Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: The New New News

WH

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 11:30:43 +1300

Greenwald's venture with Omidyar will, it seems, have more money to play with than either of them.

They've already launched The Intercept, which will be an outlet for all the Snowden documents that Greenwald holds. It's an oddly bare-bones site.

If I remember correctly, you linked to a Greenwald appearance…

Joe Wylie

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 11:29:28 +1300

This is my latest cover art
(and yes, Chad got clearance on the collage elements)
And very handsome it looks too in my freshly-downloaded DRM-free EPUB, which for the iTunes phobic can be found here.

Rich of Observationz

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 10:28:05 +1300

Nah, I'm fairly convinced Fairfax and NZ Herald have had that for ages. Quake rocks Wellington/Christchurch/Waikekamukau every time a quake of over threshold gets detected by geonet.

Russell Brown

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 08:36:58 +1300

Ezra Klein and Nate Silver are doing something new. The opportunity is open to anyone willing to take the risk.

Greenwald's venture with Omidyar will, it seems, have more money to play with than either of them.

They've already launched The Intercept, which will be an outlet for all the…

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 08:36:08 +1300

Mea culpa
Should we add a credit?
Or not?
Hmmmm…
Why not?
Hell, yes!
I’m not planning on leaving a headstone anywhere else…
…and the web is forever isn’t it?

and I think me and Bryan thought it was okay at the time – ’82!!

You should see my Strange…

Sacha

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 07:34:11 +1300

he opportunity is open to anyone willing to take the risk.

or able

Russell Brown

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 07:32:07 +1300

Oh no!
You’ve put my badly drawn Tommy Adderley
‘Gimme that Wine’ cover in that story
– oh well, that’s immortality for ya…

Ha! Should we add a credit? Or not?

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 06:31:44 +1300

even newer new news
Robocopy is here!
The Los Angeles Times was the first newspaper to publish a story about an earthquake on Monday – thanks to a robot writer.
Journalist and programmer Ken Schwencke created an algorithm that automatically generates a short article when an earthquake occurs.

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 06:17:22 +1300

HiTunes: The Top 10 New Zealand Songs About Drugs.
Oh no!
You've put my badly drawn Tommy Adderley
'Gimme that Wine' cover in that story
– oh well, that's immortality for ya...

;- )

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 04:36:29 +1300

contentment
All of this takes time. That’s why we’ve elected to sacrifice something else as opposed to accuracy or accessibility. The sacrifice is speed — we’re rarely going to be the first organization to break news or to comment on a story.
538 is being realistic – but are enough…

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 04:20:36 +1300

podcastrati
= high users?
or return alto delete
or is it delete return alto

Dan Slevin

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 01:49:03 +1300

And I just read this post and all the comment in a FB referrer window. And I _never_ do that!

WH

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 01:19:57 +1300

As difficult as it can be to make a point without first referring to French High Theory and claiming the endorsement of Dr Seuss, I'm not sure you can fairly ask someone's week-old startup to solve the problems of the world as you see them.

Ezra Klein and Nate Silver…

Russell Brown

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 21:32:30 +1300

Content rules! But try convincing ad agencies of that.

Oh, quite. The whole thing's a bit depressing.

One particularly vexing thing at the moment is that some of them think "native content" is some sort of magic incantation that will make rank, unconvincing advertorial something other than what it is.

David Hood

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 20:01:39 +1300

Was this the list length article

Mark Graham

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 17:10:10 +1300

Content rules! But try convincing ad agencies of that.

BenWilson

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 16:47:43 +1300

Nah, top 7. That’s roughly the size of the human memory queue, plus or minus 2. The average random list length that people can recall on one hearing, and say back. You can make it 11, but most people are only going to remember 7.

Jeremy Andrew

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 16:38:37 +1300

podcastrati= high users?

Very Impotent People

TracyMac

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 15:41:30 +1300

I am not quite sure what medium.com's model is – "prestigious blog platform"? – or how they get revenue, but they do have some excellent writers.

linger

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 15:30:14 +1300

podcastrati = high users?

