Let’s have an amnesty — from the left and the right — on every made-up, fake, totally insincere, playacted hurt, insult, slight and affront. Let’s make this Sunday the National Day of No Outrage. One day a year when you will not find some tiny thing someone did or said and pretend you can barely continue functioning until they apologize. If that doesn’t work, what about this: If you see or hear something you don’t like in the media, just go on with your life. Turn the page or flip the dial or pick up your roll of quarters and leave the booth.Bill Maher’s opinion-editorial piece in the New York Times entitled “Please Stop Apologizing.” [New York Times] (via producermatthew)
NYT tightens the paywall vice: Make those 10 articles count. (Though we admit that it’s totally one of the few newspapers in the country worth subscribing to.)
We disagree with the views expressed, which we don’t think reflect the way we run our business. In our view, we will only be successful if our clients are successful. This fundamental truth lies at the heart of how we conduct ourselves.A spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs • Discussing the claims made in a New York Times op-ed by now-departing exec Greg Smith. An exec speaking off the record in the response story says that Smith’s job was a “relatively junior position held by thousands of Goldman employees around the world,” despite the fact that he’s listed as a vice president. I’m sorry, what sort of effed-up corporate culture must you have to have thousands of vice presidents? On a side note, Smith’s letter is already a meme. Check out these quips, thought up by HyperVocal.
It turned out the real danger was not the weapons but possibly the horses. Anthony was allergic. He did not know how badly. He had a terrible allergic attack that first night after we crossed over the barbed wire. He had another attack a week later, as horses led us out of Syria, just 45 minutes from safety. He died during that attack, at only 43, his wife and nearly 2-year-old son waiting for him in Turkey.New York Times photographer Tyler Hicks • Describing the events that led to the death of well-regarded journalist Anthony Shadid in Syria a few weeks ago. Hicks, acting as witness to Shadid’s fateful final week in Syria, wrote a piece describing what it was like in the country. “His Arabic allowed him to speak directly to people without the buffer of an interpreter,” Hicks writes of Shadid. “As always, he conveyed a genuine interest that made people open up to him; everyone was equal, no story insignificant.”
Anthony Shadid, Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times, has died of an asthma attack while on assignment in Syria. Shadid was an incredible journalistic talent.
The Times executive editor Jill Abramson has said in a statement:
Anthony died as he lived — determined to bear witness to the transformation sweeping the Middle East and to testify to the suffering of people caught between government oppression and opposition forces.
Photo: Shadid in Cairo last February. Ed Ou/NYT.
EDIT: Here is a collection of all of Shadid’s work for the New York Times, which was always exemplary and a model for everyone in the business.
This guy was seriously one of the greats. Read up on him.
A Believer Packing Beer and Guitars
Note: This is an article about Craig Finn written by David Carr. If there’s a journalism version of Craig Finn hiding around these days, it’s David Carr.
UPDATE on NYT email: “The email was sent by the NYT,” a spokeswoman said. Should’ve gone to appx 300 people & went to over 8 mil. Story TK
— Amy Chozick (@amychozick) December 28, 2011
An annoying story, but a fun one, admittedly. Update: Here’s Amy’s story.
Ci@ali$, anyone? I’m tired of trying to sell papers.
— NYT Spam (@NYTSpam) December 28, 2011
… comes from a single-subject account titled @NYTSpam. Good work, genius of timing.
A high-profile e-mail message hits many. A couple of hours ago, we received the above message from the NYT, thinking it strange they were canceling our print subscription because we only have a digital one. We called the number, and were told the lines were busy, and offered a fax line to call — because, clearly, faxes are the most modern mode of communication these days. Then, just a few minutes ago, we saw this:
A spam message was sent broadly today with the subject “Important information regarding your subscription.”
— NYTCo Communications (@NYTimesComm) December 28, 2011
The email was not sent from The New York Times.
— NYTCo Communications (@NYTimesComm) December 28, 2011
Not good, huh? Well, according to Business Insider, the company in charge of these accounts was compromised earlier this year. Did you get this message?
» EDIT: Yuri Victor at The Washington Post says it’s likely the e-mail was a mistake, despite the company’s claims otherwise, and that the sender had the right to e-mail subscribers for the paper.
» Second edit: A New York Times reporter says that the Times made an error, and that the message wasn’t spam.
Brian Stelter of The New York Times — generally one of Twitter’s best users — made a gaffe in which he claimed that Christiane Amanpour is leaving ABC News’ “This Week,” where she made a high-profile move last year. However, he did so unintentionally — he meant to DM it, but instead, publicly shared it. Stelter, to his credit, kept the original tweet online. A look-back:
I’m hearing that Amanpour is formally out of “This Week” — though only from a single source — are you hearing the same? 212-556-4668
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 13, 2011
The initial tweet.
Well that was embarrassing. That was supposed to be a DM.
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 13, 2011
The reaction.
3 reasons I didn’t delete accidental tweet: people had already read it; some had retweeted it; it needed to be explained.
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 13, 2011
The explanation.
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They talked to him for four hours over roughly two days. This is different from the Bob Costas interview a few weeks back, which was a phone interview done on the fly; this is more in depth. So why did he agree to it, knowing how poorly that one went? Well, he wanted an opportunity to explain his motives — which he says have been greatly misconstrued by prosecutors and the public at large. “They’ve taken everything that I ever did for any young person and twisted it to say that my motives were sexual or whatever,” he said. “I had kid after kid after kid who might say I was a father figure. And they just twisted that all.” In the interview, he confirmed that he gave children gifts — which prosecutors have painted as part of a confidence scheme — but tried to explain it was meant as positive reinforcement. He also claimed the his relationships with the alleged victims extended far beyond the dates of alleged sexual abuse. And though his world has fallen apart around him, he claims to confide in his dog Bo. Read it and see what you guys think.
An unsung journalistic hero: Before Louis Silverstein, newspaper design was a trade, not a profession. With the many changes he made as art director of the Times in the 1960s and 1970s, he helped change that. White space? More ambitious typefaces? Larger fonts? Abstract illustrations? Those were all his doing. Many of the conventions that modern newspapers now take advantage of came (in part) from Silverstein’s work. It took a lot of pushing, but Silverstein sold editors on these ideas. As a result, the Gray Lady is (and many other papers are) a lot less gray. And graphic design and news aren’t separate entities. Silverstein died Thursday at 92. (Also worth a read:The Society for News Design has a lot of anecdotes about an important figure in visual journalism.) source
Apocalypse now? Donald Trump is going to moderate a debate.
Who would show up for such a thing? Likely everybody.
Though presidential candidates may initially balk at the idea of appearing in a debate where Mr. Trump – with his bombast and The Hair – is the one posing the questions, they may ultimately see it as an invitation they can’t refuse. In fact many of the candidates have already met with him, some more publicly than others. Representative Michele Bachmann has sat down with Mr. Trump several times this year. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas had dinner with him at Jean Georges, the posh Manhattan restaurant. And Mitt Romney paid a visit but carefully avoided being photographed.
And Newsmax is a powerful player itself. It has a broad reach into the conservative base, with monthly Web traffic second only to Fox News among sites with conservative-leaning audiences.
Looks like our post-Christmas plans just got a little crazy.
rcabbasi said: As has already been pointed out, calling a single political party “the Salafis” is misleading and inaccurate.
» SFB says: The NYT article that the quote was culled from is written in a way that implies this, referring to supporters of the party as “the Salafis” down to the quotes used (example: the quote we pulled out). We reworded our part to reflect that it’s not in fact a single political party for a much larger group. Apologies for the confusion. — Ernie @ SFB
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