Gawker
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journalismism
Bloomberg Brags About Lamest 'Scoop' Ever
Bloomberg's been bragging it suddenly tripled its number of scoops in the first quarter. How did the financial wire do it? A company mole forwarded along one particularly egregious example. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by soonbanned: People who've never worked at Bloomberg don't understand how insular the company is. If it's anything that's not financial news,... more » | Other threads
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journalismism
Foursquare Founder Tells Two Tales About Filched Dodgeball Code
Too busy partying in Austin, Dennis Crowley never replied to our questions about whether Foursquare was built on code owned by Google. He's denied it to other press, but we hear he's telling buddies otherwise. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by GChin: "If only Fost had thought to factcheck that with, say, any of the South By Southwest attendees to whom Crowley... 3 Responses | Other threads
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journalismism
Jim Goldman's Bad Intel
CNBC, the cable business network, claims to have "policies and guidelines" that are "strictly followed." One of them appears to be presenting company flacks as secret "sources." Tech reporter Jim Goldman adheres to it religiously. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Drunken Economist: Another day of yelling heads on C-N-B-WWE, another Valleywag post. Seriously, tho', Owen, the other commenters have a point. Maybe it's... 3 Responses | Other threads
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journalismism
A Puffed-Up Reporter's Puffed-Up Sources
CNBC tech reporter Jim Goldman blew the biggest story on his beat by insisting his "sources inside the company" said Apple's Steve Jobs was in tip-top shape. Do these sources even exist? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by cassandra: Owen, stick to financial stuff like this. You are so much better at it. There are a couple of CNBC reporters... 3 Responses | Other threads
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jim goldman
Why CNBC's Tech Reporter Keeps Coming Up Short
There's a reason why CNBC viewers get shortchanged on their tech coverage: Jim Goldman, the network's Silicon Valley bureau chief, is not very tall. It's the kind of thing polite people don't talk about here. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Aaron Altman: What the fuck was this? If you're going to criticize a journalist, can we stick to criticizing his journalism... 10 Responses | Other threads
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journalismism
CNBC's 'State of Denial' on Apple CEO's Health
After telling CNBC viewers for weeks that Steve Jobs is "fine," the network's Silicon Valley bureau chief Jim Goldman tried a novel experiment in journalism: Talking to a source who wasn't an Apple flack. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by unclevanya: Wow, Owen. You really aren't going to stop hammering until both Steve and CNBC are dead. Do you want them... 4 Responses | Other threads
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public relations
How Steve Jobs Turned CNBC Into Apple Touts
First clip: A CNBC reporter dishes outsidery snark about Apple's supposedly botched iPhone launch. Second clip: CNBC's Silicon Valley bureau chief guzzles the Apple Kool-Aid. Is this the same network?
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By Owen ThomasComment by ADismalScience: So wait - Gizmodo throws up a post on Job. Today, we find out that the report gets a... 6 Responses | Other threads
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cutbacks
Yahoo Retreats from Hollywood
Two years after he left, the ghost of TV executive Lloyd Braun still haunts Yahoo. Which is why a report of lost perks in Yahoo's L.A. office turned into an evisceration of the ex-exec.
