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Posted on 02.19.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 9:47 am
Hot Air has the proof in picture. By sheer luck, we happened to be chatting with James Joyner of Outside the Beltway when FreedomWorks honored Ed Morrissey of Hot Air as its “Blogger of the Year.” My hot wife, Kimberly, is in the hot pink blouse in the right of the photo, and I’m the dude next to her having a really bad hair night. (I really need a haircut!) Kudos to my friend Ed for the much-deserved honor. He also will be honored as CPAC’s “Blogger of the Year” today. Ed was one of the first bloggers I met after starting Beltway Blogroll for National Journal in 2005, and he is among the most thoughtful and fair-minded bloggers on the Web. If you don’t already read Hot Air, now under new management, then you should. I blog there occasionally myself in Hot Air’s Greenroom. I just posted an entry there this morning in my new role as the editorial director of the free-market think tank Digital Society. The topic is the left’s spooky vision for media reform. Here’s an excerpt:
Read the whole thing, and stay tuned to Digital Society for analysis of technology policy and how it can help or hurt America’s burgeoning digital culture and commerce. Filed under: Blogging and Family and Government and Media and News & Politics and People and Technology Comments: None |
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Posted on 01.04.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 5:35 pm
It’s time for a bit of self-promotion: “Danny Glover is the new editor of the Capitol Hill Tweet Watch Report.”
That’s the big announcement in today’s edition of the aforementioned daily newsletter, which tracks all things policy and politics on Twitter for the Beltway crowd. My friend and new media maven David All launched Capitol Hill Tweet Watch Report last month, and I eagerly accepted his invitation to start the new year as its editor. Here’s a snippet from the blurb about my new gig:
While the publication is geared toward people inside the Beltway who don’t necessarily use Twitter themselves, it’s also a useful publication for anyone who wants to keep tabs on the policy and political news in the Twitterverse. If that includes you, please subscribe to the daily e-mail, follow @tweetwatch on Twitter, and spread the word about the publication. Filed under: Blogging and Government and Media and News & Politics and Technology Comments: None |
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Posted on 12.04.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 12:59 am
Newsrooms all across America are celebrating this holiday season just like they did last year’s — by handing pink slips to loyal employees. Layoff news has become so common that it’s a wonder there is anyone left to report the actual news. Sadly, the people who run the media show still seem clueless about how they arrived at this depressing point in journalism history. Given every opportunity to embrace emerging technologies to improve the news product, they not only resisted change but scoffed at bloggers and others who led the way. Now they are firing the very people within their own organizations who could help them right the media ship. Here is one telling report from Chris Gray Faust, a long-time journalist who had the foresight to learn new skills but was still shown the door:
I’d like to think her story is the exception to the rule, but it’s not. Looking for places to cut, The New York Times is rethinking its commitment to blogs, which is strong evidence that the Old Gray Lady was never all that committed to them from the start. Why would a struggling news organization lay off the innovators best prepared to help them transition into a technological world they clearly don’t understand? Or as MediaJobsDaily put it, “We don’t know why you’d take resources away from online, in the year 2009, but that’s the report.” Faust at least appears to have learned her lesson. She’s going to invest her energy and talents in herself rather than a news industry determined to fail and destined to make more foolish mistakes, like running to the government for a bailout or implementing “business/news integration” that puts sales managers in charge of editors. “These freelancers-slash-entrepreneurs are smart. They are nimble,” Faust said. “And now they are my role models, as I join their ranks. So to the managers who made this decision, in less than 140 characters I tell you: Good luck steering the Titanic. And thanks for the head start. Now I’m really going to run.’” CORRECTION: As Faust noted in the comments, she’s a she. My apologies for the gender error, which I have fixed in the entry. Filed under: Advertising and Blogging and Business and Media and Technology Comments: 3 Comments |
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Posted on 09.27.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 3:55 pm
The Internet is a force for good or evil, depending on who’s making the connection. Lots of “morons” trying to score political points at the expense of truth have been online lately. Which brings us to the quote of the day:
Filed under: Blogging and Technology Comments: None |
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Posted on 08.18.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 8:18 pm
When I decided to become a newspaperman, everyone tried to talk me out of it. My Dad was at the top of the list. He wanted me to be an engineer so I could earn a good living. Even j-school professors warned my classmates and me that we had better be passionate about the profession because journalism in general and newspapers in particular are no place to make money. They were right. I never could have afforded the rent in Morgantown, W.Va., on my first full-time salary. Thankfully, my two brothers were in college and we shared a one-bedroom apartment. Dad paid the rent, and I paid the utilities. I was reminded of the vow of poverty I had to take in the early days of my career when I saw an ad on JournalismJobs.com for a reporter in Sandusky, Ohio, which is near Cleveland. The paper wants someone “with enthusiasm, energy, a good sense of humor and the ability to report and write a range of stories” — but it’s only willing to pay $20,000 to $25,000 a year for that person. Just out of curiosity, I checked the median income in Sandusky. It’s $34,085. The average house in the city costs $110,000. No reporter could ever afford one. You might think that would make me second guess my career choice, but it doesn’t. I knew the financial realities when I got into this business, but I also believed I had the passion to succeed — and with God’s help I have. Filed under: Blogging and Business and Media and West Virginia Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 08.01.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 11:42 am
