I understand why a professional journalist like Nate Thayer would be frustrated at being asked to work for “exposure” rather than work for pay, though I think it’s unprofessional to vent that frustration by publishing the e-mails and the name of the junior editor who made the request.
(Brian Stauffer for The Washington Post/)
But behind this debate lurks an uncomfortable fact: The salaries of professional journalists are built upon our success in convincing experts of all kinds working for exposure rather than pay. Now those experts have found a way to work for exposure without going through professional journalists, creating a vast expansion in the quantity and quality of content editors can get for free.
Call it the revenge of our sources. For a very long time, we got them to work for nothing more than exposure — and sometimes, we didn’t even give them that. Now they’re getting more and more of us to do it.
Daily Archives: March 10, 2013
Exclusive: BBC selling Lonely Planet to Kentucky cigarette billionaire Brad Kelley
EXCLUSIVE: Lonely Planet, the storied travel guidebooks publisher owned by BBC, is about to be sold, we have learned. And the buyer is a doozy: reclusive Kentucky billionaire Brad Kelley, who spent the 1990s selling discount cigarette brands like USA Gold, Bull Durham, and Malibu, then sold the company for almost $1 billion in 2001, and parlayed that money into becoming the one of the largest land owners and conservationists in United States.
The deal is in final stages of negotiation, and barring any big red flags that come up the last second it should be announced next week.
The deal terms, according to our sources: Kelley will buy a majority controlling stake in Lonely Planet, and BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of BBC which bought LP, will retain a small-but-sizable stake to help maintain editorial control through current management, as well as save on inter-country taxes.
Evgeny Morozov: ‘We are abandoning all the checks and balances’
Evgeny Morozov is a Belarus-born technology writer who has held positions at Stanford and Georgetown universities in the US. His first book, The Net Delusion, argued that “Western do-gooders may have missed how [the internet]… entrenches dictators, threatens dissidents, and makes it harder – not easier –to promote democracy”. It was described as “brilliant and courageous” by the New York Times. In his second book To Save Everything, Click Here, Morozov critiques what he calls “solutionism” – the idea that given the right code, algorithms and robots, technology can solve all of mankind’s problems, effectively making life “frictionless” and trouble-free. Morozov argues that this drive to eradicate imperfection and make everything “efficient” shuts down other avenues of progress and leads ultimately to an algorithm-driven world where Silicon Valley, rather than elected governments, determines the shape of the future.
Some of the technologies you describe as “solutionist” many people find useful. For instance self-tracking gadgets that encourage people to exercise, to monitor their blood pressure or warn them about their driving habits and reduce their insurance premiums.
The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley’s big talk on innovation Silicon Valley quick to chase easy profits, blame government
But for all the funding announcements, product launches, media attention and wealth creation, most of Silicon Valley doesn’t concern itself with aiming “almost ridiculously high.” It concerns itself primarily with getting people to click on ads or buy slightly better gadgets than the ones they got last year.
Time to drop the pretense
That’s fine, that’s capitalism – and these incremental improvements lead to slow productivity gains that at least quicken the pulse of economists. But maybe let’s drop the pretense that we’re curing cancer unless, you know, we’re curing cancer.
Levchin specifically took the stage that day to discuss his forthcoming book on the subject, “The Blueprint: Reviving Innovation, Rediscovering Risk and Rescuing the Free Market.” One of his co-authors was venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who joined him in the appearance.The description for the (now very delayed) title notes: “We have become a risk-averse society, hobbled by tort laws and government regulations, short-term financial thinking, and mind-numbing complacency.”
That all sounds about right, but based on other public comments – particularly from Thiel, an outspoken libertarian – the weight of their blame seems to land on government while the grand hopes lie in “Rescuing the Free Market.” That conforms to a growing view in Silicon Valley that government is the archenemy of innovation.
But when we stick to the definition of solving the really hard problems of science and technology, the scale just as easily tips the other way.
The rising gap between primary and secondary mortgage rates
Andreas Fuster, Laurie Goodman, David Lucca, Laurel Madar, Linsey Molloy, Paul Willen:
Mortgage rates have reached historic lows in recent months, yet the spread between primary and secondary rates has risen to very high levels, reflecting a number of potential factors affecting originator costs and profits. This paper attempts to evaluate the quantitative importance of some of these factors as background material for the workshop on “The Spread between Primary and Secondary Mortgage Rates: Recent Trends and Prospects” to be held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on December 3, 2012.