media

Here's a Washington Post Story With All the Editor's Notes In It

Hamilton Nolan · 03/15/11 09:02AM

If you spend more than five minutes talking to an editor, you're sure to hear about how some story or other was a total piece of shit before said editor got his hands on it. Now you can judge for yourself! The Washington Post mistakenly posted this health story by Laura Ungar online with ALL OF THE EDITOR'S ALL-CAPS NOTES INCLUDED. [The final version of the story hasn't been published yet.] We've pasted it below in case it gets pulled. Editors make typos, too! Kill them!

The New York Times' Columnist Problem

Hamilton Nolan · 03/14/11 03:40PM

Bill Keller, the editor of the world's most influential newspaper, may be losing his mind. He made the poor choice to start writing his own column, which promptly went to hell in its second week. He wrote a whiny, trite, un-self-aware media column, ensuring that most people wouldn't care, and those who cared would find his work embarrassing.

Report: This Internet Thing Is Really Catching On

Hamilton Nolan · 03/14/11 01:14PM

In your transitional Monday media column: the State of the Media is okay, James O'Keefe may not be a totally trustworthy journalist, hiring at HuffPo, Lou Dobbs is back, Larry King may join The Daily Show, and Mental Floss has a mental owner.

Engadget Editors Flee AOL

Adrian Chen · 03/12/11 06:41PM

The two top content generators—er, editors at AOL's massively popular tech blog Engadget, Josh Topolsky (pictured) and Nilay Patel, have quit, according to All Things Digital. We were hoping for a juicy tale of combat with AOL's new content manager, Arianna Huffington's Blackberry, but the departure has more to do with AOL's lame corporatism. It can't be a coincidence that this comes just a month after new AOL boss Tim Armstrong unveiled his insane scheme to squeeze way more content and pageviews from fewer bloggers (aka "The AOL Way"). Well, here's fewer bloggers.

Happy Birthday, Rupert Murdoch!

Hamilton Nolan · 03/11/11 04:03PM

Do you know what today is, in addition to being a tragic day of global devastation? It's Rupert Murdoch's 80th birthday! No need to comment on any issues of karma. Born into a newspaper-owning family in Melbourne in 1931, Rupert parlayed a single small newspaper in Adelaide into a national—and then global—media powerhouse. Who among us can say we have not had our lives affected by Rupert and his properties? Every time you watch The Simpsons or Bill O'Reilly, read the Wall Street Journal or a London tabloid, or watch a rerun of Napoleon Dynamite, you are, in your own way, being touched by the News Corp empire. It's amazing and not a little bit scary.

Glenn Beck (Temporarily) Washed Away by Tsunami

Hamilton Nolan · 03/11/11 02:10PM

In your waterlogged Friday media column: Fox News chooses Japan over Glenn Beck, Adam Moss can't come up with any good insults, the New York Times knows what you need to read, and everyone's getting into this whole iPad thing.

Bill Keller Writes Provocative Media Column From 1997

Hamilton Nolan · 03/10/11 03:34PM

When we learned that New York Times editor Bill Keller was getting his very own column in the New York Times Magazine, our keen media instinct—honed by years of reading the Twitter and writing juvenile jokes on the internet while never doing any "real reporting"—told us that sooner or later, this column would become an institutional embarrassment. Spoiler: sooner!

AOL Lays Off Hundreds in Corporate Synergy Massacre

Hamilton Nolan · 03/10/11 01:49PM

In your painful Thursday media column: major layoffs at AOL, reporters in peril in Libya, the latest Katie Couric career rumors, anonymous commenting debated, and Newsday is new, somehow.

Towards a Better Journalism Career Path

Hamilton Nolan · 03/08/11 12:14PM

Journalism legend Charles Pierce makes a great god damn point in a new interview: the idea that a good writer will automatically make a good editor is a farce. The journalism job ladder is broken. What is to be done?

Congress Considers Murdering Big Bird and Snuffleupagus

Jim Newell · 03/04/11 03:32PM

Republican Sens. Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint have introduced a bill to cut that program that they always want to cut: subsidies for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, overlord of PBS and NPR. We already know why Republicans want to cut NPR funding so badly, because the liberal snob station fired a reporter last fall over his patriotic belief that Muslims are terrifying. And PBS! They're downright socialist, and Jim Lehrer is a Muslim spy.

Bill Keller Is Talking So Much Trash About Fox News

Hamilton Nolan · 03/04/11 10:12AM

New York Times editor Bill Keller spoke in front of the New York Press Club last night in Manhattan. In addition to all of the talk about journalism and the future of the paper and various and sundry dry matters like that (including an unsatisfactory rehashing of the Raymond Davis debacle that gave no indication that Keller had any second thoughts about the way he handled the story), did he get a chance to send a zinger towards Rupert Murdoch and Fox News?

Working For the Weinstein Brothers Is Still a Perverse, Ceaseless Nightmare

John Cook · 03/03/11 05:45PM

Two filmmakers have sued Harvey and Bob Weinstein's studio for more than $114 million, claiming that the Weinsteins ruined five animated film projects with their "indecisiveness and general incompetence." They would have filed the lawsuit earlier, they say, but the Weinsteins paid them $500,000 in quasi-hush money to delay it until after the Oscars so as not to sully their campaign for The King's Speech. Hollywood works in strange ways.