Extortion has found its way into the blogosphere — and all for a pair of Crocs. A greedy “mommy blogger” at the recent BlogHer conference threatened to write something bad about the maker of Crocs if its representative didn’t find her a free pair of the comfy sandals. No doubt about it, that’s low. As I see it, there would have been nothing wrong with said mommy blogger bemoaning her missed opportunity to get good swag at the conference. But threatening to go negative as a way to get a gift she clearly didn’t deserve is completely unethical. The same is true for anyone who uses social media as a weapon. The blogosphere is an effective check against bad customer service, but customers who abuse it are as bad, or worse, than the companies who mistreat them. The temptation to threaten bad press is strong. I’ve fought it myself many times, and even blogosphere bigwigs like Amanda Congdon of Sometimesdaily have fallen prey to the urge: It’s also not a new temptation or exclusive to the new media world. There’s a reason that people remember Mark Twain for saying, “Never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel.” Publishers have been getting even with their enemies in print for centuries. But the use of social media as a weapon — an utterly unsociable practice — is a potentially greater threat because anyone can be a publisher these days. Bloggers should roundly condemn such behavior whenever it surfaces because it will make all of them look bad. Filed under: Blogging and Culture and Media Comments: 2 Comments |
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Posted on 07.09.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:59 pm
Barack Obama is president because people wanted to believe the best of him. He convinced them “hope” that he would “change” Washington. Obama could be trusted; he wasn’t just another politician who would say one thing to get elected and then do the opposite. Wrong! Obama has been in office only six months and already has a string of broken promises or vows that have “changed course” or “stalled.” Actually, Obama’s record is worse than that because promise auditors like PolitiFact and National Journal aren’t tracking all of Obama’s broken promises — like the big one on taxes*. I covered that topic in my latest column for American Issues Project:
Filed under: Blogging and Government and News & Politics and People Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 06.19.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 3:39 pm
Congress can’t consider major legislation with someone trying to tack pork onto it. The leading Senate bill to impose a government option for health care is no exception: Eating pork is supposed to be good for your health. That must be the thinking behind the porky projects Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming found in pending healthcare legislation. … The healthcare bill also includes a “Community Makeover Program” to spend up to $10 per person for beautifying streets in select locales. Coming soon to a Pennsylvania township near you — the John Murtha Yellow Brick Road. Maybe Uncle Sam could get Ty Pennington of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” to make a reality series based on the program. Those are excerpts from my blog post for American Issues Project yesterday. Read it all. While you’re there, read my post about nuclear energy from earlier in the week, “The Nuclear Option.” Filed under: Blogging and Government and News & Politics and People Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 06.19.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 1:39 pm
At the start of the year, I chastised Washington Post blogger Dan Froomkin for what I perceived to be a double standard in how he approached his job as a White House watchdog. Yesterday, Froomkin learned that the Post will not renew his contract to write “White House Watch” because “interest in the blog also diminished.” As someone who endured two layoffs within a year and is now serving in a temporary job during hard economic times, I hate to see anyone lose his job. But I believe Froomkin, a liberal, hastened the demise of his own blog when he wondered aloud whether he should be less skeptical of President Obama than he was President Bush, a relatively conservative president. His lack of coverage of Obama’s firing of a supposedly independent inspector general provides evidence that he has been doing just that. Read my thoughts on Froomkin at On Target, the blog of Accuracy In Media. Filed under: Blogging and Media and News & Politics and People Comments: None |
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Posted on 04.02.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 1:15 pm
A link from Instapundit to Pajamas TV’s drive to recruit citizen reporters to cover the anti-tax “tea party” protests across America intrigued me enough to make me click. I’m a fan of the tea parties and have chastised the mainstream media for ignoring them. I’ve contemplated organizing an event myself, but as a journalist, I liked even better the idea that I might be able to contribute by covering one or more planned protests in my area. I lost interest in PJTV’s project after a couple of clicks, though. That’s when I found the company’s “Citizen Reporter Agreement.” PJTV fashions itself a new media innovator, but the contract is about as “old media” as they come. It takes advantage of citizens willing to volunteer their time to report the news while also imposing professional standards and heavy legal liability on their amateur work. First, look at the contract terms that are all take and no give: Filed under: Blogging and Media and News & Politics Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.10.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 5:01 pm
On Jan. 1, 2008, I started a new blog called Taxation With Representation. I planned to track every penny I paid in taxes so I could show Americans how much of their hard-earned income they lose in a year to the government. The blog, a modern-day twist on the “no taxation without representation” motto of British colonists more than 200 years ago, was my declaration of a new war on taxes — and a reminder that the taxes our “representatives” slap on us are far more oppressive than anything our democratically inclined ancestors paid.
