Link Banana

I’d buy this:

The newspapers that survive will probably do so with some kind of hybrid content: analysis, interpretation and investigative reporting in a print product that appears less than daily, combined with constant updating and reader interaction on the Web.

But the time for launching this strategy is growing short if it has not already passed.

And I think this is undeniable:

I still believe that a newspaper’s most important product, the product least vulnerable to substitution, is community influence. It gains this influence by being the trusted source for locally produced news, analysis and investigative reporting about public affairs. This influence makes it more attractive to advertisers.

Altogether, a worthy read.

(via Magnetbox)

Dexter Filkens, who covered Iraq from 2003 to 2006, has a rather good piece about its impact on him in this week’s New York Times Magazine.

For me, the war sort of flattened things out, flattened things out here and flattened them out there too. Toward the end, when I was still there, so many bombs had gone off so many times that they no longer shocked or even roused; the people screamed in silence and in slow motion. And then I got back to the world, and the weddings and the picnics were the same as everything had been in Iraq, silent and slow and heavy and dead.

For some reason neglecting to mention recent rumors about a CNN-CBS pairing, Troy Patterson says that CBS’s news products are so bad they should just take pity and pull them off the air. His opening barb:

To judge by the ads, the most loyal adherents to CBS’ quasi-journalistic programming are impotent and incontinent. It so happens that they share these afflictions with the network’s actual news division.

I found this Europe.view column completely charming. Here’s how to get the story a big multi-nation summits:

Hanging about in hotel bars late at night is where you get the real story. Advisers to important people tend to be more interesting than the bigshots themselves (particularly if you can get them to show off a bit about what they know).

Find the hotels where the key delegations are staying and head there to make new contacts. The best way is to be audacious: claim acquaintance on the lines of “I saw you at the last NATO summit. Don’t you work for the secretary-general?”

This sort of chat-up line is unlikely to offend anyone, especially when followed by an offer of a drink. Follow up with “I don’t understand—but I bet you do—why….”

Don’t express your own opinions on hot topics until you have a rough idea of what your new friend thinks. Express amazement and gratitude at even the most trivial insight in the hope of getting something better. If stuck with a bore or a nonentity, grasp your phone and pretend to take a non-existent call.

I’ve been doing my best to avoid being “all Zimbabwe all the time,” but this required noting. The AFP’s reporting that a New York Times correspondent was among those arrested. This roughly my thinking on the matter:

“We are alarmed by reports that foreign journalists have been detained in Harare,” Joel Simon, the executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement.

“In light of the political situation, it is imperative that all journalists, foreign and domestic, be allowed to work freely. We call on authorities to immediately release all journalists currently being held,” he added.

For a more thorough summary of what’s happened there recently, try this Economist story.

David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, has an tradition of giving out annual awards for good magazine pieces. In 2006, he described the prize as such:

The Sidney Awards, named for Sidney Hook, are a nice way to honor the best magazine essays of the year and to pass along a few nutritious holiday reading recommendations.

2007 was the first year I came across the columnist’s winners, and they’re pretty solid — and an excellent way fill the void caused by a lack of other good journalism. And I wouldn’t deny that seeing this great idea was part of the reason I started Link Banana.