journalism

I read an intriguing article in The Atlantic over the weekend, discussing the probable implosion to The New York Times and what its future may be. One paragraph, in particular, struck me:

At some point soon--sooner than most of us think--the print edition, and with it, the Times as we know it, will no longer exist...What would a post-print Times look like?

Forced to make a Web-based strategy profitable, a reconstructed Web site could start mixing original reportage with Times-endorsed reporting from other outlets with straight-up aggregation. This would allow the Times to continue to impose its live-from-the-Upper-West-Side brand … Read more

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is one of those exclusive, highbrow affairs with a guest list tighter than your belt after a pie-eating contest. But social network MySpace is leveling out the playing field by partnering with the Wall Street Journal for a competition called "MySpace Journal," in which an aspiring "citizen journalist" will be awarded the chance to attend the summit later this month.

MySpace is now accepting video submissions in which entrants explain their reasons for wanting to attend and be a member of the Davos press corps. One winner, chosen by … Read more

Social-media pioneer LiveJournal is the latest company to announce a round of layoffs, trimming down its employee head count in its San Francisco and Moscow offices.

A statement from the company came after a rumor on gossip blog Gawker suggested that a shocking number of LiveJournal employees--20 out of 28--had been cut. LiveJournal clarified that it was "about a dozen" cuts, amounting to about a fifth of the company.

"LiveJournal Inc.'s headquarters, technical operations (and servers), legal, administration, and the customer service teams will remain in the United States," the release explained. "LiveJournal's … Read more

Browsing through Dan Farber's review of a recent Pew Research Center survey on news readership, I was reminded of one of the central tenets of blogging: blogging helps to destroy the business models powering its original source material:

While the Internet is growing as the place where people go for news, the revenue simply isn't catching up fast enough. The less obvious part of the Internet overtaking newspapers as the main source for national and international news is that much of the seed content--the original reporting that breaks national and international news and is subsequently refactored by legions … Read more

Longstanding social network LiveJournal published a report Friday that asked its users what makes the site unique. Written by a Ph.D. candidate in the Media, Culture, and Communication department at New York University, the report contends that a defining characteristic of LiveJournal users is their "passion" for connecting with others. "LiveJournal's feature set encourages real, engaged, committed, long-term interaction with the site and friends met through the site, creating passionate users who care deeply about LiveJournal," the report said. Unfortunately, many of those "passionate" users seem to be moving to Facebook at a rapid rate.… Read more

I'm a social-networking addict. I'm never away from my Twitter stream, I always check Facebook for friend updates, and Friendfeed is probably my favorite Web tool this year. I check out Hi5 to catch a glimpse into the future, head back to Friendster from time to time, and can't help but check in with LiveJournal every few months when I feel nostalgic.

But for all that work with social networks, I've also become a somewhat critical and cynical user. And anyone who suffers from my same addiction probably has as well. That's why I've … Read more

The Pulitzer Prize Board is finally recognizing the obvious: if newsprint's highest journalism award wants to stay relevant it had better welcome the Web.

The Pulitzer board announced Monday that it will consider entries from online-only publications in addition to print outlets for the 14 journalism categories that once were prestigious but now few care about.

Any organization interested in submitting stories for Pulitzer consideration must publish at least once a week, be U.S.-based, and feature original reporting. Online or print magazines need not apply. The Pulitzers are for daily or weekly news organizations.

Why the change … Read more

Editor's note: This is part of a series of stories about the recession's effect on the tech industry.

News gathering and job hunting during a down economy aren't unalike, says longtime technology industry reporter Robert Mullins. They both require spending inordinate amounts of time trying to get people on the phone, trolling the Web for leads and swallowing lots and lots of rejection.

For most of the past decade, Mullins covered Silicon Valley, writing about servers and open-source software at publications like Software Development Times and NetworkWorld. Like most seasoned reporters covering the tech sector, it meant … Read more

As reported by The Wall Street Journal this week, Amazon.com's e-book reader, the Kindle, is out of stock.

The Journal credits Oprah Winfrey, who recommended the Kindle on her show in October.

I saw this effect myself in the page views for old blog posts here--the daily view count for some of my old Kindle posts, especially my comparison of the Kindle with Sony's Reader, spiked the very next day, and it remains higher today than it was before that show aired.

Amazon's Web site reports delivery delays of 11 weeks to 13 weeks, which means … Read more