Politico Mistakes State Flag for Union Flag, Idiocy Ensues
Oh, wow. That’s pretty rich:
Politico reporter Donovan Slack thought that this Wisconsin state flag was, in fact, a union flag, and that furthermore Barack Obama’s choice to stand under this union flag in Wisconsin made it “very clear what side” he’s on. Whoops.
Yeah, whoops.
It’s not clear to me if the other non-US cover stories are included in the same US issue with a different cover? Can I still READ the other stories if I buy the US edition? If that’s the case, I’m sure TIME has done their research on what cover stories sell more magazines. As long as the other cover stories are still in the same issue, we can’t be too upset by this. It tells us more about the US population than anything else. If those other stories aren’t even in the US issue, then I think TIME has a problem.
Stephen Colbert on CNN’s firing of approximately 50 journalists after the network completed a study on the quality of user generated content it was receiving via platforms such as iReport.
Colbert nails it. You savvy kids and your social tumblin’ are gonna be the death of us all.
Nice commentary. I realize it’s a business built on revenues (or lack thereof), but my goodness — consistent high-quality journalism continues to take hits. Or, maybe CNN is brilliant?
Also! Don’t get too hung up on the format. Good writing can be published anywhere, and I think a lot of people spend too much time looking for some sort of legitimacy they think a print glossy bestows.
Also! Find Tumblrs that share your topic and reblog content *WITH* your $.02 — if you agree, if you disagree, if you have something to add, if you have something to dispute, if you think it is bad, if you think it is good. Keep writing, but more importantly — Keep contributing to the larger body of work.
fresh.mn is ceasing publication.
Effective immediately, fresh.mn will cease publication. This project and it’s place in my life have reached a natural conclusion. I will let the fresh.mn domain expire. That will happen mid-July.
The fresh.mn tumblr and Twitter - which have 460+ and 2550+ followers respectively - will hang out for a while as they are not hosted on this domain. Get at me if you’re interested in these assets.
You can find/follow me personally as swirlspice. Chiefly, blog/tumblr/twitter. Contact me via the blog.
I’ve written more about the personal bits and thought process behind this decision if you’re curious about that.
I cannot thank all of you enough for the comments, tweets, reblogs, likes, retweets, etc. I sincerely hope each of you reading this learned at least one new thing about life in the Twin Cities that you did not know before.
I’ve had a lot of fun participating in the Twin Cities blogging community in various places since 2005. I’ve met a ton of great people. I’ve stumbled upon a ton of really great things. It has fundamentally changed my experience of living here for the better. It’s not a stretch to say that it’s a large contributor to the fact that I still live here and haven’t moved away.
Yours in Twincy,
Erica Mauter
Well. I figured I’d be reblogging something about the MN government “shutdown” today, but instead I’ll repost this Fresh.mn “shutdown” post. Erica is a great writer — Fresh.MN will be missed.
Incidentally, one of life’s great mysteries is why the New York Times is spending tens of millions of dollars building and promoting its easily-circumventable paywall, when it could have built a first-rate Groupon clone instead. The NYT has the exact home addresses — and the associated email addresses — of hundreds of thousands of well-heeled newspaper subscribers in a rich city of tiny neighborhoods. It also has a sales force which talks to local businesses regularly. It should own this space in New York City, instead of ceding it to arrivistes from Chicago who have much less specificity as to where exactly their subscribers live.
Good post.
NYTimes.com's Plan To Charge People Money For Consuming Goods, Services Called Bold Business Move
NEW YORK—In a move that media executives, economic forecasters, and business analysts alike are calling “extremely bold,” NYTimes.com put into place a groundbreaking new business model today in which the news website will charge people money to consume the goods and services it provides. “The whole idea of an American business trying to make a profit off of a product its hired professionals create on a daily basis is a truly brave and intrepid strategy,” said media analyst Steve Messner, adding that NYTimes.com’s extremely risky new approach to commerce—wherein legal tender must be exchanged in order to receive a desired service—could drastically reduce the publication’s readership. “To ask NYTimes.com’s 33 million unique monthly visitors to switch to a cash-for-manufactured-goods-based model from the standard everything-online-should-be-free-for-reasons-nobody-can-really-explain-based model is pretty fearless. It’s almost as if The New York Times is equating itself with a business trying to function in a capitalistic society.” In a statement released last Thursday, the newspaper’s publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. said, “If this fails, I’d honestly ratherThe New York Times not exist in a world where people are unwilling to pay the price of a fucking movie ticket for a monthly online subscription.”
Indeed!