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By Owen ThomasComment by kevinarnoldkilleddjtanner: Serenity now, insanity later 3 Responses | Other threads
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dan lyons
Newsweek reporter unpublishes himself
In theory, pro journalists can climb to the top of their fields without sacrificing their built-in urge to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. In practice, even the loosest cannons find themselves battened to the hatch, or whatever the right sailing metaphor is. One of my role models, former Fake Steve Jobs blogger Dan Lyons, seems to have been forced by his new employer to undo his own writing. Here's what happened. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by buzzzkilll: Maybe the post is down because libel is, like, illegal? Duh. 3 Responses | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
Best Jerry Yang resignation headline
The Associated Press does it again. "Yahoo's Yang decides he's no longer the right CEO." That's gotta be a fun job, coming up with the dryly sarcastic headlines. But you gotta be careful with those, because unwitting Web surfers who don't get the jokes-inside-jokes voice of the Internet might actually think you're reporting that Jerry Yang made the decision.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Spy from the Land of Rainpeople: At AP there's no need to think, just report. And the only feedback they are taking from their customers (readers)... more » | Other threads
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dan lyons
Newsweek reporter: Yahoo PR "lying sacks of s—-"
Dan Lyons is shocked, shocked that Yahoo's PR team lied to him about how long CEO Jerry Yang would stay in the job. PR people routinely lie; it's part of the job description. But the good ones don't get caught. Lyons, Newsweek's tech columnist, interviewed Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock less than a month before Monday's announcement that Yang would step down, and Bostock loudly declared Yang was here to stay. One would think no one would be more cynical about the world of tech PR than the man who savaged Apple's spinmeister when he impersonated CEO Steve Jobs in a satirical blog. Lyons is no longer writing as Fake Steve Jobs, but as the real Dan Lyons, he occasionally summons up the old savagery. Here's what he says about the flacks who deceived him about Yang's employment status, as well as a now-scotched advertising deal with Google: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by AltheaWaffles: Dan is a loser. He deletes posts, deletes comments. I'm just waiting for him to delete his entire blog. 1 Responses | Other threads
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death of print
Blog vendor offers to insult every pro journalist on Earth
Have you spent years building your reputation as a reporter? Are you a bit anxious, because you read a rant by Jeff Jarvis that says you're now unemployable for life? Never fear. Smug-faced Six Apart CEO Chris Alden is here to save you with The TypePad Journalist Bailout Program. How it works: You send Six Apart a link to "your last piece for a newspaper, magazine or broadcast journalism venue." Six Apart gives you a free TypePad blog. You get to keep a few pennies of the couple of bucks per month Six Apart will make from ads they'll run on your blog. Most important, the inept, self-aggrandizing management team at Six Apart gets to brag about all the storied journalists they've now got blogging for them. Thanks for the offer, Chris. But I'd rather saw my own head off.
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By Paul BoutinComment by anildash: Hi Paul, thanks for the link to the bailout program. You can feel free to substitute my smug face if... 2 Responses | Other threads
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sarah lacy
Valleywag woes won't stop SF journalist from talking about herself
"I always laugh when people talk about how 'self-promotional' I am," blogs vaguely-connected-to-BusinessWeek writer Sarah Lacy in a 902-word post, "given that for ten years of my career you never knew a thing about me other than my byline." Lacy says that Valleywag was more interesting when editor-owner Nick Denton wrote it. We think she's onto an interesting pattern: Sarah Lacy was more interesting when Nick Denton wrote about her, too. -
jeff jarvis
No one hates journalists like a former journalist
"Something has changed in the last year or two," Slate's Ron Rosenbaum says of Entertainment Weekly founder turned professional conference-goer Jeff Jarvis. "It's the callous contempt for working journalists that grates. It's a contempt for the beautiful losers." True, it's puzzling to watch new media pundits spit in the faces of all the sad, doomed newspaper reporters whose careers are being eroded by the Internet. Rosenbaum goes way longer than Slate ever lets me write, so I've pull-quoted his best 100 words: More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by Figaro: I bet FOX and those idiots there will take him once he overstays welcome on other people's blog rolls... ahahhaha.... more » | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
The Economist reduced to reblogging Wired
My Wired essay "Kill Your Blog" has spawned a charmingly identical piece in The Economist's print edition this week. Same theme, same Jason Calacanis quote from July. But read this part out loud: "A decade ago, PDAs were the preserve of digerati who liked using electronic address books and calendars. Now they are gone, but they are also ubiquitous, as features of almost every mobile phone." I'd love to meet The Economist's anonymous author, if only to confirm that anyone on Earth actually talks that way.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Spy from the Land of Rainpeople: Having met some of them, I can attest that they not only talk using such a stuffy grammar, but they... 3 Responses | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
Googler mom Esther Wojcicki's sideline job as Google publicist
What about the children? Palo Alto High School teacher Esther "Woj" Wojcicki took time away from educating future reporters to write about America's teens for the Huffington Post. In the piece, she promotes a nonprofit letter-writing project sponsored by Google and touts the use of Google Docs. No surprise there: Woj, whose daughter Anne is married to Google cofounder Sergey Brin and whose daughter Susan is a Google executive, has been promoting Google's pet causes from the first. But only now, after Valleywag has twice pointed out Woj's failure to disclose family conflicts of interest, has she started to include a disclaimer. Too bad it's deceptive. More » -
patrick byrne
Overstock.com chief lying about company's finances since 2001
When Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, isn't issuing paranoid rants about "naked shorts" ruining Wall Street, or admitting that his online store's buggy software has been producing false financial reports, he keeps busy lying to journalists. Including yours truly. Back in 2002, I interviewed Byrne for Business 2.0 magazine, a tipster recently reminded me. Here was the exchange: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by RaleighRullus: Byrne didn't lie. He wasn't deliberately being misleading. He had no clue because his POS company is basically... more » | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
Why Time gave 23andMe a prize
Time's Anita Hamilton is refreshingly honest about why the magazine has picked 23andMe, the mail-order DNA testing outfit, as one of its top innovations of 2008: Anne Wojcicki, the startup's cofounder, is married to Google cofounder Sergey Brin. Few outlets are as forthright in displaying their motivations for celebrating 23andMe, arguably the least innovative and least scientific of the retail DNA tests on the market. Give Anne Wojcicki a prize, and her loyal husband will attend the awards ceremony. It's a great way to get Googler star power on the cheap.
