Adrian Monck

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Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Journicide: A looming, lost generation of scribes | Reflections of a Newsos
2009-12-14 22:08:00
"The starving-artist lifestyle may be colorful and appealing for a while, but it gets old fast if you are bunking on a friend’s sofa, living under the same roof you did in junior high and lying awake at night wondering how you are going to repay your staggering five-figure student loan. If nothing changes, the next generation of journalists will give up and move on to entirely different pursuits. And you can’t blame them. How many journalistas do you think will be satisfied having to make ends meet by working as baristas?"
More About: Lost , Reflections

Liberty Media Working With Sirius XM Radio Could Have Global implications &
2009-12-14 22:04:00
"300 million Arabic speakers, 65 percent of whom are under 30, represents a tantalizing market largely untapped by international media companies of News Corp’s scale. This market has become especially attractive recently as the Middle East’s double digit advertising spending growth so far this year is on track to vastly outspend the battered US’s forecast of 3 percent. Aligning with Rotana, which owns the largest library of Arabic music and film and already has a vast network of multimedia advertising sales throughout the region, seems to be the best possible way to access this market quickly, while at the same time investing in a company that has its own substantial growth potential."
More About: Radio , Media , Liberty , Global

Winning the War, 30 Taliban at a Time | The Security Crank [del.icio.us]
2009-12-13 23:17:00
"Just how often has the U.S. and NATO killed the Taliban in groups of 30 during 2009? The answer may surprise you..."
More About: Security , Time

The net advantage | Prospect Magazine [del.icio.us]
2009-12-12 21:20:00
Another Shirky sweeping generalization: "Insurrections, even pro-democracy insurrections, always begin as minority affairs, driven by a small, young, and well-educated population before they expand more widely."
More About: Magazine

In the age of informavores, algorithms will replace journalists | Guardian
2009-12-11 21:14:00
Schirrmacher believes we are experiencing a profound change at the moment, an industrialisation of information – an "age of informavores" – and journalism is one of the first fields to undergo the change.
More About: Guardian , Algorithms

Advertisers’ Foreign Language | Borrell Associates [del.icio.us]
2009-12-11 20:33:00
Businesses will spend about $680 billion this year to market their products and services. One-third of that goes toward traditional media advertising; the rest goes to things like coupons, rebates, Web site development, contests, trade shows, and public relations.  Over the next five years, the amount spent on advertising is forecast to decline 7.5%.  The amount spent on everything else is expected to increase 24%. Traditional media advertising has entered the era of perpetual decline.  Perpetual decline, my friends.  No more riding the annual tide.
More About: Language , Foreign

Big green business | The Economist [del.icio.us]
2009-12-11 20:31:00
[I]t should be clear that there are many ways that firms can actually improve their margins while cutting emissions when given a nudge (by public attention or regulation or carbon price) to do so. It's worth remembering this as some business groups go to the mat to fight against climate legislation. A lot can be accomplished by simply giving firms an incentive to quit being wasteful.
More About: Business , Economist , Green

Originality and olive oil
2009-12-04 22:40:00
Reading the New Yorker the other day, I came across the following line (subscription required) from chef Heston Blumenthal (renowned for using the lab techniques of food science for luxury catering rather than mass production). Blumenthal was writing about growing up in the gastronomic wilderness of 1970s Britain: …a time when olive oil was available in Britain only at the chemist’s - for putting in your ears rather than in a pan. The phrase sounded rather familiar… Had I read it in the Guardian? For most of the 20th century in Britain, olive oil was something you bought in the chemist and then stuffed in your ears with cotton wool. Guardian, 2002 Or was it the Independent? Writing at a time when the only olive oil you could get came from Boots and was intended for softening ear wax, [cookery writer Elizabeth David] inveighed against post-war British cuisine… Independent, 2000 There seemed to be an Elizabeth David connection. ...
More About: Olive Oil

Audit Integrity Announces Results of Corporate Bankruptcy Study; Identifies
2009-09-21 12:00:00
CBS, Sirius, Libert Media... etc.
More About: Study , Results , Corporate , Bankruptcy , Audit

Reducing media bias through regulation ¦ Vox [del.icio.us]
2009-09-18 14:22:00
[W]e show how advertising can seriously interfere with the quality, accuracy, and breadth of content and programming in the media (Ellman and Germano 2009). Bias ed content is most likely when competition amongst media outlets is limited or when advertisers are large and can threaten to withdraw their advertising business from the media. The analysis extends to media dependence on any business or state actors that can substantially affect media company profits. Analysing the delicate interaction between advertisers, financiers, media outlets, and media audiences within a two-sided markets framework generates new insights for policymakers. Our work points to the need for independent media and makes the case for promoting competition and public funding.
More About: Media , Regulation , Media Bias

