Michael Hastings

Friends, colleagues remember Michael Hastings

The reporter Michael Hastings died Tuesday, BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone reported.

"He knew how to tell it," BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith writes.

He knew that there are certain truths that nobody has an interest in speaking, ones that will make both your subjects and their enemies uncomfortable. They’re stories that don’t get told because nobody in power has much of an interest in telling them — the story, for instance, of how a president is getting rolled by his generals.
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Tuesday, June 18, 2013

The Guardian’s Snowden chat: A few details

Guardian US Editor-in-Chief Janine Gibson and deputy editor Stuart Millar were on hand when the site produced its chat with NSA leaker Edward Snowden Monday. Also staffing the effort: community coordinator Ruth Spencer and Open Editor Amanda Michel. The Guardian moderated participants' questions, which were submitted via comment threads or Twitter, Guardian US spokesperson Gennady Kolker told Poynter in an email: "Questions were selected on the basis of both quality (number of “recommends”) and quantity (number of similar questions)." And...that's about it for the technical details the Guardian is sharing. Kolker said the Guardian proposed the chat to Snowden. He is reportedly hiding out in Hong Kong. (In a piece last week, some former intelligence officials said what they'd do if they were in his shoes.) Kolker said the chat got nearly a million page views and was shared more than 35,000 times on Facebook. The hashtag #AskSnowden trended on Twitter. (more...)
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Novel legal theories mingle in BuzzFeed photo suit

PaidContent
Idaho photographer Kai Eiselein is suing BuzzFeed in U.S. District Court, claiming the site should pay not only for infringing his copyright when it ran his image but also for all the sites that subsequently posted it.

"Since BuzzFeed was the original poster of this set of images and provided them for distribution; the defendant is unequivocally responsible both directly and indirectly for all subsequent infringements," Eiselein's complaint reads.

That's an admirably avant-garde legal theory, an area of scholarship in which BuzzFeed is already a thought leader: BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti has argued the site's lists constitute a transformative use of others' photos, and thus fall under fair use. Jeff John Roberts writes that it's unlikely Eiselein's “contributory infringement” can "succeed on a legal basis — if he does, the case would throw a large chill over the sharing culture that has become a fixture of the social web." (more...)
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Fortune: Tribune Co. could owe IRS more than half a billion

Fortune
Allan Sloan found something "Buried in the tax footnotes" of the financial results Tribune Co. released Monday: The IRS and other authorities are seeking nearly $300 million in taxes and penalties from former owner Sam Zell's 2008 deal to sell Newsday to Cablevision.

And the company's potential troubles don't end there. Tribune sold its interest in the Chicago Cubs using a similar deal structure, and it's being audited. "Apply the same penalties as the IRS is seeking in the Newsday deal, and the total exposure is about $300 million," Sloan writes. (more...)
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Politico’s balanced critique of Nate Silver

Isaac Chotiner's Q&A with Politico honchos John Harris and Jim VandeHei has plenty of fun moments, but my favorite part is when Harris and VandeHei discuss Nate Silver, who is not a fan of their news organization.
Especially fascinating: Harris and VandeHei appear to carefully balance each of their knocks on Silver with a compliment (or something close to one). Compliments are in italics, zings are in bold. Text that doesn't lean too far one way or the other in roman.

Harris: I know why people found him interesting and entertaining, and some people found him illuminating. There are people in our gang who think he is overblown and get worked up about Nate Silver. I don’t give a damn*.

VandeHei: Some of his stuff goes on and on, trying to use numbers to prove stuff that I don’t think can be proved by numbers alone. I know he is a Politico hater. I admire what he has been able to do.

Harris: I admire how he has built a franchise. I roll my eyes at how he gets up on his high horse quite a lot on different topics.

*While this sentence appears to be dismissive, I think Harris is saying he doesn't give a damn about the disagreement and is not saying he doesn't give a damn about Nate Silver.
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Trust2

Gallup: Only 23% of Americans trust newspapers, TV news

Gallup
The bad news: Just 23 percent of Americans told Gallup they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers, the same percentage who said they trust TV news. The good news: Both are still more popular than big business, organized labor, HMOs and Congress.



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Monday, June 17, 2013

Sportswriter Jeff Pearlman writes about why he no longer hates TKs, which he used to consider “lazy.”

At age 41 … I’ve come to understand—and obsess over—the power of little details. It’s never merely a bottle of soda. It’s a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke, with a red label and little beads of water. It’s not just a house–it’s a English-styled cottage with white wood paneling and brownish-gray drapes. Little details show that a writer cares; that he took the time to not merely write, but report and dig and search. TKs now make up an enormous part of my professional life. Last night, for example, I sat at my laptop from 9:30 pm until 2:30 am filling in dozens of TKs into my next book. It’s no fun and sucky and mind-draining.

Jeff Pearlman

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Tribune files post-bankruptcy financial results

Tribune Co. | The Chicago Tribune
Tribune Co. on Monday filed financial results for 2012, its last year in bankruptcy. In its publishing division, advertising revenues were down 6.7 percent over 2011, and circulation revenues rose 8.75 percent, "driven by subscription price increases and the implementation of digital subscription programs," Robert Channick writes in The Chicago Tribune.

Circulation revenue declined in 2011 "due to a decline in daily (Monday-Friday) net paid print circulation copies at all newspapers, partially offset by an increase in Sunday net paid print circulation copies at all newspapers except Baltimore," a management analysis says. "The largest revenue declines in 2011 were at Chicago, South Florida and Hartford." (more...)
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HuffPost’s Craig Kanalley joins Buffalo Sabres (as social media manager)

Buffalo Sabres
Huffington Post Senior Editor Craig Kanalley will become the Buffalo Sabres' social media manager, the team announced Monday. "They've been my favorite sports team since I was a kid, and I'm excited about the opportunity to get back home to family and friends in Buffalo," Kanalley told Poynter in an email, noting that he was named after Sabres legend Craig Ramsay.

I asked Kanalley, who has also worked as a social media editor at NBC News, whether it was tough to leave journalism. The "lines are blurring between journalism and marketing," he replied, continuing: (more...)
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Why don’t women’s magazines earn more National Magazine Awards?

New Republic | Maynard Institute | Gawker
The front cover of the British magazine Port's 10th issue captured a lot of attention because it featured six white men under an assertion that we live in a "new golden age" of magazines.

Something else jumped out at Jessica Grose: "a men’s magazine, GQ, was included, while no women’s magazine editors made the cut." The magazines Port said were ushering in this golden age reveal "another pernicious assumption: that what women’s magazines publish is not as influential or important as what men’s and general interest magazines publish." (more...)
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