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By Owen ThomasComment by GenevaRam: This insider-love has been going on forever. It's only because of the transparency of the Web (and those willing to... more » | Other threads
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esther wojcicki
Google founder's journalist mother-in-law writes blimp infomercial
Esther Wojcicki, known as "Woj" at Palo Alto High School, where she teaches journalism, is a beloved figure on campus. She's also quite welcome at the Googleplex, as the mother of Anne Wojcicki, who's married to Google cofounder Sergey Brin, and Google executive Susan Wojcicki. I wonder if proximity to power and wealth has dulled Woj's reportorial instincts. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by VedetteLinglewood: I can also say that I was a former student of Woj's, and this article is at least offensive, if... 1 Responses | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
America's Hookers Smarter Than Undecided Voters
Great news for Obama: "Majority of Allegheny prostitutes are on the Democratic side." This is a fantastic piece of investigative journalism by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. See, they found 675 people convicted of prostitution-related crimes and then looked up their voter registration information. Look what else they discovered: More »
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By PareeneComment by Sarcastro: Pittsburgh does seem to have more than its share of tranny hookers. It's a very weird place for a small... 7 Responses | Other threads
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blogging for dollars
Hotshot political blogger's covert funding
Ana Marie Cox, the original Wonkette blogger, left our cozy Gawker family two years ago for a big gig with Time. A regular on TV and in wonky political magazines I don't read, Cox has been blogging for Time from John McCain's plane. But now Ana Marie is in trouble: Turns out her $1,000-a-day expenses on McCain's plane weren't fully covered by Time. Cox was making ends meet with paychecks from Radar, a pseudoinfluential New York magazine. Radar goes out of business every couple of years to stay trendy. Last week, the mag dutifully shut down for a third time. Cox, despite a "mid-six-figures" book deal in the works, was reduced to pleading for donations on her personal blog. There's a big lesson here, and I think it's: Owen, I want my travel paid in advance.
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By Paul BoutinComment by drinkwater: Never pay for travel on your own dime, no matter how much they tell you that you will be reimbursed.... 2 Responses | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
Top 10 commenters TechCrunch is afraid of
I understand it's still Tough Times, Tough Decisions month. But a layoff at TechCrunch would have been better than a post by TechCrunch's leader criticizing the site's commenters. It's a slow news morning here, too, so I'll reblog the best entry, No. 3: More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by kimbjo: luckily i use my neighbours free wifi connection to surf valleywag. 1 Responses | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
Wall Street Journal discovers Twitter
The Wall Street Journal is running a strange article about Twitter. Everything about it strikes me as bizarre, right down to the picture, which shows Jack Dorsey, the cofounder recently ousted as the company's CEO. Indeed, the article is more telling in what it doesn't cover than what it does. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by neekolas: I think there are ways to make money from twitter that don't involve charging for any use. The thousands of... 1 Responses | Other threads
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peter kafka
Lazy reporter crowdsources new column
Peter Kafka is Kara Swisher's latest star hire at AllThingsD. She stole him from Silicon Alley Insider, where he worked with Henry Blodget. At SAI, Kafka always seemed to do fine without invoking the wisdom of the crowd. Why is Kara pushing him to go on and on about nothing? His first post was the standard Web 2.0 "Hello, world." His second takes 400 words to restate its own headline. Peter, here's my first and last free rewrite. Give me credit for not saying "Kafka-esque." More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by ShyamalikaHespera: AllThingsD is a total sinkhole. All anybody does is spout idiotic commentary on there. Soon Peter will devolve to talking... 1 Responses | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
Windows 7 may be early, Google tells Mary Jo Foley
Microsoft says that Windows 7, the badly needed replacement for Windows Vista, the operating system so laughably bad it tried renaming it, is coming out in 2010. Officially. But Mary Jo Foley, the longtime Microsoft observer, thinks it's coming sooner — before the middle of next year, quite possibly. Foley has plenty of sources she talks to on the phone, but she does some of her best work piecing things together at her keyboard. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by revmatty: I still don't get how they came up with 7. What versions are they pretending didn't happen. I... 18 Responses | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
How to have your layoff spin published verbatim
Got layoffs? Don't spend hours crafting the perfect "Hard Times, Hard Choices" blog post for your leader. Here's how to hack the media to deliver your message: More » -
great moments in journalism
Indian gangbangers get rich off U.S. tech industry
"'Thanks to convoluted laws and corrupt officials, claiming ownership over a piece of property in Bangalore can be as easy as hiring thugs to paint your name on the side of a building.' The chaos makes gangsters who can impose order — like the murderous Muthappa Rai — very wealthy." More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by michaellamb: innnneresting. So you're saying that we can get back our outraageous 10months of rent deposit on our place and just... 1 Responses | Other threads
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confirmed
Digg users even smarter than we thought
Layoff-driven journalism: "Let's expose all the patterns in the media! It'll be great for us! Don't forget to link to our previous coverage." Owen, please listen to what readers are telling us: Bury, bury, bury. -
great moments in journalism
Free Dan Lyons!
