Disqus - Latest Comments for tgdavidson

Re: US american-airlines

tgdavidson — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 08:52:07 -0000

"Access denied" error on the website - repeatedly this morning.

Re: From Print to Broadcast: How Local News Transitions to Digital

tgdavidson — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 20:06:48 -0000

Several dozen newspapers have launched midday "newscasts" over the past decade. Almost all of them quietly die after a year or so - for the reason John hints at below: No one watches them.

Think about it: This is nothing more than taking an existing form and stapling it onto a new platform. Which isn't how digital works. Just as users go from story to story almost at random on a website (or, more likely, go from Google to a story and back out again), they do the same with video.

So: Produce and post individual story - or playlists, if you must. Drop all the trappings of broadcast TV. Don't play that game. Disrupt that game.

Re: You can’t trust anything funny on the Internet these days

tgdavidson — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 13:26:11 -0000

Poe's Law. (Nathan, not Edgar Allen.)

Don't know it? Worth looking it up, folks.

Re: The newsonomics of crossover

tgdavidson — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:59:19 -0000

@Michigan Man: Certainly any bundled sale is open to interpretation. My questions: 1) Are the number of advertisers going up? And 2) What is "way too much" to digital? Your "too much" could be someone else's "fair value." Because those print rates of the past aren't ever coming back.

Re: The newsonomics of the digital cafeteria

tgdavidson — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:54:59 -0000

Spot on, as usual, Ken - especially the notion of the old newspaper feech section as a series of potential niche sites, driven as much by the visuals and data/listings as by the text. Now if only someone would invent a really good calendaring and listings system ...

Re: A cease-and-desist note for tagging 4Hoteliers?

tgdavidson — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 10:46:12 -0000

Well ... besides the fact that his C&D letter doesn't meet the terms of the DCMA ... wouldn't it be just *terrible* if others started to link to the same page ;-)?

Bad, Tom! Bad!!

Re: "Tell us what you think" by PBS News Blog | PBS News Blog

tgdavidson — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 11:51:11 -0000

Great question, rddt. Hard to describe without visuals (which are coming soonj). But the short description: Most news organizations - including our friends and colleagues at NPR - focus on headlines, the news of the day. That's appropriate, serves the historic legacies of the organizations, and serves their audiences.

But there's no shortage of headlines in the world today, so it'd be superfluous if we focused on that. We're going instead the other direction on the time scale. How can we offer depth and context about subjects in the news? How can we gather together all the relevant stuff from PBS and other public-media organizations in a way that deepens understanding?

It's a truism among reporters that the most-recent headline often doesn't capture the essence of the story - it's just another turn of the wrench. We're aiming to get at the essence, and leave the recording of the step-by-step process to others.

Hope that helps - and hope you'll stay tuned as we get a bit more explicit about what those plans mean, and some of the tricky issues we'll have to solve.

-tgd

Re: "Tell us what you think" by PBS News Blog | PBS News Blog

tgdavidson — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 09:59:44 -0000

Hope that helps - and hope you'll stay tuned as we get a bit more explicit about what those plans mean, and some of the tricky issues we'll have to solve.

-tgd

Re: How Journalism Teachers are Failing, and How to Stop It

tgdavidson — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:26:51 -0000

I'll vote with Dickinson here: A lot of schools HAVE brought in veteran journalists. Many of them are brilliant. Most of them, however, think of journalism in a way that's frozen in amber, circa 1987 or c.1994 or some other pre-digital age. Some (see Mo, below) are notable exceptions.

The point: Journalism education is undergoing the same fundamental changes as any media organization. INHO, most institutions are several years behind even the newspaper industry. (Somewhere, I've the first crude outlines of a blog post on the topic; maybe this'll spur me to finish.)

Re: Fake Steve Jobs

tgdavidson — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 23:12:34 -0000

Hmmmm. With a hoodie and dark glasses ...

http://commons.wikimedia.or...

Re: How do you spell chutzpah?

tgdavidson — Wed, 26 May 2010 06:16:58 -0000

All in - with a pair of deuces, jack high.

Re: Our Choice: The Funniest April Fools Jokes

tgdavidson — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 10:19:32 -0000

This one actually makes some sense:

Johns Hopkins University changes name to John Hopkins

http://webapps.jhu.edu/jhun...

Re: Sacre Bleu! France Mulls Tax On Web Ads To Bail Out Old Media

tgdavidson — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:54:06 -0000

In other news, the French also proposed a tax on Japanese and American-made cars to support Peugot, and to clean up the 10 billion oil leaks left behind by Peugots anywhere one ever parked.

Tomorrow, parliament will consider a measure to tax electrical appliance manufacturers to support the waning steam-engine industry.

Re: We’re not going to save the business with bigger banner ads folks

tgdavidson — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:00:10 -0000

Forgive me, Tim ...

But didn't the WaPost try this already? (http://www.washingtonpost.c... )

Because we all know one failure means it'll never work anywhere, right?

Because no VC-funded company (href=http://google.com) has ever succeeded where someone else (href=http://excite.com; href=http://lycos.com ; href=http://altavista.com ; or, hell, href=http://yahoo.com ) has failed.

Re: A cry from the heartland: “Don’t let newspapers die”

tgdavidson — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 12:15:48 -0000

Heretic.

You're probably one of those eastern, liberal academic types, aren't you?

Re: Toward a National Journalism Foundation

tgdavidson — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:01:31 -0000

For those who think this is a noble method to protect our sacred role:

What happens the first time some Congressman threatens to cut foundation funding if we don't stop investigating his favorite Cherished Bovine? Or unless we do start to investigate his arch enemy?

Does anyone remember Mapplethorpe battles? Does anyone think it wouldn't take some members of Congress, oh, about 15 seconds to use the funding tool as a large club?

However noble, this idea is unworkable in practice. Worse, it simply diverts us from the task at hand: Change journalism (especially journalism businesses) from a one-way, Voice of God lecture, to a true conversation with the audience. We'll be far better off facing that reality than hoping for unicorns, Tooth Fairies, or benevolent governments to ride to the rescue.

Re: Let’s put the government in charge of journalism!

tgdavidson — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:21:27 -0000

"Congressman, I'd like to ask you about your six secretaries who can't type, giggle incessantly, show up at the office only on payday, and all seem to have been frequent clients of Dr. Ralph's House of Silicone."

"Oh, and by the way - thanks for voting to reup the funding for the Corporation for Public Journalism!"

Our relationship with the government should be very straightforward: Politely adversarial.