Tag Archives: Journalism

Without aligning incentives, we can’t kill fake news or save journalism

Posted on July 19, 2019 by Doc Searls

It’s time to move past the toxic and destructive business called adtech: surveillance-based advertising. Adtech is the Agent Smith of digital advertising: a rogue programmatic approach to digital advertising that rationalizes tracking people like marked animals. Today adtech is the main business model for nearly all … Continue reading →

Posted in adtech, advertising, Journalism | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Saving High Mountain

Posted on February 27, 2017 by Doc Searls

  I’ve long thought that the most consequential thing I’ve ever done was write a newspaper editorial that helped stop development atop the highest wooded hilltop overlooking the New York metro. The hill is called High Mountain, and it is … Continue reading →

Posted in Geography, history, Journalism, News, Past, Personal, publishing, Technology | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

How True Advertising Can Save Journalism From Drowning in a Sea of Content

Posted on January 26, 2017 by Doc Searls

Journalism is in a world of hurt because it has been marginalized by a new business model that requires maximizing “content” instead. That model is called adtech. We can see adtech’s effects in The New York Times’ In New Jersey, Only … Continue reading →

Posted in adtech, advertising, Business, Journalism, problems, publishing, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Toward an ethics of influence

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Doc Searls

This event is now in the past and can be seen in its entirety here. Stop now and go to TimeWellSpent.io, where @TristanHarris, the guy on the left above, has produced and gathered much wisdom about a subject most of us … Continue reading →

Posted in adtech, advertising, Berkman, Blogging, Business, Events, Ideas, Life, marketing, Personal, problems | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Sports as a propaganda laboratory

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Doc Searls

The other day a friend shared this quote from Michael Choukas‘ Propaganda Comes of Age (Public Affairs Press, 1965): This is not the propagandist’s aim. For him the validity of an image must be measured not by the degree of its fidelity, … Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism, News, Past, Personal, Places, Politics, problems, Research | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Write and Wrong

Posted on April 21, 2010 by Doc Searls

When Gizmodo reported on the next-generation iPhone that had come into its hands, I was as curious as the next geek about what they’d found. But I didn’t think the ends justified the means. The story begins, You are looking at … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Business, Journalism, Past, problems, Technology | Tagged , , | 28 Comments

What’s wrong with this picture?

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Doc Searls

Why is Steve Jobs taller than Eric Schmidt in this picture? I’ve met both guys, and I’m sure Eric is taller than Steve. But maybe I’m wrong. I’m having trouble (must be my night for that) finding believable height information … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Business, Journalism, News | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Underground news

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Doc Searls

Three days ago Jonathan MacDonald witnessed an altercation in the London Underground at the Holborn Station, between — as Jonathan reports it — a uniformed Underground staffer an elderly man whose arm had just been released from doors that had … Continue reading →

Posted in Events, Journalism, Life, News, Places | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

An opportunity for the AP

Posted on July 29, 2009 by Doc Searls

It helps to recognize that the Associated Press is exactly what its name denotes: an association of presses. Specifically, newspapers. Fifteen hundred of them. Needless to say, newspapers are having a hard time. (Hell, I gave them some, myself, yesterday.) … Continue reading →

Posted in Berkman, Blogging, Business, Future, Ideas, infrastructure, Journalism, News, problems, VRM | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Journalism and Net Nativity

Posted on May 26, 2009 by Doc Searls

I don’t go to TV for Journalism any more, even though I’m sure there’s plenty left: needles scattered thorugh a haystack of channels and program schedules that have become so hard to navigate on satellite and cable systems that it’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Journalism, problems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments