Off Off Wall Street

Internet Gandhi

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:41:47 -0400

First they ignore you.

Then they laugh at you.

Then they link to you.

Then you win.

"Well,” I asked myself, “why not?” Why must a film explain everything? Why must every motivation be..."

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 14:21:22 -0400

““Well,” I asked myself, “why not?” Why must a film explain everything? Why must every motivation be spelled out? Aren’t many films fundamentally the same film, with only the specifics changed? Aren’t many of them telling the same story? Seeking perfection, we see what our dreams and hopes might look like. We realize they come as a gift through no power of our own, and if we lose them, isn’t that almost worse than never having had them in the first place?”

- I am a little bit blown away by this penultimate paragraph from Roger Ebert’s final movie review. It makes you wonder when he knew the end was near. What a remarkable last few words to mark a career like the one he lived.

Roger Ebert’s last review: ‘To the Wonder’ - Chicago Sun-Times

timeshaiku: A haiku from the article: Savoring Its Parting...

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:17:34 -0400

timeshaiku:

A haiku from the article: Savoring Its Parting Shots, Georgetown Pummels Syracuse

It’s the most extraordinary thing.

Last word from Punch Sulzberger

Sat, 29 Sep 2012 12:25:43 -0400

From the end of the obit for Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, our paper’s longtime publisher and chairman:

When he left as Times chairman in 1997, he remained convinced that newspapers — at least good newspapers — had a bright future.

“I think that paper and ink are here to stay for the kind of newspapers we print,” he said in a postretirement interview. “There’s no shortage of news in this world. If you want news, you can go to cyberspace and grab out all this junk. But I don’t think most people are competent to become editors, or have the time or the interest.”

“You’re not buying news when you buy The New York Times,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “You’re buying judgment.”

May he ever be right.

Korean is evidently a trick language

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 17:56:20 -0400

I think Reuters might have buried this key detail a little bit too deeply in this story about North Korea’s planned agricultural reforms:

The phrase “economic adjustment” has been chosen carefully, the source added, noting the North’s decision not to use the old catchcry of its key ally, China - “reform and opening up” - should not be misinterpreted as a lack of reformist will.

Instead, the source said, North Korea was indeed trying to follow in the footsteps of China but was avoiding the phrase coined by Beijing because of an unfortunate quirk of the Korean language. “It won’t be called ‘reform and opening up’ because it sounds like ‘dog fart’ in Korean,” the source said.

HT to FTrain who caught this line I had overlooked.

"GUIDELINES ON ‘QUOTE APPROVAL’ Despite our reporters’ best efforts, we fear that..."

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:10:00 -0400

“

GUIDELINES ON ‘QUOTE APPROVAL’

Despite our reporters’ best efforts, we fear that demands for after-the-fact “quote approval” by sources and their press aides have gone too far. The practice risks giving readers a mistaken impression that we are ceding too much control over a story to our sources. In its most extreme forms, it invites meddling by press aides and others that goes far beyond the traditional negotiations between reporter and source over the terms of an interview.

So starting now, we want to draw a clear line on this. Citing Times policy, reporters should say no if a source demands, as a condition of an interview, that quotes be submitted afterward to the source or a press aide to review, approve or edit.

We understand that talking to sources on background — not for attribution — is often valuable to reporting, and unavoidable. Negotiation over the terms of using quotations, whenever feasible, should be done as part of the same interview — with an “on the record” coda, or with an agreement at the end of the conversation to put some parts on the record. In some cases, a reporter or editor may decide later, after a background interview has taken place, that we want to push for additional on-the-record quotes. In that situation, where the initiative is ours, this is acceptable. Again, quotes should not be submitted to press aides for approval or edited after the fact.

We realize that at times this approach will make our push for on-the-record quotes even more of a challenge. But in the long run, we think resetting the bar, and making clear that we will not agree to put after-the-fact quote-approval in the hands of press aides, will help in that effort.

We know our reporters face ever-growing obstacles in Washington, on Wall Street and elsewhere. We want to strengthen their hand in pushing back against the quote-approval process, which all of us dislike. Being able to cite a clear Times policy should aid their efforts and insulate them from some of the pressure they face.

