"The digital era has led to increasing challenges for western and traditional news media business models. Media outlets are facing steady declines in revenue, while the migration of advertising online has brought limited success in 'monetising' digital’s audiences. To make things worse, internet ads have progressively decreased in value in recent years. The issue of how to fund quality journalism that would hold the government to account is a pressing one. As newsrooms continue to cut back, there is a real reduction in reporting capacity with profound effects on quality, investigative and exploratory journalism. And yet, the last year has seen a quite hectic, energising movement of 'digital journopreneurs'. Personal-brand journalists, digital entrepreneurs and investigative journalists have decided to embrace the capabilities of web technologies to launch a new wave of journalism platforms.In March, statistician and journalist Nate Silver launched his ESPN-backed FiveThirtyEight.com, a data blog that, by banking on Silver’s impressive record, will bet everything on a data-focused approach. Silver is part of a wider movement of celebrity journalists who are migrating from mainstream press to digital start-ups. Ezra Klein left the Washington Post earlier this year for an initiative launched in April and backed by Vox Media, which promised to 'explain the news' in a new revolutionary way by employing 'next-generation technologies'.The list could go on: there is also Jessica Lessin’s The Information and Pierre Omidyar‘s First Look featuring Glenn Greenwald. In February, First Look launched digital magazine/investigative site The Intercept.These exciting ventures led New York Times media commentator David Carr to declare the birth of a new start-up digital journalism bubble." (TheConversation)
"Speaking of McConnell, his campaign operation has had its share of minor headaches. His campaign manager was caught on tape complaining about the job. “McConnelling” became a new meme thanks to some stock footage the campaign put on the Internet for use by third-party groups. And the minority leader evoked memories of Michael Dukakis by awkwardly clutching a rifle at the Conservative Political Action Conference, among other things. But none of these stories have apparently meant much in McConnell’s primary race against Tea Partier Matt Bevin, who appears to have little chance to upset the five-term incumbent. Bevin’s own troubles, particularly his seeming support for the 2008 bank bailout that McConnell’s forces gleefully spread far and wide, seem more significant. So is the fact that it’s just really hard to beat an incumbent senator in a primary." (Centerforpolitics)
"Late in the afternoon the news came out about the sudden, untimely death of Mark Shand, an Englishman who had been here in New York promoting his Elephant charity with The Faberge Egg Hunt auction that was held this past Tuesday night at Sotheby’s. To the many who knew him, it was shocking. Shand had gone on to a party to celebrate the great success of the auction fundraising for the elephants. At some point, he either was leaving the party, or went out onto the street to have a cigarette. At curbside, he briefly slipped or lost his balance and fell headfirst onto the pavement. He was taken immediately to Bellevue Hospital, had surgery, and never recovered. He died at noon yesterday. He was sixty-two. Head wounds are often fatal and New Yorkers, all New Yorkers, including visitors, are at risk. It is important (and almost impossible) to watch where you’re going all the time. Even then, an accident, like a slipping or tripping, can land you on your head. It’s a most ordinary accident that can occur under any circumstances any time of day. And very often fatal. For Mark Shand, it was night time and it was not light. A moment’s distraction can be one’s fate. Mark Shand was first in the American press in the 1970s when it was reported that he had a date with the then teenage Caroline Kennedy. She had been in London and they met there. The item was newsworthy because it was showing that the late President’s daughter was growing up. Shand was no more than in his early twenties, if that. I met him in the early '80s when he was in Los Angeles with his friend Harry Fane and they were doing business internationally collecting and selling vintage Cartier jewelry, watches, etc. The two young men were staying with our mutual friend Lady Sarah Churchill in Beverly Hills. Sarah often had houseguests and there was the resulting camaraderie between everyone, as she liked to entertain. These boys she had known all their lives." (NYSD)
"Could Lucky magazine be in for a bit of bad luck? Talk in media circles is that Condé Nast will finally shutter the struggling shopping title soon, and move Editor-in-Chief Eva Chen back to Teen Vogue. Chen was the beauty director at Teen Vogue for many years, and last year was tapped to overhaul Lucky. A Condé rep insisted the rumors are not true, and pointed out that the magazine’s ad pages in its May issue are up 19 percent." (P6)
No comments:
Post a Comment