How do liberals conspire to keep dissenting voices off mainstream media?
Back in the early 90s, I ran into new Bloomberg hire Andy Lack. He was making Year of the Generals, a documentary about WW2 for CBS. He was in the London bureau working late, as was I, and we struck up a conversation about the project. [more…]
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In case you happen to be a journalist and Jeff Jarvis still has you thinking that newspaper problems are your fault, take a look at the New York Times from July, 1980 (and if you like catchy headlines, they don’t come much catchier than this):
First U.S. Experiments in Electronic Newspapers Begin in Two Communities; 13 Newspapers to Be Added The Need for Newspapers A Communications Development Telephone, Cable and Airwaves A Warning on Regulation [pay access]. [more…]
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Paul Krugman didn’t win the Nobel prize for economics for this. But maybe he should have. It’s a meditation on British food and why it was once so dreadful. (And there’s surely a lesson in there about education and media consumption.) [more…]
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About twenty years ago, I went to a farewell dinner for a young man who was leaving the UK to head for Korea. As a news action junkie, I was baffled. The Soviet Empire was in crisis. The Middle East in turmoil. And this guy was going to Seoul for the Financial Times?
Still, gnawing away was the suspicion that maybe he knew something the rest of us didn’t. That lingering suspicion from twenty years ago was probably right.
John Ridding is now the FT’s CEO and here’s his take on what ‘market meltdown’ has done for the paper brand (as told to Robert MacMillan at Reuters):
“What [the crisis] is doing for our readership and audience is pretty remarkable. I think it really underlines this idea that at a time of turmoil, people really do need trusted guides, and are prepared to pay.”
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Read The Economist Where Credit Risk is going from August, 2003. It’s subscription, of course. But now the global economy is going to hell, you may - bizarrely - feel more inclined to pay for a decent analysis of how it all went pear-shaped. [more…]
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Here is Luigi Zingales, an economist with a plan:
Suppose that you bought a house in California in 2006. You paid $400,000 with only 5% down. Unfortunately, during the last two years the value of your house dropped by 30%; thus, you now find yourself with a mortgage worth $380,000 and a house worth $280,000. Even if you can afford your monthly payment (and you probably cannot), why should you struggle to pay the mortgage when walking away will save you $100,000, more than most people can save in a lifetime?
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These are some of the things that have caught my attention lately. It’s a more eclectic mix than just the news business, but then so’s life:
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