With retrenchment and job reductions — oh, let’s call them what they really are: mass firings — as subtext, three of the more influential clubs associated with the newspaper industry held their annual conventions last week. There were hopeful twists amid fear and loathing. The Society for News Design and the Associated Press Managing Editors […]
The Society of News Design has announced the World’s Best Designed Newspapers, an award I conceived as chair of SND’s design competition back in 1995. Once again no American newspapers. Papers in Europe, Mexico and former Eastern bloc countries have dominated the World’s Best competition, reflecting the emergence of free expression and the flourishing of […]
As Barack Obama took to the floor at the Democratic National Convention, it became utterly apparent to me that this is the year that will change everything. You see, I was perched on my couch in Boston in a familiar position; cross-legged, with my MacBook on my lap, ears perked up, attentive to every word. […]
This spring we noted the launch and alpha testing of SocialMedian, a new link aggregator that five months ago looked something like a more social version of delicious or Diigo. It has been undergoing continuous development since then – and the newest release should be especially noteworthy for bloggers, researchers, journalists, marketers and activists. If […]
The news media is taking heat for reporting on politicians who lead or want to lead the country. The president doesn’t like it. John McCain, who ought to be grateful for the vetting, doesn’t like it. Bill O’Reilly doesn’t care for it. But Sarah Palin shows she can take it. The GOP has found its […]
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Right? Somehow newspeak in The New York Times reeks just a little bit more when it’s from The New York Times. April 2008: Pulitzer prize winners Linda Greenhouse and David Cay Johnston, pioneering multimedia producer Naka Nathaniel, and many others, are among some 100 journalists trimmed […]
Our friend and former colleague Charles Blow has joined the blogging brethren with a discussion on all things statistical. A visual Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, Charles served as the paper’s graphics director and as Design Director for News prior to leaving to become Art Director of National Geographic. Back in the day, […]
Steering into the iceberg, the Troubled Tribune company rearranges the deck chairs on the Titanic. The redesign of Trib’s Baltimore Sun and prototypes of the new Chicago Tribune are distress calls. This is what we get from the new captains, former shlock-radio execs: talk-radio on newsprint, passed off as innovation. The ghosts of Mencken and […]
Last night was “a night for history.” USAToday said so this morning. I guess the Nation’s Newspaper thought I missed it, marginalized as it was. The editors probably thought I was too busy switching between the convenient coverage by the networks (musn’t pre-empt America’s Got Talent). Or shouting at the mind-numbing graphics and prolific pundits […]
Eight years ago media futurist Kerry Northrup of Ifra, a newspaper technology organization based in Germany, produced a visionary video anticipating a world of media convergence – imagined then to be a world of big media companies distributing news and information on multiple platforms: web, on-demand print, mobile, broadcast. The video was ingenious on many […]