Last week I thought long and hard about writing a post on our former arch-nemesis Gregg Easterbrook — whom we have lambasted in this space for everything from self-righteous moralizing to being bad at science. I’ve continued to read Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback column throughout all of these episodes, because despite his flaws, he does [...]
Posts Tagged as ‘journalism’
September 29, 2009
RUN, YOU BIG BEAUTIFUL SON OF A BITCH, RUN!!1!!!111!!
Most law enforcement officers signed up for the job hoping to clothesline a would-be purse-snatcher or tackle a terrorist moments before he takes out a preschool classroom. Then you spend the next 20 years filling out paperwork and having teenagers throw donuts at your car.
Then one day you’re out on the beat — your hair [...]
July 23, 2009
The Wall Street Journal is concerned about your cankles
Pax Arcana
While I have criticized the newspaper industry and its often boneheaded business sense at length in this space, it is true that these organizations still provide the overwhelming majority of in-depth and important newsgathering. For example, did you know that some people have thick ankles? And that thick ankles are often derisively referred to [...]
July 8, 2009
I am officially starting to enjoy this
Pax Arcana
My soft spot for the newspaper industry is well-known, as is my despair for the wont of real ideas for saving the most important news-gathering apparatus in existence today. (Less well-known is that my pheromones attract badgers. It’s a sexy but painful curse.)
The latest idea comes from James Rainey of the LA Times. Rainey [...]
May 13, 2009
TV is even worse for kids than we thought
Pax Arcana
If you thought television was bad for children because it crushes their creativity and motivation to interact with human beings, you don’t even know the half of it.
Turns out the real danger of TV is that it will actually, physically, crush your children.
According to MSNBC.com, the Web site arm of the network that brings [...]
May 12, 2009
Epic newspaper fail in 5, 4, 3, 2 …
Pax Arcana
We’ve chronicled the wholesale disintegration of the newspaper industry numerous times on this site. Most recently, we wondered why all the “ideas” for saving newspapers were being proffered by editorial employees rather than those who — you know — know shit about business and shit.
Thankfully, our prayers have been answered.
Romenesko today posted a memo [...]
May 5, 2009
Bitches, man
Pax Arcana
It’s become fashionable among red-faced TV shouters and slope-shouldered Internet trolls to blame the demise of newspapers on content quality, rather than the inevitable result of a shifting landscape for information consumption.
This is rubbish. Newspapers are still the primary organ for gathering and reporting news, and without them we’d be far worse off. Case [...]
May 1, 2009
Friday Random 10: Crazy Penis Edition
Pax Arcana
It’s pretty clear to anyone who follows sports that many professional athletes are a few oars short of a full boat. So when a seemingly down-to-earth NFL player like Chris Cooley comes along, most of us love him automatically.
For those of you unfamiliar, Cooley is a tight end on the Washington Redskins. He also [...]
April 23, 2009
How to save the news
Pax Arcana
I have no idea how to save newspapers, except to suggest that the writers and reporting go back to writing and reporting rather than foisting their stillborn business models on the public.
That said, I think this video says a lot about how to save TV news. Sing it loud, my auto-tuned brothers and sisters:
[...]
April 22, 2009
What the F is Rolling Stone doing?
Pax Arcana
Mike Masnick of Techdirt points our attention to a week-old story in the New York Times that says some magazines are considering raising their prices.
This makes sense to me. I just paid $10 for a year’s worth of my second-favorite print publication on the planet (Wired). You can get a full year (47 issues) [...]
