Comments on: When the lights go on at the New York Times, our work can start

By: Udell on NYTimes

Udell on NYTimes — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:22:46 +0000

[...] Jon Udell on the NYTimes: The newspaper industry has surely earned this kind of scathing criticism. And it may well fail to capitalize on the amazing opportunities for self-reinvention afforded by the Internet. But the Times is attracting an all-star team of information architects, interactive graphics designers, programmers, and media producers. And according to Gabriel Dance and Shan Carter, these folks are increasingly collaborating with reporters to marshall complex information in ways that make the newspaper’s stories deeper and more open to independent analysis and interpretation. [...]

By: hughmcguire.net · Udell on the NYTimes

hughmcguire.net · Udell on the NYTimes — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:23:45 +0000

By: Jon Udell

Jon Udell — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:44:05 +0000

> The notion that the newspaper industry as
> a whole is leftist propaganda is utter
> rubbish, and I’m greatly disappointed that
> you appear to think this is true.

I don’t in fact think that, but I see how careless writing suggests that I do.

Rather than:

“The newspaper industry has surely earned this kind of scathing criticism.”

I ought to have said some version of what you said, namely that the industry deserves criticism, but bias — in any direction — isn’t the problem, rather the problem is failure to engage with what Dan Gillmor calls “the former audience”.

By: Bill Parks

Bill Parks — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:14:02 +0000

The notion that the newspaper industry as a whole is leftist propaganda is utter rubbish, and I’m greatly disappointed that you appear to think this is true. The Wall Street Journal is fair and unbiased? Give me a break. There are plenty of media outlets of all kinds on both sides of the political spectrum. The problems print media are having have nothing to do with an alleged, and false, leftist bias.

By: gabriel dance

gabriel dance — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:04:30 +0000

jon,
thanks for the shout-out! it has been an intense couple weeks here, but posts like yours certainly help fuel the innovation fire :)

cheers,
gabriel

By: Jake Ochs

Jake Ochs — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:48:02 +0000

I too have a love/hate relationship with the Times. They are clearly editorially biased, although once you learn their cadences you can read the tea leaves and divine some modicum of balanced “truthiness” from them. On the other hand, their web team is top notch. Alone among the big papers, the Times is constantly pushing the innovation envelope and it shows as you pointed out.

By: tim Dempsey

tim Dempsey — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:55:40 +0000

Nice post. The Times did an interesting job where the major television networks and their touchscreens were an embarrassement.

Hadn’t noticed you’ve joined the borg — are you still in Keene? I would love to catch up.

By: Jon Udell

Jon Udell — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:40:57 +0000

> how slow these people have been to realise
> this and to realise that collaboration is
> the best way to scale

Big ships, including the one I hopped aboard in Jan 07, turn slowly. But if and when they do, wow. And as you rightly point out, in a connected world, collaboration is the engine of change.

By: Jon Udell

Jon Udell — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:34:20 +0000

> Don’t forget all those APIs that the NY
> Times has been releasing lately.

Exactly. I linked to the latest one in the above post:

http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/api/

By: Bob DuCharme

Bob DuCharme — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:51:18 +0000

Don’t forget all those APIs that the NY Times has been releasing lately. How cool is that?

Bob

By: knackeredhack

knackeredhack — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:41:55 +0000

I agree that good things are starting to appear in the online versions of some newspapers. I click on more NYT emails now than I used to, and it looks better beneath than it did. The real stories now are complex, but how slow these people have been to realise this and to realise that collaboration is the best way to scale that difficulty.

By: Dan York

Dan York — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:32:40 +0000

Jon,

Thanks for reminding us that *some* of the newspapers out there are taking solid and interesting steps to remain relevant in the changing media landscape.

Dan