Tuyen's Blog

Posts for Tag: journalism

Theft, journalism and professionalism

There's been a lot of chatter re: the iPhone leak and the raiding of certain "journalist's" homes. I won't rehash here so feel free to read up on the current situation.

I feel bad for Jason Chen and his wife for having their door kicked in. But I most definitely don't think it's unjustified. What should he have expected when he paid $5K for a stolen phone? I guess what pisses me off the most is how some people can't seem to understand that freedom of the press and crimes committed by journalists are two separate things. He's not getting his door kicked in because he leaked the next iPhone but because he PURCHASED STOLEN PROPERTY. If he had found the iPhone himself or if the person who found it gave it to Gizmodo to do their story, I'd have no issue. The fact that Gizmodo was willing to break the law to get the scoop on a story pretty much moves them out of legitimate journalism to tabloid fare for me. Michael Arrington writes a pretty reasonable post of how he would handle the situation - one I agree with in terms of the bounds of responsible, professional journalism. Unfortunately, the way the world works there is always an incentive to push and break the boundaries of the law in the name of "journalism". We as readers are just as responsible. How many outraged people did NOT go to Gizmodo to see the leaked iPhone photos/video?

In the end, I hope Jason Chen doesn't go to jail or face any type of punishment. He was only doing what the bosses at Gawker expected and asked of him. As for the guy who sold them the phone.........

The fate of the newspaper industry and the rise of the micro "newspaper"

Faced with aging presses and strapped for cash to replace them, the move will significantly cut costs at a paper that lost $50 million in 2008, and allow it to focus on news gathering, Publisher Frank Vega said.
via sfgate.com

I was listening to KCBS this morning and heard about this story. It's definitely a sad sign of the times that an old institution like The Chronicle is slowly shrinking. However, empires are not meant to last forever and everything must adapt or wither away. Outsourcing the printing of its newspapers sounds like a good start but the final move will have to be to abandon print altogether. It's a slow, inflexible, and very expensive way to get your content out to your users. Eventually, devices like the iPhone and the Kindle should suffice (in a lot of ways, they already do) and the rise of yet to be invented handheld devices should move us to a completely newspaperless society.

But less you think that all good journalism is going out the door with the fall of the old newspaper empires, there is good news to report. The TalkingPointsMemo blog just got a nice investment from Marc Andreessen. The small and nimble "newspaper" has received rave reviews (and a George Polk Award) for their journalistic excellence. I think you're seeing the future of journalism in small outfits like TPM. Small, nimble teams of journalists focused on a single industry/genre/beat. Without the cost of pressmen, delivery personnel, and ad sales teams, you don't need to generate a ton of ads in order to be profitable - which TPM is.