Nick Bergus Thoughts on what media do, and can do better, and other things

Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” Ken Doctor’s The Newsonomics of Anton Chekhov I was first struck by this Chekhov quotation in the theater program: “Russians glory in the past, hate the present, and fear the future.” It’s not easy to find that exact quote on the web, but it certainly sums up much of the playwright’s [...]

An oblique reference to a redesign that seems to makes some bad assumptions about the problems it’s trying to fix.

The candy jar on Daniel Victor’s TBD.com desk Daniel Victor’s How TBD’s candy jar is a seamless metaphor for news site participation So my new mission was to create a sustainable, crowdsourced candy jar operation, beneficial to all but cumbersome to none. To do this, it’s not enough to simply rely on your reputation as [...]

Janet Coats’ Changes at TBD show Godzilla just keeps winning Apologies for blockquoting 50 percent of the original post, but there were so many media metaphors I couldn’t help it. — Nick Bill Clinton I don’t envy the folks at TBD.com, especially those in leadership positions. I’ve been in that awkward position of trying to balance [...]

Glue factory Wayne MacPhail’s How Journalism Teachers are Failing, and How to Stop It on Mediashift And, frankly, looking to most newsrooms for best online practice is like visiting a glue factory to learn about race horses.

The eternal squeaking wheel Dean Starkman’s The Hamster Wheel, in the Columbia Journalism Review Without getting into whether newspapers are worse or better than before—let’s concede they’re fabulous; that’s why everyone loves them so much—we should pause for a second and think about the implications of the do-more-with-less meme that is sweeping the news business. I call it the [...]

A supermarket for news Robert Allbritton, quoted in Paul Farhi’s TBD.com making its move into the crowded market of local news, from The Washington Post Right now, [getting local news on the Web] is like trying to buy groceries in the old country. First you went to the fishmonger, then to the baker, then the [...]

A farting killer dog Adrian Monck’s Can apps save news journalism? [W]here does the rise of the app leave the news business, the flatulent Rottweiler in the dog shelter of online content? Can apps give it a caring home at last? Moses wandering the wilderness David Cohn’s Generations in the Desert – Thoughts from Aspen [...]

Robert Allbritton, quoted in Paul Farhi’s TBD.com making its move into the crowded market of local news in the Washington Post “Right now, [getting local news on the Web] is like trying to buy groceries in the old country. First you went to the fishmonger, then to the baker, then the grocer and so on. [...]

Steak and maggots Gene Weingarten’s Gene Weingarten column mentions Lady Gaga. Call me a grumpy old codger, but I liked the old way better. For one thing, I used to have at least a rudimentary idea of how a newspaper got produced: On deadline, drunks with cigars wrote stories that were edited by constipated but [...]