Can You Trust Crowd Wisdom? | Technology Review [del.icio.us]
2009-09-16 23:18:00
Kostakos studied voting patterns on Amazon, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), and the book review site BookCrossings. The research was presented last month at the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Social Computing. His team looked at hundreds of thousands of items and millions of votes across the three sites. In each case, they found that a small number of users accounted for a large number of ratings. For example, only 5 percent of active Amazon users cast votes on more than 10 products. A handful of users voted hundreds of items.
More About: Technology , Review , Wisdom , Trust , Crowd

Frankl: He who has a WHY can bear any HOW | Andreas Kluth [del.icio.us]
2009-09-16 13:25:00
Brief, and to the point: "[M]y critique of logotherapy is really the same as my critique of religion: Sure, it might be helpful to see meaning (= believe in God), but that does not mean that there actually is meaning (=God). Sartre might be right after all."
More About: Andreas

The Story Behind the Story | Mark Bowden [del.icio.us]
2009-09-16 13:00:00
"I would describe their approach as post-journalistic. It sees democracy, by definition, as perpetual political battle. The blogger?s role is to help his side. Distortions and inaccuracies, lapses of judgment, the absence of context, all of these things matter only a little, because they are committed by both sides, and tend to come out a wash. Nobody is actually right about anything, no matter how certain they pretend to be. The truth is something that emerges from the cauldron of debate. No, not the truth: victory, because winning is way more important than being right. Power is the highest achievement. There is nothing new about this. But we never used to mistake it for journalism. Today it is rapidly replacing journalism, leading us toward a world where all information is spun, and where all ?news? is unapologetically propaganda. In this post-journalistic world, the model for all national debate becomes the trial, where adversaries face off, representing opposing points of...
More About: Story , The Story , Mark

Washington Post's Katharine Weymouth steps in it again | Jack Shafer [del.i
2009-09-16 07:41:00
[A] boss needs to be careful when he tells a random guy in the lunchroom that he likes ketchup on his hot dogs lest an executive overhear him and ban mustard from the premises. If a boss wants mustard prohibited, he should say so unequivocally. Otherwise, he should just order his hot dog, eat it, and shut up.
More About: Washington , Jack , Katharine

Africa desperately needs trade links: a pictorial essay | Aid Watch [del.ic
2009-09-16 00:35:00
In all the debates about free trade, we can forget sometimes that international trade is not optional for a very small, very poor country. If there are any kinds of returns to scale at all in many sectors, and casual observation and much research suggests there are, then a tiny domestic market will rule out any serious domestic production in many, many sectors (is the Gambia going to be making refrigerators any time soon?) So trade will be a necessity, specializing in what each small, poor country can do, and importing everything else. And what continent is full of small, poor countries? Africa , of course.
More About: Watch , Pictorial , Links , Trade

Quant models. Forgotten variables? | socia.izing finance [del.icio.us]
2009-09-16 00:32:00
[T]he history of quantification is not just a story about doing better statistics by adding factors to combat incompleteness; rather the progress of models has involved the rise of novel type of quantification methods that have changed the nature of the world that these techniques presumed to model.
More About: Finance , Models , Variables , Forgotten

Is Fast Flip Really the Best Google Can Do to Save the News? | RWW [del.ici
2009-09-15 22:45:00
The title says it all...
More About: News , Google , The News , Fast , Save

How to Save Newspapers and Journalism ¦ Barry Ritholtz [del.icio.us]
2009-09-12 10:34:00
We know that the annual subscription model won?t work outside of finance. And that there will be numerous papers that won?t survive, either on or off line. Free content is going to continue to siphon off readers and ad dollars, albeit modestly. ?Revenue from newspaper classified ads is off nearly 50 percent in the past decade, a drop that comes to almost $10 billion. Only a fraction of this loss is because of Newmark?s company, but as the largest online classified site, craigslist is easy to blame,? says Wired. Total revenue (from all sources) fall last year was $7.5 billion. And this means that total (free) reader numbers will be going down in the future; Papers need to do the math to ensure the loss of advertising revenue from non-paying readers is offset by subscriber revenue.
More About: Journalism , Newspapers , Save , Barry

