Former NYT managing editor Gerald Boyd lost his job after the Jayson Blair scandal, which could be interpreted either as just desserts for snoozing while Blair fucked up the paper, or as an unjustified bit of scapegoating—made worse by the fact that Boyd was black, and the NYT wasn't exactly swarming with minority execs at the time (or ever!).
Fashion publicist and MTV reality show fixture Kelly Cutrone turns 44 today. Chris Noth is turning 55. Whoopi Goldberg is 54. Gerard Butler celebrates the big 4-0 today. Jimmy Kimmel is 42. Film director Garry Marshall is turning 75. Former Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde turns 46. Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy is 55. Veteran TV reporter Peter Arnett turns 75. Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture is turning 31. Joe Mantegna is 62. And NBA star Ron Artest is turning 30. A handful of weekend birthdays are below.
Fox News anchor (and former CNN hottie) Bill Hemmer turns 44 today. Prince Charles is celebrating his 60th. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice turns 54 today. Fashion designer Stefano Gabbana is 46. Reverend Run is 44. Writer P.J. O'Rourke is 61. Actor Josh Duhamel is turning 36. Jonathan Landman of the Times is 56. And Travis Barker, who almost didn't make it to his birthday this year, turns 33 today. Weekend birthdays after the jump.
Jon Landman is the Times' deputy managing editor. He's currently charged with heading up the paper's online editorial operations.
Each Friday, NYT.com General Manager Vivian Schiller and 'Times' deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman write an in-house email on the subject of The Future and The Internet and The Newsroom.As of 4 a.m. today, when this week's email was sent, more than 1000 folks had declared themselves "Fans" of the New York Times on the paper's new Facebook page. Here are some of the Facebook comments:"'NYTimes ... Freakonomics, Ethicist, Chess, Pogue, and all the news. Best!'
'Hi NYT. I try to never miss your daily e-output. ...'
'NYT, the nation's newspaper.'
'NYT rules!'
'Oh NYT how I love you. ...'
'Yes! The NYT is my religion.'
And this, from one Max Schindler of Mountain Lakes High School (Ah, the
elusive young reader): 'I love the nyt, more than anything else.'"
The New York Times is now carefully allowing comments on some articles, not just blog posts. According to an in-house email from NYT.com general manager Vivian Schiller and deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman, "This week we rolled out some new technology for commentary on articles. It's more discriminating than the blog-comment platform and it gives readers more control. For instance, readers can recommend comments and view them in rank order starting with the ones with the most recommendations. Editors can choose an interesting selection for readers with time to read just a few.... You'll notice that we're only putting comments on a handful of articles at first. That's because we're still building our moderation force and the tools for automated moderation. There are some important features built into the system that you can't see and that we're not using yet. For example, producers and editors will be able to designate certain users as 'trusted,' potentially allowing some comments to bypass moderation. We're excited about the chance to experiment."
Each Friday, NYT.com General Manager Vivian Schiller and 'Times' deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman write an in-house email on the subject of The Future and The Internet and The Newsroom. Today: "[T]hink about the compulsive clickster. She returns three times in an hour, finds a new headline, clicks, thinks, 'Wait, didn't I read that before? The red thing says, "10:12 AM." But I already read some of this at 7:43 AM. Where's the new stuff?' Kind of confusing. Not so satisfying. Think of what a blog can do for her. It clearly demarcates the new stuff. It links to things we don't have, exposing layers of perspective in real time. It is fast, rich and deep. For the person in search of one-stop comprehensiveness, it might be an unpleasant adventure in ADD. [...] We actually maintain about 100 blogs now, about half of them active. Classy new ones roll out of the factory like Mercedes SUV's in Tuscaloosa."
Each Friday, New York Times General Manager Vivian Schiller and deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman write an in-house email on webby advances at the paper. This week, reporters file stories from these things called BlackBerries! "Ben Shpigel made the best out of a ridiculous situation. While staking out the Yankees complex in Tampa, Ben sent short updates from the scene on his Blackberry as he and dozens of other reporters and photographers waited for a glimpse of Yankees executives (any Yankees executive) there to discuss Joe Torre's future.... In truth, there wasn't much news. And Ben was without a functioning
Internet connection. But he still kept readers informed and entertained." Blog blog bloggety blog!
Each Friday, New York Times General Manager Vivian Schiller and deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman write a letter on webby advances at the paper. From today's: "Web readers are different from newspaper readers. For one thing, they don't really organize their browsing along sectional lines." Thank you. Item! It's your paper now: "User. Generated. Content. Write it 100 times on the blackboard. Last week City Room featured an item about fishing in New York City... A couple of hours later, a reader submitted a video he shot of fishermen on a pier in Bay Ridge using this form we set up for that purpose. We have talented users. Let's use them." Hey, you're a user, reader!
Times deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman, in one of his weekly memos to the staff about "Innovation," lays this deepness on you (emphasis ours): "Times have changed. Our online storytelling skills have evolved to the point where you really can get the whole story without reading a newspaper article. It's a remarkably rich experience that goes well beyond using video or maps or pictures to tell a story—something we (and others) have done well many times. The innovation lies in putting them together in a way that tells the story with all the nuance, comprehensiveness, authority and depth that define The New York Times. (It's hard to imagine online storytelling at this level coming from a non-integrated newsroom. Neither 'newspaper people' nor 'web people' could have done it alone.)"