I'm glad Dan Lyons has landed a high-profile gig at Newsweek. But the newsweekly format crushes everything I love about Dan's writing. Look at his latest: He starts with a provocative question — why is Jerry Yang still in charge? — but doesn't answer it in the cutting manner we've come to expect. "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently made an off-the-cuff, public comment that seemed to indicate to some he might still be interested in Yahoo." Dan, this is the kind of writing Fake Steve used to shred with his bare hands. Namaste, but please forward us some of those canned layoff leaks companies send you now that you're a checkout-stand hero. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by TMonster: Anonimity is a powerful tool. Why do you think confession boxes are designed the way they are? Remove the veil... more » | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
Reporters sacrifice one of their own to Steve Jobs
"Blame Duncan Riley," opens a Fortune report on this week's awesome saga in which an ex-TechCrunch employee unwittingly manipulated Apple's stock price. But it's not over until we bury the bodies. Here's the 100-word recap: More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by sample032: Oh, so that's why Valleywag always puts "_____ reports" before questionable stories. more » | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
Fortune unpublishes report of 3,000 job cuts at Yahoo
Is Yahoo cutting 3,000-plus jobs? A source inside the company says plans have been set to slash 3,500 jobs on December 10. And, briefly, Fortune's Techland blog agreed, reporting that Bain & Co. had recommended Yahoo cut 3,000 of its 15,000 employees. The Fortune post has been unpublished, though it still appears in Google News. I've called the writers to ask what happened to the story. Here's the excerpt which ran on Google News: More » -
great moments in journalism
Reporters learn Yahoo's secret plan: Copy Facebook
Don't call it a "social network" — the product that will save Yahoo is an "enhanced profile." Which just happens to look exactly like someone's profile page on Facebook or MySpace — friends, updates, and all of that. CNET News editor-in-chief Dan Farber got the PowerPoint deck, as did AllThingsD's Kara Swisher. Is it something they teach you in journalism school — that writing about tech involves fawning over something simply because it is new and you got to see it first? I never got to take that class. (Screenshot via Webware)
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By Owen ThomasComment by pepelicious: So how's this different than Yahoo 360 or Mash (is that even around anymore?)? 2 Responses | Other threads
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Employee of the Month
Jason Calacanis, Valleywag's new Apple analyst
"Valleywag’s Jason Calacanis believes that Apple is working on a networked HDTV," writes Adrian Kingsley-Hughes at ZDNet. Adrian, if your editor tries to make you go back and erase what you wrote, because his drinking buddies from Columbia Journalism Review think it's fatal to publish a huge factual fuckup in the first three words of an article, call me. I'll come over and slap J. Jonah Jameson with a printout of exactly how many people have already seen it. Tell him, "It's not the crime, it's the coverup." Has-been journalists love a Watergate reference. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by WagCurious: Apple likes margins greater than 0. They won't be making a TV anytime soon. Nor will they invest in disposal... more » | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
CNN analyst checks Facebook during debates
A cameraman caught CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin checking Facebook in the middle of Wednesday's presidential debate. Come on, admit it: You were doing it, too. (Why is GOP media consultant Alex Castellanos's name scrolling through the frame? Yeah, we couldn't figure that out, either, but we're told it's Toobin on screen, not Castellanos.)
