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Considering the embarrassing way that the NY Times has attempted to transition into the digital age, this is not really a surprise. Consider: - The Times has

Considering the embarrassing way that the NY Times has attempted to transition into the digital age, this is not really a surprise. Consider: - The Times has tried twice to create paywall models that have utterly failed. The idea was to charge to read Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman. Utter disaster b/c nobody really values them all that much even though they get a lot of web traffic when free. - The Times does very little investigative journalism of significance. - The Times has strong pretensions, as evidenced by its coverage of socialite weddings, etc. - In the buildup to the Iraq war it was the Times' sloppy fact checking that sold the war to many, many people who had been skeptical prior to reading its coverage. - The Times attack on the Pulse news reader turned what should have been superb publicity into a petty attack on a small startup that obviously loves the Times. For all its flaws, it's still a great paper, but far less great than it once was or than it could be if it had more sense and guts and had to fight harder to maintain its position. Banning a word like "tweet" suggests an annoying sort of editorial rectitude that is at least as unbecoming as any of the foibles mentioned above, especially in light of the Iraq war fact checking fiasco. We have wars going on and all sorts of corporate fraud and the Times is wasting ink (or pixels) on why it banned a silly sounding word?

pigbucket 16y ago
The paper should do better. But one of the things it tries to do well is language use, and one of the reasons it does it well is that it has people like Corbett working on the problem of what constitutes good writing and usage. Words matter, even if "tweet" is not a good example of why they matter. Corbett and his predecessors have done all kinds of interesting stuff, some of it fun, some educative, but some serious, serious especially when it comes to reporting on war: Do you call this group terrorists, or insurgents, or resistance fighters; do you call that group anti-Israeli, or humanitarian, or pro-Palestinian? We've taken this memo out of its native context and taken it as a sign of some deep problem at NYT in its relation to technology, but "tweet" is a drop in the ocean of language problems that Corbett deals with. Check out some of his public musings here: http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/author/philip-b-corbett/ http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/author/philip-b-corbett/. I see no reason why an institution as important as the New York Times should not do a whole lot better in the ways you suggest, and also continue to try to set some basic standards for writing.
donohoe 16y ago
Ok, where to begin... - "The Times has tried twice to create pay-wall models that have utterly failed" Um, not true. They did it once. It was called Times Select. It actually worked quite well, however the advertising market picked up in a big way where revenue from ads would exceed subscriptions. Not the case anymore, but thats another story. - "The Times does very little investigative journalism of significance" Ok, I'm gonna leave this one alone. Clearly we are on different planets. - "The Times has strong pretensions, as evidenced by its coverage of socialite weddings, etc." I guess so... ? Is it? I mean its not tabloid, but I think thats good, right? Whats the "etc"? - "In the buildup to the Iraq war it was the Times' sloppy fact checking that sold the war to many, many people who had been skeptical prior to reading its coverage." I'm not sure how this relates to helping your point about "transition into the digital age" or the whole "tweet" thing. - The Times attack on the Pulse news reader turned what should have been superb publicity into a petty attack on a small startup that obviously loves the Times. Yeah, I personally think that was short-sighted. "For all its flaws, it's still a great paper, but far less great than it once was or than it could be if it had more sense and guts and had to fight harder to maintain its position." Been waiting to say this... ahem..."{citation needed}" "Banning a word like "tweet" suggests…" Okay, I think you need to re-read the article (or maybe I do). The word is not banned, it is highly discouraged. It does give examples where "tweet" is appropriate so therefore it is not banned. "We have wars going on and all sorts of corporate fraud and the Times is wasting ink (or pixels) on why it banned a silly sounding word?" The Times is also wasting many hours every day on things like lunch, coffee breaks, expense reports, HR policies and the like. Don't they know there is a war on!? And to re-visit the "embarrassing way that the NY Times has attempted to transition into the digital age", I just want to say this: - NYTimes.com is 83rd Most-Visited web site on the Internet (1st for Newspaper) according Google: http://bit.ly/bsbBMB http://bit.ly/bsbBMB - http://developer.nytimes.com http://developer.nytimes.com - http://open.nytimes.com http://open.nytimes.com (my favorite: http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/self-service-prorated-super-computing-fun/ http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/self-service-prorat... ) - http://www.nytimes.com/timeswire http://www.nytimes.com/timeswire - http://www.nytimes.com/timesskimmer http://www.nytimes.com/timesskimmer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadoop#Hadoop_on_Amazon_EC2.2FS3_services http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadoop#Hadoop_on_Amazon_EC2.2FS... And in case it does come up, this is entirely my own view and not that the Times at which I work but I'm not in editorial or anything like that. I just felt that while you made some good points you were off-base on a few. To wrap up, I just re-read what I wrote above and it could come across as snarky which is not my intention, rather I was aiming (badly) to be a little tongue-in-cheek.