You can see the frustration and anger in rants by news celebrities like Rick Santelli and Jim Cramer. And you can see it in grassroots plans like this, which a friend e-mailed to me last week: Filed under: Blogging and Government and History and News & Politics and People Comments: 11 Comments |
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Posted on 03.04.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:46 am
The Obama administration has released a new logo for the pork-laden stimulus bill written into law last month. It’s a perfect target for satirical fun. Michelle Malkin is promoting the work of the Photoshoppers. The original Obama logo is on the left, and the best Photoshop so far is on the right.  
Filed under: Blogging and Just For Laughs and News & Politics and Photoshop Stop Comments: None |
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Posted on 02.10.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 12:00 pm
This is the kind of deep, insightful coverage you get when you give a liberal blogger prime-time access to the leader of the free world:
For the rest, including slams on Chuck Todd, go to Americablog. And remember that Americablog (rightfully) cried foul when phony reporter Jeff Gannon/James Guckert was given access to the White House press room during the Bush administration. You can’t argue with Americablog’s lead sentence, though. Barack Obama obviously is smart to let the leaders of the liberal blogosphere cover his press conferences. That’s the kind of change the left can believe in. Filed under: Blogging and Government and Media and News & Politics and People Comments: None |
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Posted on 02.01.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:39 pm
When Pajamas Media launched a few years ago, I was skeptical about its chances for success (even though I was, and still am, a regular reader of many of the blogs in its network). It reminded me of the numerous dot-com operations that were built on venture capital years earlier. My skepticism grew when I became the executive producer of Eyeblast.tv and learned, through our marketing director, how difficult it was to negotiate ad placements through Pajamas Media. Running ads there would have helped us promote the Eyeblast brand to a key demographic, conservative bloggers, but we never did buy any space. The hassles were many, and the rate was too high. Now comes word that Pajamas Media is killing its blog ad network as of March 31. Some of the bloggers who had grown accustomed to quarterly subsidies aren’t too happy about being “off the dole“; others are pondering their futures online with more introspection; and bloggers who never had a stake in Pajamas Media are weighing in, too. For what it’s worth from the perspective of this 20-year mainstream journalist who also has endured two layoffs in the online media startup world, once in 2000 and once a couple of months ago, I believe Atlas Shrugs is onto something:
I have seen the same problem in many newsrooms. As the associate editor of IntellectualCapital.com, I constantly made the case (unsuccessfully) for spending less money to find new voices rather than buying “names” in an effort to generate The Almighty Buzz. IC folded in 2000. Pajamas TV was chasing buzz when it hired “Joe The Plumber” as its war correspondent in Gaza. The company has indeed gone off the rails, and unless it changes course, another venture soon will be added to the growing ash heap of new media history. Read a roundup of reactions in the extended entry. Filed under: Blogging and Business and Media and News & Politics and People Comments: 2 Comments |
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Posted on 02.01.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 1:23 pm
Thousands of deer are hit on America’s highways every year, but the collisions aren’t typically caught on tape. Leave it to “Don’t Be Evil” Google, the company that is everywhere, to be the first. One of the drivers in the Google Maps “Street View” project hit not just any deer but a baby deer at that. The end result was an image of Bambi sprawled in the middle of a New York road.
It was only a matter of time before some blogger found the image and created a stir online. Google then pulled the pictures and explained the incident on its blog:
I’m curious how the footage made it online in the first place when both the local police and Google were alerted to the accident immediately. If not for that oversight, the accident would not have been the least bit newsworthy. Filed under: Blogging and Technology Comments: None |
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