Tagged: new york times

BlackBerry Shaming

Still using a BlackBerry? The New York Times would like you to know that while everyone is free to make their own choices and we’re all special snowflakes, if you are using the phone you are a weirdo, because the device is a “magnet for mockery and derision.”

Does the Times issue BlackBerries to its employees? Is this some sort of cry for help from a member of the newsroom? Anyway, if you need to read the story but are still using a BlackBerry, make sure you download the New York Times app.

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The New York Times comes to Flipboard

I meant to write about this yesterday, but: The New York Times is coming to Flipboard. This is notable mostly because the Times will keep its current paywall structure intact (meaning that 10 articles ostensibly remains the limit for non-subscribers) while also bringing over all of its content to the app. That is definitely important, because the Times is splitting revenue with Flipboard here, so this represents a fairly big move and a likely first step toward many other kinds of similar deals with other news-reading apps and programs.

But the most interesting thing by far about this deal was this TechCrunch post about it. Any reporter who has written about incremental non-news — the press release announcement that has to be written up, because even though it’s basically about nothing it’s still something you have to cover — probably recognizes her tangible exhaustion with such developments. She also went on and interviewed Flipboard’s CEO. Also, she was drinking while posting, which probably represents the real future of the media.

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Trailer for “Page One”

I’m a little late on this, but here is the trailer for “Page One: Inside the New York Times.” Andrew Rossi’s documentary about life on the Media Desk at the New York Times — and, really, about newspapers and journalism in the 21st century — looks terrific. And, unsurprisingly, David Carr looks to be the standout here. It comes out on June 24th.

[Apple]

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Tick-Tock

On a moonless night eight months later, 79 American commandos in four helicopters descended on the compound, the officials said. Shots rang out. A helicopter stalled and would not take off. Pakistani authorities, kept in the dark by their allies in Washington, scrambled forces as the American commandos rushed to finish their mission and leave before a confrontation. Of the five dead, one was a tall, bearded man with a bloodied face and a bullet in his head. A member of the Navy Seals snapped his picture with a camera and uploaded it to analysts who fed it into a facial recognition program.

And just like that, history’s most expansive, expensive and exasperating manhunt was over. The inert frame of Osama bin Laden, America’s enemy No. 1, was placed in a helicopter for burial at sea, never to be seen or feared again.

— There are a lot (and I mean a lot) of stories out there rounding up information about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. This is the one you absolutely must read.

 

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Serious thing about not-so-serious thing

The Onion runs very funny stories about the vice president. For some reason, the Times felt obliged to comment upon this fact. It is…weird. Why is there a story in the Times about stories in the Onion? Was there space to fill? Are they obligated to mention Vice President Biden every so often, and they thought this filled that quota? Very strange. Still, any chance to link to this story is appreciated.

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Today’s example of a dumb, dumb, dumb story that falls apart in the first sentence

Stunt casting — and that includes Justin Bieber on the season premiere of “CSI” on Thursday and Jennifer Aniston on “Cougar Town” the day before — is the new plague of television.

—That’s Alessandra Stanley, correction-prone NYT television writer. Stunt casting is a new plague! Did you know that it was a new plague? I didn’t know that, because I only learned about the existence of television this week, and did not ever see “Will & Grace” or the literally hundreds — thousands? — of other occasions when a television series used a famous guest star to try to goose the ratings. I made it one sentence in and had to close the tab.

(And you will be UTTERLY SHOCKED to find out that there was already a correction appended to this story! She misspelled Stephen Colbert’s name, which is totally understandable for somebody who is paid actual money to report on television.)

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