Archive for March, 2009

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Why deliberate, or talk, when you can tweet? [NYT]

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

The assumptions and conventions of today are grinding against those of the day before yesterday. All that’s needed now is somehow to tie in the AIG bonuses…..

  • The use of BlackBerrys and iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending deliberations and infuriating judges. … [J]urors might think they were helping, not hurting, by digging deeper. But the rules of evidence, developed over hundreds of years of jurisprudence, are there to ensure that the facts that go before a jury have been subjected to scrutiny and challenge from both sides. 

via As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up – NYTimes.com.

  • Twitter entered the lexicon two years ago here when it was the darling of the South by Southwest conference, and it is now the event’s dominant platform, seeming to overtake actual conversation. Why talk when you can tweet?

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The ambiguity is inherent

Monday, March 16th, 2009

We’re on a journey from Gutenberg to Google to God knows what. – Gregory Favre, ASNE convention, 2008.

I miss civilization, and I want it back. – Marilynne Robinson, “The Death of Adam” [introduction]

The ambiguity is inherent. – ORY, 1971 (one of 716 citations on Google)

 When did the ground start to shift?

Was it when I had my first online chat in real time, with Howard Witt in Moscow, back in the 1980s?  Or was it before that, when The Source and CompuServ seemed like good excuses to own a 1200-baud modem?

Was it in the early 1990s, when angry readers of the Tribune business section, unhappy because we had omitted some thinly traded gold stocks in a redesign of the listings pages, found me through AOL and demanded the patching of their morning safety net?

Was it in 1994, when I posted a “home page” on the World Wide Web, using Telnet and Gopher and Eudora and Fetch?

It matters little, since digital tinkering has long ago given way to digital strategy in the halls and bowels of the world’s media businesses.  (Or what passes for digital strategy, or what pass for media businesses.  It was also in 1994 that I heard a European news executive say that, for newspapers, the “information superhighway” was evolving from a zero-million-dollar business to a zero-billion-dollar business.)

I have always sought to expand my own knowledge and then, immediately, someone (and everyone) else’s.  Now that I am a professor, that is my job as well as my aspiration. (more…)

Posted in By ORY, Digital media, Essays, Journalism | 1 Comment »

Newspapers and thinking the unthinkable [Shirky]

Friday, March 13th, 2009

Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven’t been ordinary, however. 

via Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable « Clay Shirky.

Posted in Business of media, Journalism, Retrospectives | Comments Off

As cities go from 2 papers to 1, talk of zero (NYT)

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

News boxes in Seattle. (NYT)

News boxes in Seattle. (NYT)

 

New York Times, March 12, 2009: Some economists and newspaper executives say it is only a matter of time — and probably not much time at that — before some major American city is left with no prominent local newspaper at all.

via For Papers, a Downsizing Trickle Becomes a Flood – NYTimes.com.

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How to Twitter [WSJ]

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

Lets all tweet like the tweeters tweet. (WSJ)

Let's all tweet like the tweeters tweet. (WSJ)

It’s not about chatting with your friends — it’s about promoting yourself.

via How to Twitter – WSJ.com.

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