4chan founder: Zuckerberg is “totally wrong” about online identity | VentureBeat
Poole argued that anonymity allows users to reveal themselves in a “completely unvarnished, unfiltered, raw way.” One of the things that’s lost when you carry the same identity everywhere is “the innocence of youth.” (“Innocence” isn’t the first word that would come to mind when I think of 4chan, but okay, I’ll go with him here.) In other words, when everyone knows everything you’ve done online, you’re a lot more worried about screwing up, and you’re less willing to experiment. Poole compared this to being a kid, moving to a new neighborhood, and having the opportunity to start over. On the Internet, you don’t get that opportunity.
“The cost of failure is really high when you’re contributing as yourself,” Poole said.
That’s an interesting argument, one I had not thought of. At MinnPost.com (where I work) we require you to register to comment with your real name. We also moderate all comments which helps cut down on the character attacks (and more), but I believe that people think twice if they have to personally own a comment.
Poole’s statement doesn’t change my mind about that, but makes me think there could also be specific environments online to spur anonymous creativity and brainstorming. I’m unsure if there is a space for that on MinnPost.com, but I’m thinking about it. Could one website have different participation requirements depending on the arena? Like: Comments on articles: Use real names; Open anonymous discussions on how a specific policy should change. Hmmmmm….
ABC World News is posting AP photos to their Instagram feed — it struck me as a little oddkward. They usually post great insider photos of the news being produced, or they post photos that don’t make it into a broadcast. If you have not used Instagram before, you can follow others (just like Tumblr) and see their photo stream. It’s different from Flickr in that you can apply some sweet filters to your photos. The AP photos just seem out of place, I think. I thought that was interesting.
[T]he Republicans went too far in their zeal to bust the unions and too far in their stubborn tactics to accomplish that mission. They are forcing these changes on an unwilling state at great cost — and they still haven’t filled the budget hole the original measure was designed to fill … Republicans, in the end, did what they had said they would not do: They cast aside provisions in the ‘budget-repair’ bill that actually dealt with the budget and took an up-or-down vote on ending most collective bargaining. … Walker never campaigned on disenfranchising public-employee unions. If he had, he would not have been elected. He got a spare 52% of the vote — hardly a mandate for what he is trying to do.
The Journal-Sentinel, which endorsed Gov. Scott Walker last fall, editorializes this morning: Wisconsin’s fire-eaters - JSOnline
My aunt who lives in WI was so upset by the pro-Walker coverage in the Journal-Sentinel (or, perhaps by the lack of good protest coverage) that she canceled her subscription. Wondering if this kind of editorial repairs the relationship.
(via minnpost)
Canada’s Radio Act requires that “a licenser may not broadcast….any false or misleading news.” The provision has kept Fox News and right wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom.
Regulators Reject Proposal That Would Bring Fox-Style News to Canada - 2/28/2011
I find this news completely and utterly fascinating.
Mostly because if you turn that statement around, you can say that Fox News IS allowed to broadcast false or misleading news in the United States of America.
Right? I really hope not.
Curious edit job here by FOX news. If you don’t notice the palm trees in the protester footage, you’d probably conclude that the Wisconsin protestors are starting to get violent.
UPDATE: TPM has video of the entire FOX news report here. In that context, placing that non-Wisconsin protester footage seems even more dubious.
After endorsing Walker in the race for governor, the Green Bay Press Gazette speaks out…
State residents hardly can be surprised Walker wants to take drastic actions. He said as much in the campaign, but Walker didn’t make clear his plan included limiting the rights of most public employees to collectively bargain. And he should have.
…This newspaper, which endorsed the governor in his race against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, has a tradition of supporting fiscal conservatism on the local, state and national levels. We think Walker is on target in his intention to reduce a massive projected deficit. And frankly, it’s difficult to imagine every public employee union in the state would have agreed to the changes Walker seeks. Still, bypassing labor without even trying only muddies the waters.
…Walker’s line in the sand between groups of public employees was drawn deeper still with his announcement Feb. 11 that he’d readied the Wisconsin National Guard to respond as needed to any unrest. This disingenuous move to put the focus on working men and women, assuming they’d act out in a violent or unruly manner, reflects poorly on the state’s chief executive.
What we have seen is not violence, but rather a groundswell of protest and pro-union support, most of it peaceful — if heated — as Wisconsin’s budget woes take center stage here and on the national scene. We respect the voices of those protesting peacefully, even as we can’t help but wonder how many of the outraged bothered to cast a ballot during the November election.
From Green Bay Gazette editorial: Walker on target, but approach troubling
Great explanation, especially the first two paragraphs. The last paragraph is awkward — the part about wondering how many “bothered to cast a ballot…”. At first I thought GBPG was suggesting a person has no right to protest if they did not vote. But perhaps it was just a little kick in the pants, which would be appropriate. People do need to understand what they are voting FOR by NOT voting.