Any potential exceptions to this approach should be discussed with a department head or a masthead editor.

”

- The New York Times’s new guidelines on “Quote Approval” Additional information here.

I can die happy now because I’ve been re-tweeted by...

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:48:41 -0400

I can die happy now because I’ve been re-tweeted by William Gibson, with an assist from HuffPost’s Elise Foley.

But guys I'm pro-#bearcam!

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:48:00 -0400

@michaelroston Well then
— explore.org (@exploreorg) September 14, 2012

I guess Taco Bell liked my tweet about supposed Navy SEAL...

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 21:06:32 -0400

I guess Taco Bell liked my tweet about supposed Navy SEAL “Mark Owen” eating at Taco Bell after he came home from the mission that killed Osama Bin Laden.

Life With Syria’s Rebels - The Lions of Tawhid (by...

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 21:51:38 -0400

Life With Syria’s Rebels - The Lions of Tawhid (by TheNewYorkTimes)

This is one of the finest videos that’s ever been published by The New York Times. It’s well worth your 7 minutes and 45 seconds.

The screen grab above is evidence of a major issues gap between...

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 21:27:00 -0400

The screen grab above is evidence of a major issues gap between Spanish-language and English-language media.

This evening, I got these alerts about Jan Brewer, Arizona’s governor, setting out to block the extension of driver’s licenses and public benefits to young illegal immigrants who received work authorizations through an order issued by President Obama. Here’s the Univision web version of the story, and here’s the Arizona Republic’s version in English. If you care about America’s fractured immigration policy, Mrs. Brewer’s order is a really big deal.

I don’t get a lot of push alerts from Univision’s Noticias app. When I do, they’re usually pretty conventional - announcements that Mitt Romney es el ganador in the primary in Michigan, for instance. Other major news events mostly translated into Spanish. And they don’t come in all that frequently.

But apparently it’s not that big of a deal for most national English-language media. I didn’t receive a single news alert from any English-language news organization.

At The New York Times, our policy for sending out mobile push alerts is to ask if a story would merit interrupting someone’s dinner. Univision shows similar restraint in alerts, too. Our coverage of today’s line-ups by young illegal immigrants to apply for work authorizations doesn’t mention Mrs. Brewer’s ruling right now. I couldn’t find any reference to it in my Twitter feed immediately after the announcement, either, and it’s not on Fox News’s home page. The top Spanish-language news outlet in America thinks this story merits national attention, but among us Gringoes, it hardly merits a blink.

Today, Univision also called on the Commission on Presidential Debates to host a debate that focused on issues important to Latino viewers. I don’t know whether that’s really the best thing given the variety of interest groups that are concerned with the presidential election - all of them. But seeing the relative weighting of Mrs. Brewer’s order in Spanish- and English-language national media really does drive home that there is a variance in the issues that concern English-only and Spanish-speaking Americans.

Back to school kids. Bikini season is over.

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 20:57:00 -0400

Back to school kids. Bikini season is over.

Wenlock, London's official Olympics mascot, tweeted at me

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 16:51:00 -0400

I think Britain’s surveillance state is getting a little too casual for my tastes. I tweeted:

Are you listening to my calls? RT @iamwenlock: Yay! I’m a telephone box! Come and find me: l2012.cm/T6Mer5 bit.ly/Mis08K
— Michael Roston (@michaelroston) August 3, 2012

And Wenlock tweeted back:

@michaelroston Always!
— Wenlock (@iamwenlock) August 3, 2012

That sound you hear is me flushing my SIM card down the toilet.

Introducing #oneread, a new hashtag

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 23:05:09 -0400

Yesterday, the fabulous Heidi Moore tweeted a link to an article and recommended it strongly:

If you read nothing else today, read this. RT @davidmwessel: Lede o the day. Lunch with the FT: Alexander Lebedevon.ft.com/LZ8IVE
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) July 28, 2012

Heidi was right! What a great article. Worth my time, even if I didn’t have that much of it.

It got me thinking there are a lot of great hashtags for encouraging you to read good articles. #Longreads is indispensable. I’ve happily contributed to #MuckReads. It’s summertime, and if you’re not trapped in the American nightmare of not-enough-vacation-time, there’s #beachreads.

