Can We Please Get Some Better Reporting on Students & Tech?
Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction is the latest NYT piece pondering the perplexing challenge of technology in modern society, this time with a focus on students. This is an endlessly fascinating topic to me, but I’m always very frustrated with what passes for journalism in these stories.
Sending Garbage Through the Mail
The New York Times had a nice writeup last week on Amazon’s efforts to cut down on frivolous packaging in its shipments. I am among those who have submitted customer complaints about the absolutely ludicrous packaging that you get on occasion.
Tara and Tyler, You Deserve a Book Deal
Dear Tara and Tyler, I don’t really know you. Sure, I went to high school with Tara, but its not like we were friends of the sort to keep in touch. But after following your beautiful, exciting adventures on your trip around the world — by bike, no less! — for months, I feel like I know you. Your blog (and, frankly, your whole website) are amazing. Thank you! — Celeste
Must Read: Real Editors Ship
“The media is very good at making itself seem like something other than a business (and there are a lot of problems with what business it does manage) — but if you realise that every edition, every issue, every article, every bulletin, every thing made by the media is a product, then you start to think differently about these situations.” — Bobbie Johnson
To Read: Kay Ryan Review
My friend Aneesa has a lovely review of the poet Kay Ryan’s work published over at Fanzine today. I’m a poetry fan, myself, but I’d never heard of Kay Ryan before. Aneesa’s review made me want to go out and purchase her books, though, so I wanted to share it. I’ve included my favorite of the excerpted poems after the jump.
A Fine Piece of Journalism
This is apropos of nothing I usually write about on this blog (if you can even say I “usually” write on this blog at all), but if you happen to stop by and find that you haven’t read the Esquire magazine profile of Roger Ebert yet, do it. I read a lot of writing for work and for pleasure, but mostly for work. Words can get exhausting by the end of the day, and this was one of the first pieces of long-form journalism that I’ve had the patience to read through from start to finish, with no breaks, workload be damned, in ages.
A Peek at What I’ve Been Doing
I’ve been neglecting this site for a while, so I thought I’d update anyone who happens to drop by with some details about what projects have been keeping me busy. Yesterday was Earth2Tech’s first conference, Green:Net, here in San Francisco. I moderated a panel on software, with Jeremy Jaech, the CEO of Verdiem; Richard Barber, … Read more
Reporting and Reader Engagement, Again
I was perusing the Public Editor page on the New York Times today, wondering what exactly it means to be the “readers’ representative.” While I was noodling on this question, this piece on “The Promise of Real-Time Reporting,” caught my eye. I jumped into journalism via the magazine (monthly, print) world and now work at … Read more
Experiments in Journalism!
Sometime last year I heard about Spot.Us, an organization that lets readers invest in stories they’d like to see covered by local journalists; print and online media organizations can run the story for free. (There’s more to it than that, but check out the site for more info.) The project got off to a good … Read more
Stuff That Matters
In the last few months, I’ve become enamoured of Tim O’Reilly’s writings over at O’Reilly Radar. One of the points he makes often that resonates with me is this: “work on stuff that matters.” I think it’s a great philosophy, all around, whether you’re talking about a career, troubleshooting a project that’s gone awry, or … Read more