Jason Kemp

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 15:24:06 +1300

There is an old saying “follow the money” and in many ways data based journalism offers a point of focus. I like the idea that there is greater analysis of the data in the way that stories are picked and presented on the new 538 site.

We live in an…

Russell Brown

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 14:43:54 +1300

*I don’t really think that, apologies if we come across that way.

And you know I wasn't talking about you.

I'm more worried about you guys eating my lunch ;-)

The Ruminator

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 14:17:06 +1300

Good lord. This post caused me to go look at the stable of writers who write for us and that's a very pasty palette staring back.

Must try harder.

Also, never let having nothing to say get in the way of saying it loudly and obnoxiously. If you're not adding…

Robyn Gallagher

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 13:12:40 +1300

I read somewhere that "top X" lists are more enticing when it's an odd number of items. A top 10 sounds too neat, like surely there's been at least one good one left off. If it's, say, a top 11, then it seems like it's a definitive best-of list.

Nik Dirga

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 12:44:09 +1300

The dismaying thing (to me anyway) is seeing how avidly "mainstream" sites jump all over the Buzzfeed model of "hey, isn't this thing cool?" rather than actually trying to advance the dialogue or educate readers about something more interesting than the fact Lady Gaga got vomited on. There's a place…

Russell Brown

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 12:17:44 +1300

So yes, better than geek culture in general, but hardly diversity central either. Emily Bell has a point, and I don’t think it should be dismissed because of one bad line

The wider point is an important one, but it seems an odd thing to pin on Silver. It would…

Keir Leslie

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 12:16:45 +1300

Take Vox though --- it's a collection of Washington insiders who have been bouncing around various places looking for a home for the past 10 years, and now they don't need institutional backing. I don't think it's a surprise that these people turn out to be kind of a clique.

Deborah

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 11:54:59 +1300

Indeed. But "clubhouse chemistry", and of the nineteen editorial staff hired so far, only six are women (per the update on the FiveThirtyEight site, which I looked up just now). So yes, better than geek culture in general, but hardly diversity central either. Emily Bell has a point, and I…

Russell Brown

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 11:36:04 +1300

I do actually think it's unfair to compare Silver's venture with Silicon valley broculture though. If you look at the list of hires he shared earlier in the month, the one-third of the editorial team who are women includes some star journalists in very senior roles (including lead blog writer…

Moz

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 11:32:21 +1300

Public Address, ironically, is more like the newspapers than those blogs. When we could afford to buy the Nielsen surveys, Public Address consistently topped rankings for time spent on site and on each page, and, mostly notably, engagement as measured by active contributions to the site. It's a precious thing.…

Deborah

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 11:24:17 +1300

Here's another piece on the Nate-Silver-hiring-lots-of-white-dudes issue.

No, Nate, brogrammers may not be macho, but that’s not all there is to it: How French High Theory and Dr. Seuss can help explain Silicon Valley’s Gender Blindspots

... by Zeynep Tufekci, writing in the Technology and Society column for medium.com. About…

Russell Brown

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 11:11:42 +1300

Unlike Huffington, presumably Buzzfeed is paying its writers. So there’s that.

Yes, and paying them for actual skills and experience, rather than just their reckons.

giovanni tiso

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 10:51:37 +1300

Unlike Huffington, presumably Buzzfeed is paying its writers. So there's that.

Russell Brown

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 10:49:32 +1300

In The Guardian, Emily Bell makes the point that this new vanguard is still mostly white dudes (albeit, in Silver's case, out-gay geeky white dudes), but rather spoils it with this line:

It is as if Arianna Huffington never happened.

Ahem.

Russell Brown

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 10:46:27 +1300

An interesting Q&A with Buzzfeed's VP Jonathan Perelman, who'll be talking some more about Buzzfeed's plans at a conference next week:

Everything we have created we have done through the eyes of ‘will this be shared across the social web, and who will share it? Will it share better on Twitter,…

Public Address

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 10:46:27 +1300

Discussion from blog post.