Findings - A Clash of Polar Frauds and Those Who Believe ¦ NYTimes.com [del
2009-09-08 13:32:00
When we contemplate contradictions in the rhetoric of the opposition party?s candidate, the rational centers of our brains are active, but contradictions from our own party?s candidate set off a different reaction: the emotional centers light up and levels of feel-good dopamine surge. With our rational faculties muted, sometimes the unwelcome evidence doesn?t even register, and sometimes we use marvelous logic to get around the facts.
More About: Polar , Frauds , Clash

Mobile phones vs. Telegrams: Journalism Morality Down the Ages
2009-07-09 14:31:00
Given Nick Davies’ story alleging mass mobile phone-hacking by journalists, it might perhaps be instructive to look back at the journalistic morals of another age. Here, by way of example, is ‘Journalism and Morality ’ by Silas Bent, published in 1926 in The Atlantic (and quoted in Can You Trust The Media?). Note especially - towards the ...
More About: Mobile , Mobile Phones , Phones

Leaving
2009-07-09 11:05:00
Although I?ll be haunting College Building for the next week or so, today is my leaving drinks (or ?glad you?re gone? party as we used to call them). I?ll be keeping up a link with the place as a prof, and I?ll be trying to bash out a PhD. And I?ll also be giving a modest sum ...
More About: Journalism

Newspaper subscription by algorithm
2009-06-16 11:26:00
My hunch? Not quite there yet…
More About: Journalism , Newspaper

The New York Times via the Daily Show
2009-06-11 18:11:00
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c End Times www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Newt Gingrich Unedited Interview
More About: New York , Journalism , York

Media vanity projects?
2009-06-11 10:29:00
This short paragraph from an obit of Fleur Cowles gives you some idea of why the tastes of media connoisseurs and the general public are not necessarily in synch (and of the source of creative motivation): Flair was a short-lived, loss-making, vanity project, meant to showcase the persona Fleur had invented for herself. Media professionals and students ...
More About: Projects , Vanity

The redundant story: math and the future of journalism
2009-06-01 17:27:00
I have long argued the rather unoriginal position that journalism’s mission to inform has its roots in religious ‘infotainment’ both popular and intellectual - moralising editorials replaced moralising sermons, etc. But I’ve been struggling to express why that mission seems such a recurrent trope in history. The use of stories for entertaining and moral purposes is clear ...
More About: Story , Journalism , Future , The Future , Math

Off topic: the language of advertising
2009-05-21 19:22:00
The IdeasBrothers blog has uncovered a novel written by an advertising planner. In a penthouse apartment on the right side of town, a 28?54 year old man called Dan tried to control his breathing. Someone or something was moving about downstairs. He listened intently. There it was again. In the inky dark, the sound had real ...
More About: Advertising , Language , Topic

My new job?and yours?
2009-05-20 13:00:00
I am delighted and - yes, excited - to announce that I’ll be joining the World Economic Forum as Managing Director and Head of Communications from August. [More here.] In the new role I’ll be removing my commentary hat and travelling a lot more, so the blog will probably fall into abeyance - it’s been suffering from ...
More About: Journalism

Obama: justifying a news media bailout?
2009-05-11 11:23:00
If you wondered about the US government and the news media, and the possibility - the hint, flicker, barest glimmer - of some kind of bailout, then listen to the last few humourless minutes of Barack Obama 's speech to the White House press corps (it's from 2'50" in on the clip below). Is he merely playing to the gallery? Or is he providing the intellectual justification for future action? Or am I simply indulging my journalistic passion for over-interpretation?
More About: News , Media , Journalism , A News

The opportunities and implications of BBC partnerships with local media
2009-04-28 23:00:00
A long time ago, I wrote the plan to run ITV News in London (replacing LNN), modelled on the operating structure for Five News. It involved reformatting shows and cutting staffing to the bare minimum required to get on air.
More About: Media , Journalism , Local , Opportunities

Links for 2008-06-06 [del.icio.us]
2008-06-07 07:00:00
Coming To America - Zen Traveler "We are getting word that the U.S. Government is planning to implement a program that grants refugee status to selected Iraqis that have assisted the media and therefor may be in danger once the Coalition forces depart this country." My Neighbor Is A Nielsen Stooge - TV Board "I saw the two televisions he ?hid? from Nielsen during the installation. ?For when we want to watch stuff we don?t want Nielsen to know we watch,? he confided."
More About: Links , 2008