Nick Bergus - Latest Comments

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

devilinthedetails — 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

twitter-11616772 — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:09:30 -0000

Just remembered one of the best media metaphors ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyr2WwbT4aU&feat...

Re: My own private URL shortener

nbergus — 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

twitter-33053 — 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

nbergus — 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?

nbergus — 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.com/2009/06/10/in-d...
"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

nbergus — 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

facebook-505105795 — 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/status/2065582324

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

facebook-505105795 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:31:11 -0000

Duh! Forgot my own Tinkerbell metaphor: http://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/sev...

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

facebook-505105795 — 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

nbergus — 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

nbergus — 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/546
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

facebook-505105795 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:38:40 -0000

The mob and Yalta:
http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/james_war...
"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

facebook-505105795 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:04:04 -0000

Don't forget buggy whips: http://finance.toolbox.com/blogs/exuberant-acco...

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

Editor — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:12:33 -0000

"Deck chairs on the Titanic" seems to come up a lot.

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

facebook-505105795 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:52:55 -0000

I have also likened the disruption the news industry is facing to the tectonic shifts that created Bryce Canyon: http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/pages/res...

Re: Metaphors related to the state of news

facebook-505105795 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:51:33 -0000

Thanks for starting this, Nick. Since I suggested it, I should contribute. I have likened the newspaper business in my blog and frequently in seminars and conferences to the pre-Gutenberg monks who made handcrafted Bibles. New technology was going to put their physical product out of business. But their contribution to the world, a message that they believed was the word of God, would be enhanced by the new technology: http://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/goo... (metaphor is at the end of the link)

Re: What “new-media journalism” skills do you need, anyway?

nbergus — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:49:19 -0000

Starting an eponymous blog is a really good idea; that goes along with selling yourself. One could talk for days about using SEO dark magic in an effort to get a job.

I think just as important as learning a bunch of software programs is learning how you can use them as storytelling tools. It's hard to master Flash and ActionScript, but if you have an idea of what you can (and can't) do with them (and what works and what doesn't) you'll be better for it.

Re: What “new-media journalism” skills do you need, anyway?

Jessie DaSilva — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:18:38 -0000

I also added a new post on tips for new bloggers: http://www.jessicadasilva.com/2009/03/25/bloggi...

Yes, that was a shameless self-plug.