“I hate, hate, hate television news. Hate it. I stopped watching it entirely after 9/11 and hadn’t turned it back on for more than a year after that for any reason. Even now it makes me frustrated and angry and annoyed, even just in the short doses I get when I’m passing through an airport or whatever. I think it’s generally irresponsible and destructive to society.”
Category Archives: Media & Journalism
A publisher who gets it line of the day
“A year or so we took the word ‘publications’ off the building and took it off of our business cards. There was this final commitment to the fact that we are a company that makes quality content…and we’re going to put that on whatever medium it makes sense.”
Drew Schutte, chief integration officer at Condé Nast, via Nieman Journalism Lab
75 years ago the railroads thought they were in the railroad business when they needed to see they were in the transportation business. There were 132 Class I railroad companies in 1939; there are now seven.
Publishers like Condé Nast finally seem to be realizing they are in the content business not the newspaper or magazine business.
My Favorite Metaphor
Dean Baker refers to The Washington Post as “Fox on 15th Street.”
Best line of the day following up on an earlier NMK post
“I know that, at this point, ripping on the WaPo because of the quality of its opinion pieces (George Effing Will included or not) is the functional equivalent of criticizing the way that a goat sings opera . . .
Front Page of the Day
Best lines of the day about George Will
Is there a more unmitigated horse’s ass in American public life than George Effing Will?
Is there a more breathtaking coupling of tinhorn erudition and pig-ignorant arrogance? Is there anyone who is a more perfect combination of tea-cosy courage, sherry-sipping macho, and lace-hanky contempt for everyone who isn’t himself? Is there another human being on this planet who more richly deserves to be hung from a coat rack by his undershorts? Is there a dumber looking bow-tie? Breathes there a man with a soul so dead? These are our questions.
Top Ten American Newspaper Columns Ever
DETROIT, Saturday, June 25, 2011 – In a survey of columnists nationwide, the top American column in history was typed up by the late, great Ernie Pyle.
Pyle’s “The Death of Captain Waskow” first was published Jan. 10, 1944, by his syndicate, Scripps Howard.
Background from National Society of Newspaper Columnists.
15 columns were nominated and can be read in a 31-page free pdf download.
Today’s ‘Best’ Front Page
The story begins:
She-devil. Witch. Dominatrix. Venus in furs. Rarely can a defendant have been subjected to such an unbridled courtroom character assassination as Amanda Knox, a siren who could apparently entice a virtual stranger to commit murder with her hypnotic sexual charms.
Amazing factoid of the day
“Facebook, with about $2 billion in digital ad revenues this year, will be two-thirds of the way to equaling the total digital ad revenue — about $3 billion — of the entire U.S. newspaper industry.”
Today’s Front Pages
Today’s Top Ten Front Pages are worth a click. One day link only.