Aug
27
Too sick for meetings, carpentry and everything else on the list but, apparently, have energy enough to blog. There may be more later as I try to clear a huge backlog of open broswer tabs.
- Fwix, the local news and social aggregator. Yet another entry in the local information aggregation field and, I presume, yet another warning shot across the bows of the local newspaper. See also: No Joke: The Onion Launches CitySearch Competitor.
- The atlas of Canada. A great resource for Canadian maps of all kinds, with such categories as environment, people & society, health and history. Via The Canadian Journalism Project.
- On Copy Editing. A nice piece by Jeff Baron, a Washington Post metro copy editor, on why copy editors still matter. Somewhat related and well worth the read: Why Copy Editing Is in the Trouble It’s In.
- Star Tribune plans to “reinvent” its print and online opinion journalism. Getting bloggy, using the newspaper as the snapshot of the day and changing the web version of the newspaper throughout the day. Also: Star-Tribune cancels AP, which is somewhat big news.
- BBC to launch targeted web music service. Not sure if this is hugely significant but it bears watching as both a source of music and a way of capitalizing on deep, rich archives.
- Publicis’ Tobaccowala: Mass Media Is Far From Dead (But It’s Not Growing Either). Interesting short post. Of note: Rishad Tobaccowala says TV is more valuable to advertisers than newspapers because it is shedding viewers more slowly than newspapers are shedding readers.
- With Canon, Loyalty Has its Privileges. A David Pogue piece of interest to both users of Canon cameras and to those looking at ways of building customer loyalty.
- Globe signs printing deal with Transcon. One of Canada’s two national newspapers has signed a new printing contract that runs through 2028. Hmmm.
- Monitoring the future of newspapers. Alex Beam, who was curmudgeon-of-the-week a while back, suggests that the Christian Science Monitor may point to what large dailies will become. There is some value to the idea, but while he includes the fact that the CSM is heavily subsidized, he doesn’t touch the issue of how the non-subsidized can make it work.
- Proof that the new Baltimore Sun and Sun-Sentinel will not work. Juan Antonio Giner’s argumnt is that the flashy newspapers fail the readership test when they ignore the big stories of the moment. He stirs some debate, part of which is his response, which includes this: “My impression is that soft-news newspapers will die faster than hard-news ones.” Related: Tribune Editor Seeks to Delight, in which the idea of softening the newspaper is promulgated.
- Beijing 2008 – It’s a wrap. Yeah. I’m late on this, but The Big Picture’s Beijing roundup is well worth a look The boston.com feature really is one the premier sites for web-based photojournalism.
- Transforming American Newspapers (Part 2). Part two of Vin Crosbie’s look at how newspapers have gotten themselves into this state focusses on the industry’s failure to grasp the principles of supply and demand. If you only have time to track down one of these squibs, this is the one.