And then there is the catch-all of #mustreads, which seems very transactional - it can be applied at any given moment to any given thing. “You must read this - now, and then perhaps you must read something else.” It hasn’t caught on, probably because it’s been overused.

But there isn’t really a hashtag that captures the one really great thing that you absolutely must read if you don’t read anything else in a given day. And that’s why I’m proposing “#oneread.”

Note, it’s singular, not plural. That’s because there’s no such thing as “#onereads.” You’re not supposed to propose more than one thing your Twitter followers must read if there’s nothing else they read in a given day. It’s the only guideline i propose for #oneread - that you be good, and only do it once a day - at best.

You like it? Share a #oneread, read a #oneread and tell me what you think.

FUCK! I'm in the New York Times!

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 22:15:46 -0400

FUCK! I'm in the New York Times!:

No lie, but there might be people in our newsroom who think it’s inappropriate to link to this blog, because of its name, if you could imagine such a thing to be true.

youchosewrong: (from Real Life Gamebooks #1: Madame Guillotine...

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 19:13:52 -0400

youchosewrong:

(from Real Life Gamebooks #1: Madame Guillotine - The French Revolution, 1986)

How ridiculously awesome is this? Let me choose the ways.

Barack Obama and Michelle Obama on the kiss cam. Best thing ever...

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 20:44:19 -0400

Barack Obama and Michelle Obama on the kiss cam. Best thing ever or bestest thing ever?

englishchinesenyt: English | Chinese | English Chinese Knew...

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 17:42:36 -0400

englishchinesenyt:

English | Chinese | English Chinese

Knew this would happen.

Porn and journalism actually have different problems

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:10:00 -0400

Porn used to be the unsinkable Titanic of content. People used to say, “No one will pay for anything on the Internet, except porn.” Now porn is taking on water. Today, being handed around on Twitter feeds and media navel-gazing web sites is Jordan Weismann’s Atlantic post about why journalism and porn are suffering from the same problem:

In other words, convincing people to pay for to watch sex is a much taller task these days than getting them to pay for a song.

In fact, it’s a bit like getting them to pay for a newspaper. Like the porn studios, big media companies have seen their own profits plummet in the face of free aggregators, amateur bloggers, and the nearly limitless competition supplied by the web.

Actually, big media companies have seen their profits plummet because Craigslist ate their lunch, not because of aggregators, bloggers or “limitless competition.” Fans of free aggregators and “limitless competition” from the start were not the sort of people who could be relied upon to subscribe to your print publication in the filmy past of newspapers.

Meanwhile, a decade-and-a-half’s worth of Internet porn, much with uncertain copyright, is building up on popular aggregating sites, or being traded on file-sharing networks, and it’s unclear that there are many users who care much for whether their adult entertainment is fresh and new or something that someone managed to make a few bucks off of in 2003. Porn’s inventory builds up, and prevents subsequent filmmakers from monetizing their contemporary product. Porn companies can chase after copyright violators like the music industry used to chase after MP3-swapping teens. But not many would care to.

In contrast, there are many consumers of news who favor fresh content that comes with higher production values. There is a real audience that is waiting around for authoritative storytellers to explain what’s happening in the world every day, and a sizable chunk of that audience will pay for a good product. There is no nearly-limitless inventory of old news stories building up that this audience will prefer over what’s published on tomorrow’s news web sites.

That’s why the paywalls that long made porn profitable are breaking down for the adult industry, but helping to buoy up the news business (in some, not all cases). Porn’s product can be substituted by most of its real audience with things that are free. The real news audience will accept no substitute for what real news organizations are capable of producing. In journalism, our problem isn’t inventory; it’s aligning our production process with our realistic near- and medium-term revenue streams.

If your name is Grismaldy, tonight is your night to drink for...

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 15:37:03 -0400

If your name is Grismaldy, tonight is your night to drink for free at No Idea Bar in NYC. As best I can tell, this is a female name. Fortunately for No Idea Bar, when I entered this name into the Social Security Administration’s web page for measuring popular baby names for girls, I got the following:

Grismaldy is not in the top 1000 female names for any year of birth in the last 50 years.
Please enter another name.

If your name is Raymond, get thee to No Idea Bar on Monday night.