Nick Bergus - Latest Comments

Re: Metaphors: Burger King and, sigh, the Titanic

Nick Bergus — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:32:13 -0000

Howard, we gotta keep this cheap, so we're a strict Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V operation here ;)

Your point is a good one: "good" journalism isn't always as expensive and hard-to-produce as the Titanic passengers would have us believe. Thanks for offering up the simile.

Re: Metaphors: Burger King and, sigh, the Titanic

Howard Owens — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 07:53:07 -0000

well you could at least clean up my typos :)

(Some) Journalists are intent on clutching to old models, like a Titanic passenger clinging to ... "

In Reality it is, however, just not true.

Re: Metaphors: lawns and, um, genocide?

David Rutter — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:10:30 -0000

Fellini
David Rutter's "Quinn, Uncle Fester and the Painter with the Big Hair"

I often thought the various folks who appeared in public and announced what their boss, Rod Blagojevich, was up to this fine day must have viewed that job as a bit role in a new Fellini movie, replete with clowns, hallucinations captured with cameras tilted at odd angles and many large, angry Italian women with moustaches. They all looked like they wished they could be doing something else at the moment, like being abducted by anal-probing aliens maybe.

Re: I want a new Twitter client for Android

Nick Bergus — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:45:48 -0000

A good point. I would prefer a simple client that does a few things really well to one that has a ton of features (especially ones I don't really need) that sorta work.

One of my biggest complaints is the user interface. Twitter.com's sucks, but a Twitter client's doesn't have to.

Re: I want a new Twitter client for Android

sbergus — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:14:24 -0000

I have recently experience enough problems with Twidroid to convince me to try a new client (Seismic in this case). I think the problem Twidroid has is similar to the problem Twitter had/has, a focus on creating new features instead of fixing and streamlining the features already implemented.

Re: Metaphors: socially useless supervillians and the Titanic, yet again

Greg Hollingsworth — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:28:53 -0000

The Titanic fallacy is interesting, however, it's implication that airplanes made boats obsolete is inaccurate. As a main mode of transoceanic travel perhaps, but we still have major cruiselines, massive transoceanic shipping and plenty of other things.

The Titanic's sister ship Olympic served throughout WW1 as a troop transport and hospital ship, it is likely that had the Titanic (or the Britannic for that matter) survived their Trans-Atlantic trips, they would have served similar purposes.

The plane may have jeopardized the future of the boating industry for passenger transit, but it took quite a while before the passenger airline became an affordable reality.

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Steve Buttry — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:09:30 -0000

Just remembered one of the best media metaphors ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Re: My own private URL shortener

Nick Bergus — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:12:17 -0000

Once I figured out I needed to upgrade to PHP 5, it worked like a dream. Thanks, Phil. Nice work.

Re: My own private URL shortener

Phil Nelson — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:03:07 -0000

Looks like it's working, eh?

Re: Iowa newspaper awards make you feel good, don’t mean much else

Nick Bergus — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 15:21:23 -0000

Good points, Gregory. Outside opinions are valuable. Of course it looks good to be able to call your paper an award-winning newspaper; it's good for advertising and readership, I'm sure. My point was that newspapers shouldn't neither do what they do to win awards nor put too much stock in winning them (or, as you suggest, not winning them).

Re: Iowa newspaper awards make you feel good, don’t mean much else

gregorynorfleet — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 13:11:17 -0000

Often a reader's, or a community's, perception of a newspaper is different than that of the editor. Consider stories of hot-button issues, or sensitive subjects. People will drop their subscription or re-subscribe over a story. Businesses will pull ads or maintain a contract.

But when a newspaper submits their work to a contest, then an independent judge -- someone who does not have a stake in a local subject -- can give a more objective assessment. Winning an award tells newspapers that they are maintaining their quality. (Not winning actually does not say much, since you may have had stiffer competition in one category, or not so much in another.)

Winning awards is not the only factor editors should consider, though. If you have strong advertising, then that shows your chosen readership area appeals to business owners. That's good. If you have a strong subscriber base, then readers are interested in your stories, photos and even the ads. That's also good.

Obviously, you can't please everyone. But if you can win awards, keep a strong subscriber base and maintain profitability, then you have the balance necessary for a quality newspaper and a good business.

Re: Where will those dirty, dirty bloggers aggregators stop?

Nick Bergus — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:51:14 -0000

This is akin to newspapers and the AP complaining about Google appropriating content by indexing it but not taking the step to add a robots.txt file to reject crawlers that index the content.

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Steve Buttry — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:08:25 -0000

Yet another maritime model: http://onlinejournalismblog.co...
"When you’re driving a tanker and you see a big rock ahead - do you ask everyone on the ship to rebuild it as an aeroplane? Or do you start steering away in the hope that your part of the tanker will somehow avoid the worst?"

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Nick Bergus — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:40:00 -0000

Sage, I don't claim the list to be complete or definitive. Feel free to suggest any links or quotes I'm missing. I sure the list is missing plenty.

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Sage Ross — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:01:21 -0000

To be fair, the Pre-Gutenberg Monks metaphor was stolen from Clay Shirky in Here Comes Everybody (or at least, Shirky's use predates the one you list).

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Steve Buttry — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:36:31 -0000

Nick, if you're going to post Carole King, you should add my Carly Simon reference, too:
http://twitter.com/stevebuttry...

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Steve Buttry — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:31:11 -0000

Duh! Forgot my own Tinkerbell metaphor: http://stevebuttry.wordpress.c...

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Steve Buttry — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:05:44 -0000

You knew @xarker would have a good one: naked emperor: http://bit.ly/YeLDs

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Nick Bergus — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:47:05 -0000

Includes bonus golden goose metaphor!

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Steve Buttry — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:46:24 -0000

I guess a link would have helped, along with the Bush-Marx reference: http://bit.ly/kueYk

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Steve Buttry — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:38:55 -0000

Polar metaphors in this piece: George W. Bush and Marx.

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Nick Bergus — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:23:17 -0000

Thanks for all the suggestions, Steve.

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Steve Buttry — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:15:41 -0000

Can't believe it's taken this long to get a Jonestown reference:
http://www.yelvington.com/node...
From Steve Yelvington:
"With all the hyperbolic, ill-sourced and often self-serving End of Days coverage of the newspaper industry lately, we shouldn't be surprised to see any number of really bad ideas surfacing -- and I don't just mean paywalls.

I say: Let the bad ideas flow. Sometimes bad ideas spark good ones. Just don't drink the Kool-Aid."

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Steve Buttry — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:38:40 -0000

The mob and Yalta:
http://correspondents.theatlan...
"One hopes it displays the same sense of purpose as, say, troubled world leaders did at Yalta in 1945 or, in a rather less respectable sector of the economy, beleaguered mob bosses did at a legendary Apalachin, New York, confab in 1957."

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Steve Buttry — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:04:04 -0000

Don't forget buggy whips: http://finance.toolbox.com/blo...