Archive for August, 2007

I’m going to be on NPR tomorrow

Published
by
Aaron
on August 19, 2007
in Personal
. 0 Comments

logo_npr_125.gifOf my many journalistic dreams, one is dong a star segment on NPR. Well, tomorrow, I come closer to that dream. Sure, I’m not doing a star segment, heck I’m not even reporting, but I am being interviewed. Yes, tomorrow morning on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, I will be interviewed by reporter Corey Moore about the confusing world of high-definition video. Actually, the interview itself already happened on Tuesday, but it will air (with much of the original 15-minute recording cut-out) tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, I do not have an exact time of when my interview will come on, though it should be in the second half of the show. So, for those of you in my neck of the woods, you can catch the interview on WNYC 93.9 FM between 6 and 7 AM and 8 and 9 AM, or on any other NPR member station from around the country. The interview will also be posted online at npr.org sometime Monday morning, so check back here tomorrow for a link.

UPDATE: The segment aired this morning, and is also available for listening to in Real Player and Windows Media formats online. It’s about 3.5 minutes long, and I only talk for about 30-seconds of it, but it’s still pretty awesome. Also, I’d just like to say hi to all you visitors who came here via the link on NPR’s site.

UPDATE 2: Google Analytics reports that on Monday this site got 122 visits, compared to the usual 5-15. Woohoo!

Daily Digest

Published
by
Aaron
on August 4, 2007
in Daily Digest
. 0 Comments

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Props to the Pops: “On Education” column on digg!

Published
by
Aaron
on August 3, 2007
in In the News, Props to the Pops and digg
. 0 Comments

Somehow, my dad, who is, in every possible way, “technologically inept,” managed to get on the front page of super-modern-Web-2.0 social news site digg (His story, from his most recent education column about a teacher who was forced to pass a failing student, has 2041 diggs and counting). Yet somehow, me, with all of the tech blogging and podcasting I do, never once got any of my work on digg. So why is is that my father did. Could it be his 30+ years of journalistic experience, the recognition of his publisher, or just the fact that he’s an amazing writer? Nah, I don’t think so.

But seriously, the column was very well written, in addition to the fact that I actually read it (I admittedly do not read most of my father’s many columns). So, you guys should definitely check out the column, and digg it up! Now, if only it could get on Diggnation…

Yeetgadal v’ yeetkadash sh’mey rabbah… Part II

Published
by
Aaron
on August 1, 2007
in In the News and Opinion
. 1 Comment

200px-triumph_poster.jpgYou may remember my last post with this title, taken from Kaddish,the Jewish prayer for the dead. It was for when The New York Giants lost their first playoffs game of the season, hence cutting them short of another chance at the Super Bowl.

Well today marks another, even more sad occasion — Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has bought Dow Jones, including The Wall Street Journal. Yes, at some point early this morning or last night, following months of deals, talks and deliberation, News Corp. and Dow Jones signed the deal for the sale of one of the oldest and most prestigious news organizations in the world. Now, as I already went over what this deal means for the future of Dow Jones and the newspaper industry in general in an older post which came out when Murdoch first proposed the sale, I will simply restate my central point:

News Corp. offers the [newspaper] industry exactly what it wants — money, popularity, and regained dominance. Of course, News Corp. would do to the entire newspaper industry what it did to The Times of London, The News York Post, and countless others — turn it into a platform for Murdoch’s (and, as it’s assumed, his successor’s) conservative political ideas and resorting the journalistic quality to that of the cheapest tabloids.

In a nutshell, this means that Murdoch knows how to make a 19th century business profitable in the 21th century, albeit at the price of all and any journalistic integrity. Even more simply, he can “save the newspaper industry by taking its soul.” Yeah, you get the point.

So, the paperwork has been signed. The Bancroft family, after much fighting, debating, and dealing, finally agreed to the deal, ending their 100 years of ownership of Dow Jones. Of course, as many journalist, analysts, and others, including, deep down, myself, believed, the sale of Dow Jones to News Corp. was a done deal the day CNBC broke the story.

So, while News Corp. will engulf Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, breaking down its esteemed journalism into little, bite-sized articles of trash, the story of Dow Jones’s final days will not entirely be a sad one. The Bancroft family, despite eventually giving in to Murdoch’s requests, fought very nobly for the integrity of their publication, and I still hold a great deal of respect for those who kept on fighting until the end, including Christopher Bancroft and Jane Cox MacElree. Speaking of fighting until the end, Leslie Hill has now become, in my mind, one of the most noble business people I know. Not only does Ms. Hill refuse to be in the same room as Murdoch, she also resigned from the Dow Jones board right after the sale was finalized. You go girl!

But, no matter how well they fought, Dow Jones has in fact loss. So now, let us say a virtual prayer for what such a great, bold, and strong news company: Yeetgadal v’ yeetkadash sh’mey rabbah…