“At least my analysis is honest and public. Who are you but another anonymous commenter with crappy attitude? You want to be taken seriously—to engage in real discussion—start by crawling out from behind the rock of anonymity you cowardly hide behind. That goes for other comment trolls fouling Betanews and other Websites.

My response to a snarky Betanews commenter, late this afternoon.

I oppose anonymous commenting.

Do you have an online community story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

Journalist Burnout is Symptom of Sick Newsrooms

newsroom

When I started my online-only news career at CNET (1999-2003), the metrics for success largely extended from print: Scoops (and for me, provocative analysis). Now, as Jeremy Peters writes for the New York Times (“In a World of Online News, Burnout Starts Younger”), the measure is pageviews—and scoops, too, for some news organizations. Journalists are burning out fast and young, and for easily discernable reasons. Too much is demanded of them (and for too little compensation).

Journalists, Don’t Fall for Predicto’s Flack Attack about iPhone 4 Recall

iPhone 4

This morning, I received a PR pitch from social networking survey service Predicto, which existence I had no prior knowledge. I’m simply aghast by the flagrant misuse of data and assertion that based on a Predicto survey, Apple will likely recall iPhone 4.

From the email:

With Apple slated to hold a press conference tomorrow, the most likely topic seems to be how to correct the iPhone 4 signal issues cited by users and proven in a recent Consumer Reports’ study. As such, Predicto Mobile, the nation’s largest premium mobile service content provider, has turned to consumers for their input, polling its pool of 2 million subscribers to see what they think Apple will do. And according to results so far, it seems likely they will be pulled from shelves.

TechCrunch and Woot play to AP’s Weakness

Some people—heck, some organizations—have no sense of humor. Humorless perhaps best describes Associated Press, which apparently didn’t get Woot’s joke about owing money for a blog excerpt. TechCrunch’s MG Siegler put AP in its place today, that’s assuming there isn’t yet a nasty takedown-notice response coming.

Some quick background: About two years ago, AP decided that no one should excerpt its content without paying for it. The policy defies decades of journalist practices and fair-use laws. I could understand AP going after blocks of text, but no, it’s the little excerpts, too. Excerpt up to 50 words and AP expects you to pay $17.50; 100 bucks for 251 words or more. The approach is controversial, as it should be.

MSNBC.com bets on Readers

I can’t much imagine how MSNBC.com could have designed a news site seemingly more unfriendly to generating static pageviews—unless there is some secret Google gaming formula. The secret sauce is there, and I love it. MSNBC.com’s updated news site pulls readers in rather than sending them out.

It’s a very Web-unconventional approach. Aggregators of the InterWeb game pageviews by driving people to click, click, click. Each click takes them somewhere else. Business Insider has got this method down to a science, using headline stories as landing pages to drive readers to other page(s) for fuller story or to multi-page slideshows. Tip: Whenever you see a slideshow, someone is trying to drive up pageviews. Slideshows are hugely reader unfriendly, which puts the site’s priority in perspective: Money, not news—and certainly not readers.

Coffee Shop Newsrooms

Doreen Marchionni:

My fantasy newsroom is one where the public comes and goes (within reason, of course) and story ideas flow freely in all directions. In England in the 1600s, news grew out of coffeehouses this way. Decades later in the U.S. colonies, the venue of choice switched to pubs. (I like that journalism in America is tied up with drinking. Explains a lot.)

Here’s a big shout-out to the Freehold, New Jersey initiative above. I’m rooting for (literal) conversational journalism par excellence.

I love this concept, too. Too many journalists carry the conversation online, too far removed from their readers and sources. Meanwhile, the news that matters—particularly for a local publication—is all around journalists, if only they got out once and awhile to see it.

The Internet makes journalists lazy. It removes them from the real people they’re supposed to be writing about and for. Social media isn’t a new concept, just its Internet evolution. The coffee shop newsroom is a delightful get-back-to-basics reporting concept without giving up the Net’s value as a research tool. Advice to all journalists: The Internet isn’t your source—people are your sources.

Do you have a coffeehouse journalism story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

Mika Krammer talks Microsoft Store

Joe Wilcox

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

On June 24, 2010, minutes after Microsoft Store San Diego opened, I interviewed Mika Krammer, general manager of merchandising and marketing for the company’s retail operations. Mika’s PR handlers gave me time for three questions, and I was grateful for those. Her marketing priority was rightly local broadcast stations, not me.

Mika missed a huge opportunity with the first question. About an hour earlier, she toured Microsoft’s fourth retail store with journalists; I asked to later conduct the interview and prepped her for the question (There was too much ambient background noise to do it right then). She could have sounded really smart by talking about the future of technology retailing—after all, she knew the Q was coming. Instead, Mika stuck to her Microsoft Store talking points. Dumb.

I can’t blame her. She’s just another executive following the plan laid out by media and PR consultants who devise a message and coach the client how to stick with it. I asked no hard questions, and I could easily have gone jugular. That teens and tweens dominated the front of the Microsoft line—to get freebees—starkly contrasted with the iPhone 4 launch just down the way at Apple Store, where customers begged for the privilege of paying money.

Perhaps next time, I should stuff the softballs and throw hardballs.

Do you have journalism or PR story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

Eight Reasons I Love Pop17

Pop17 If Sarah Austin is the future of journalism, I have hope that accuracy, authenticity and accountability may yet survive. Yesterday, Sarah tumbleblogged something she posted 16 days earlier that I missed: “Blogging Code of Ethics.”

Now there’s a strange concept: Blogging and ethics. It’s strange because I’ve seen too many blogs acting as marketing fronts—and too many others scraping other sites’ content and reposting it for profit. In neither case does much fact checking go along with the blogs. I identified the problem in posts “The Difference Between Blogging and Journalism” and “Gossipers of the InterWeb.”

This week at the D8 conference, Kara Swisher interviewed Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt and ProPublica editor-in-chief Paul Steiger. As interviewees, the men go oddly together. Richard’s business is about social media and filling online informational niches. Paul’s business is gifted journalism, in terms of talent and financial backing. ProPublica is a non-profit site dedicated to “journalism in the public interest.” Awesome. Paul if you’re hiring, and even you’re not, I’ll work for you.

Do you have a journalism or social media story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

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