pigbucket 16y ago

The paper should do better. But one of the things it tries to do well is language use, and one of the reasons it does it well is that it has people like Corbett working on the problem of what constitutes good writing and usage. Words matter, even if "tweet" is not a good example of why they matter. Corbett and his predecessors have done all kinds of interesting stuff, some of it fun, some educative, but some serious, serious especially when it comes to reporting on war: Do you call this group terrorists, or insurgents, or resistance fighters; do you call that group anti-Israeli, or humanitarian, or pro-Palestinian? We've taken this memo out of its native context and taken it as a sign of some deep problem at NYT in its relation to technology, but "tweet" is a drop in the ocean of language problems that Corbett deals with. Check out some of his public musings here: http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/author/philip-b-corbett/ http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/author/philip-b-corbett/. I see no reason why an institution as important as the New York Times should not do a whole lot better in the ways you suggest, and also continue to try to set some basic standards for writing.

donohoe 16y ago

Ok, where to begin... - "The Times has tried twice to create pay-wall models that have utterly failed" Um, not true. They did it once. It was called Times Select. It actually worked quite well, however the advertising market picked up in a big way where revenue from ads would exceed subscriptions. Not the case anymore, but thats another story. - "The Times does very little investigative journalism of significance" Ok, I'm gonna leave this one alone. Clearly we are on different planets. - "The Times has strong pretensions, as evidenced by its coverage of socialite weddings, etc." I guess so... ? Is it? I mean its not tabloid, but I think thats good, right? Whats the "etc"? - "In the buildup to the Iraq war it was the Times' sloppy fact checking that sold the war to many, many people who had been skeptical prior to reading its coverage." I'm not sure how this relates to helping your point about "transition into the digital age" or the whole "tweet" thing. - The Times attack on the Pulse news reader turned what should have been superb publicity into a petty attack on a small startup that obviously loves the Times. Yeah, I personally think that was short-sighted. "For all its flaws, it's still a great paper, but far less great than it once was or than it could be if it had more sense and guts and had to fight harder to maintain its position." Been waiting to say this... ahem..."{citation needed}" "Banning a word like "tweet" suggests…" Okay, I think you need to re-read the article (or maybe I do). The word is not banned, it is highly discouraged. It does give examples where "tweet" is appropriate so therefore it is not banned. "We have wars going on and all sorts of corporate fraud and the Times is wasting ink (or pixels) on why it banned a silly sounding word?" The Times is also wasting many hours every day on things like lunch, coffee breaks, expense reports, HR policies and the like. Don't they know there is a war on!? And to re-visit the "embarrassing way that the NY Times has attempted to transition into the digital age", I just want to say this: - NYTimes.com is 83rd Most-Visited web site on the Internet (1st for Newspaper) according Google: http://bit.ly/bsbBMB http://bit.ly/bsbBMB - http://developer.nytimes.com http://developer.nytimes.com - http://open.nytimes.com http://open.nytimes.com (my favorite: http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/self-service-prorated-super-computing-fun/ http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/self-service-prorat... ) - http://www.nytimes.com/timeswire http://www.nytimes.com/timeswire - http://www.nytimes.com/timesskimmer http://www.nytimes.com/timesskimmer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadoop#Hadoop_on_Amazon_EC2.2FS3_services http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadoop#Hadoop_on_Amazon_EC2.2FS... And in case it does come up, this is entirely my own view and not that the Times at which I work but I'm not in editorial or anything like that. I just felt that while you made some good points you were off-base on a few. To wrap up, I just re-read what I wrote above and it could come across as snarky which is not my intention, rather I was aiming (badly) to be a little tongue-in-cheek.