dapenguinninja asks: you think the tumblr editorial team should still be working? that it is an unprecedented layoff?
» SFB says: I wouldn’t call it “unprecedented,” per se—people get laid off all the time, sad as it is—but I do think that it’s a shame because they did a lot to “class up” the joint, so to say. Storyboard stretched out Tumblr’s voice in a way that it needed to be stretched and showed that deep, interesting things can be done with the format in truly engaging ways. But as my friend Josh Sternberg points out on Digiday, that may not be exactly what Tumblr needs right now from a business strategy point. “An editorial outfit is a nice idea, but it’s hardly what the company most needs, which is experienced sales people and a differentiated message to bring to agencies and brands,” he wrote today. “Ironically enough, firing its editorial staff can be seen as a needed step in becoming a real media business.” So from a pure business standpoint, perhaps the move makes sense. But from a cultural and journalistic standpoint, it’s a bummer. — Ernie @ SFB
Tumblr’s Storyboard was a daily read for many Mashable editors, so we’re offering to publish some of its planned stories in the wake of its shut-down.+1 for Mashable.
Pure class right there.
(Source: editorial)
A year ago, Tumblr did something unprecedented — we created an editorial team of experienced journalists and editors assigned to cover Tumblr as a living, breathing community. The team’s mandate was to tell the stories of Tumblr creators in a truly thoughtful way — focusing on the people, their work, and their stories. The result of this ambitious experiment was Storyboard.
After hundreds of stories and videos, features by publishers ranging from Time to MTV to WNYC — not to mention a nomination for a James Beard Award and entries into this year’s NY Press Club Awards — we couldn’t be happier with our team’s effort. And as Tumblr continues to evolve, we’ll always be experimenting with new ways to shine light on our creators.
What we’ve accomplished with Storyboard has run its course for now, and our editorial team will be closing up shop and moving on. I want to personally thank them for their great work. And please join us in wishing them well.
Smart people doing smart things get laid off. Depressing.
How a Gun Control Petition Went from the Tumblr Dashboard to Washington DC
I created the petition “Immediately address the issue of control through the introduction of legislation in Congress” as a knee-jerk reaction in mid-December of last year. It was a way of gaining control over a situation I had no control over. After the awful extent of the Sandy Hook shootings became clear, I felt disoriented. The mind tends to turn toward blame, but the murder of twenty children and six school officials was, and will always be, a hard thing to wrap my head around.
I knew that if there ever were a tipping point for effective gun control, this would be it. So, I wrote a petition. My primary goal was to appeal to both sides of the debate. Writing an incendiary, partisan petition benefits no one. The vast majority of gun owners are people who have the Constitutional right to own one, several, or many guns, and singling these people out was wrong. Simply put, the petition was intended to start a realistic dialogue about guns and their role in the United States. We have a gun problem, plain and simple.
Great piece by David on his notable contribution to a larger debate — a contribution which took him to the White House this week.
On the Road with Leonard Cohen
Once “the proverbial family table” is set, everyone comes to “feast,” and the meal in question is the music of Leonard Cohen. So says Cohen’s road manager Joseph Carenza III, who has presided over Notes from the Road since July 2010, chronicling the travels of Cohen and company with photograph after photograph.
In the new year, Carenza wants to take that Tumblr to another level. He says that while actually on tour, there was “no way I could honor people’s time and attention,” given all the things he had to do. Now that he has a bit more free time and a slightly more fleshed-out crew, he’s trying to think of ways to reach “outward.”
Leonard Cohen’s Tumblr is pretty rad if you haven’t read it. Side note: This piece is written by the very awesome Evan Fleischer.
It’s a little early to know exactly what we can learn from social media metrics. I think the way we’ll be looking at this stuff will be very different in four years, in eight years, in twelve years. For right now, we’re kind of in an awkward adolescent age … we’re out of the classical innocent era of our youth where you could just call someone on the phone. But we’re not sure what the substitute for that is yet.With all the recent brewhaha about Nate Silver’s controversial projections for tonight’s outcome, and while we’re all waiting for some legit data to come back from the polls, it seems like a good time to revisit our exclusive interview with Mr. Silver back in September. Enjoy! (via election)
Capturing Libya: Through a Hipstamatic Lens
To photojournalism purists, it was pure blasphemy: a prestigious prize, third place for photo of the year, granted to a New York Times photographer who’d used not a 35mm to document U.S. soldiers in Iraq, but simply, his iPhone — and an app called Hipstamatic. Immediately, traditionalists went berserk: “What we knew as photojournalism at its purest form is over,” one photojournalist lamented. Using Hipstamatic in a news report, another commentator proclaimed, was “cheating us all.”
And yet, to Ben Lowy, a conflict photographer who has made a career out of a certain brand of iPhonography — and will debut the first ever photojournalism-inspired Hipstamatic lens with his namesake later this year — the award was a well-needed wake-up call for photojournalism fundamentalists. Last February, Lowy set out to capture the uprising in Libya from his iPhone (alongside millions of protesters who’d document the Arab Spring on their mobile devices) in photos that would fuel reporting from the region in outlets around the globe. In October, Lowy’s Hipstamatic images of everyday life in wartime Kabul were published in the New York Times Magazine, prompting the magazine’s photo editor, Kathy Ryan, to defend their use on the paper’s 6th Floor blog. And since then, Lowy has published an iPhone photo a day — from dramatic images of war to mundane life in Brooklyn — on his Tumblr, captured under the title, iSee.
That he’s found a home on Tumblr suggests that Tumblr is a place for new approaches.
For those who think the political writers on Tumblr aren’t serious about their craft.
He’s referencing this.
This is also my announcement to all of you that on Monday I am starting a full time internship with the Daily Caller. Specifically, I will be interning with and being mentored by Matt Lewis.
On that note, if you have any juicy tips you feel deserve to be in the national news, feel free to let me know here, on Twitter @BearGreenZ, or by email. I’m more than happy to discuss potentially interesting stories.
Major props to one of our favorite Tumblrs for turning his smart insights into an awesome internship.
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