. And they are everywhere.
Pictured above is possibly the worst example I’ve seen in recent years, from my beloved hometown paper where I got my start in journalism. The ad actually slid into view to mask the news content. It’s enough to make a gal give up on mainstream news sites.