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By Owen ThomasComment by snidleywhiplash: He was trying to send a Friend Request to Joe the Plumber. 1 Responses | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
New York Times reporter says he's an unwitting Dell shill
Marc Santora, the New York Times reporter who appears in ads for Dell's DigitalNomads site, says he received no compensation for the ad, which came from an interview Santora did for Big Think, a website backed by Facebook investor Peter Thiel. What appears to have happened: Dell or its ad agency, Federated Media, created the ad for Dell's DigitalNomads, using a clip from Santora's Big Think video. In a comment, Big Think cofounder Peter Hopkins says that Dell is a sponsor of his site, but the ad does not mention Big Think. (The Big Think interview was also published to YouTube, and DigitalNomads' producers embedded the clip in a blog post.) From what Santora's saying, no one asked him or the Times for permission to run the endorsement. If so, Dell could be in rather big trouble — and not just with the Times. More » -
the olds
Mainstream media decides Google no longer makes you stupid
The long, slow process of scientific peer review makes a dull story. It's much snappier to throw out a contrarian question like, "Has Google made us stupid?" After the topic bubbles around a bit, it's appealing to find an exclusive new study that rebuts the media's own conventional wisdom. When that reporter's need arises, PR people are there, exclusive new studies in hand. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by Spy from the Land of Rainpeople: since 1981 Is the date-dropping (since first time using the Internet) a new name-dropping? If so, could you officially update the Silicon... more » | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
New York Times reporter shills for Dell site
Why is Marc Santora, a respected war correspondent for the New York Times, appearing in ads chattering about mobile technology? Click on the ad, running on sites like VentureBeat, and you're taken to a site, DigitalNomads, which appears to be a collection of blog-filler pablum about the wonders of the wireless Internet. Buried at the bottom is a tiny disclaimer: "Powered by Dell." Dig under the ad-placement code, and you'll see that the ad is sold by Federated Media, John Battelle's online-ad network. Battelle's outfit grew infamous last summer for getting some of the bloggers for whom he sells ads to recite a sponsor's slogan. That last time, it was Microsoft. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by SushobhanaEspical: I am the co-founder of Big Think, the site that produced this interview with Marc Santora. We're a new... 2 Responses | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
Calacanis attempts to liveblog entire world
"We're liveblogging the world," funtrepreneur Jason Calacanis tweeted about Mahalo's new human-powered news feed on the search site's front door. Jason, help me out here: A couple weeks ago you bragged about forecasting the Startup Depression of 2008. Now you've added a powered-by-humans news feed to your product that looks like CNN crossed with Fark. How did you justify this to your investors in the face of a startup depression? Because from my experience, all English-language content looks the same to a VC. I'm not sure if I should ask when your funders will finally pull the plug on your two-bulldogs lifestyle, or if I'm just playing on the wrong team.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Shadowlayer: I've yet to meet someone IRL that knows WTF mahalo is. more » | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
In today's news, I met Al Gore!
GigaOm's Om Malik and Mashable's Pete Cashmore like to present themselves as leaders of a new kind of Web 2.0 journalism. Both turned up at Current TV's offices Friday, ostensibly to cover Current's Twitter-enhanced coverage of the first Presidential debate. Truth is, Current's publicists had called reporters to tip us off that executive chairman of the board Al Gore would be there. Gore didn't bother to use Twitter himself — he didn't even stick around for the debate. But he did take time to pose for photos. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by Nikongmer: You may have met him but how many people can say they've patted him down? Al Gore has very built... 1 Responses | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
Wired lauds Current TV for copying CNN
Current TV's Twitter-enhanced live feed of the Obama/McCain debate on Friday "broke new ground," according to Wired blogger Sarah Lai Stirland. But it's been nearly a month since the September 8 premiere of CNN's Rick Sanchez Direct, in which Sanchez turns the camera on Twitter for the modern version of man-on-the-street quotes. How it works: You add Rick. He adds you back. You then tweet live during his show. He may pullquote you, or run the live stream onscreen. Sanchez, currently following nearly 18,000 people, already drew attention for his live tweet-reading during Hurricane Gustav, when Twitterers filed reported facts to millions of viewers. More »
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Comment by DouglasHaechler: This is a pretty selective report. It broke new ground for a presidential debate, which I've been covering during the... 1 Responses | Other threads
great moments in journalism
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Thu Jul 9
43 posts in the last 24 hours
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
