#journalism

Writing students once learned that putting the most important information first in an article was the preferred, humane way of reporting on a situation. This allowed readers to quickly decide if a story interested them without having to read further.

They lined up the editors first, zip tying their hands together and leading them into vans downstairs. Then they began to gather the rest of the journalists. Laptops were gathered from desks. The server room, such as it was in the wake of zero trust and enterprise cloud services, had its door kicked in, switches and rack servers ripped out of their frames. One IT support engineer objected and found a gun in his face, the safety off, its owner ready to make them into an example.

From Google to Microsoft, European newsrooms often rely on tools built in Silicon Valley. Some are trying to break free, turning to open-source alternatives or home-grown solutions.

Leaving aside the idea of access to any form of content being conditional on the use of a proprietary browser, which is a particularly horrid 1990s throwback, I’m going to call this day 0 of an experiment in shifting the funding model of journalism from adtech to agentic AI.

Why New York's Zuccotti Park is filled with people is no mystery. Reporters keep scratching their heads and asking: "Why are you here?" But it's clear they are occupying Wall Street because Wall Street has occupied the country. And that's why in public places across the country workaday Americans are standing up in solidarity. Did you see the sign a woman was carrying at a fraternal march in Iowa the other day? It read: "I can't afford to buy a politician so I bought this sign."

Viewers in the United States, where climate change sceptics are particularly strong group, will not see the full episode.

I found myself responding to a Google+ thread this morning wherein a respected technology leader said “copying and pasting from social networking sites is not journalism.” Apparently he’d been seeing random Tweets referenced on TV and thought it was lazy, pointless and a sign that journalism is going down the tubes.

"What he never did, however, was notify anyone who worked at the bar, according to its owner, Volcker Staudt. That would have been the simplest way to get the phone back to the Apple employee who lost it, who "called constantly trying to retrieve it" in the days afterward, recalls Volcker. "The guy was pretty hectic about it." Nor did the finder report it to the Redwood City Police Department, says Sgt. Dan Mulholland."

"Again, my friends and colleagues in the media have two choices in covering this. You can just copy down what the Republicans and Vice President Cheney are saying, and click "send," call it journalism, or you can actually fact-check those comments and put them into context. Your choice. It’s your country."

"A tribute to "fair use" and the AP's misguided crusade against the hyperlink. All content on this site was generated automatically from the AP's own RSS feeds. (Sorry, we forgot to include your magic DRM beans.) ♥"

"But what is NPR doing differently that’s causing their listener numbers to swell? They basically have a three-pronged strategy that is helping them not only grow now, but also prepare for the future media landscape where traditional methods of consumption (TV, radio, print) could be greatly marginalized in favor of digital distribution."

"“Seriously,” Chris went on. “Do people really want to put up with four years of that? Of [him] sitting there, angrily, grumpily, like a codger?”"

"Clearly, I saw now that belief in God, no matter how grounded, requires at some point a leap of faith. Either you have the gift of faith or you don't." I guess 'gift' is one way to describe it.

"if one of us ever does manage to change the world, it'll start with a puzzled glance at a computer screen, or a raised eyebrow while looking at a piece of paper. Instead of getting noisier, everything will get a lot quieter."

"The Reg is the Wikipedia vandal you can't revert."

"It is puzzling then that the WSJ editors could claim that "the scientific case....looks weaker all the time"."

"By randomly choosing a story a week to fact-check after it's published, the paper wants to simultaneously dissuade potential corner-cutters while proving to readers its commitment to honesty."