Field and Stream redesigns.
Is it me, or is it soulless? There’s no personality here. It’s like Foundation or Bootstrap “out of the box”.
FishbowlNY: Publishers Are Happy With Google AMP.
Faster wins.
InTheseTimes: Natives Are Being Killed by Police at a Rate Higher Than Any Other Group.
I’ve been trying to get this fact into people’s heads, to little avail.
In These Times: The Hypocrisy of Some Trump Supporters.
Now that Trump’s on a downhill slide, you wonder where all these on-point articles were during the primaries.
FishbowlNY: Amazon Prime Now Offers Magazines.
“The magazine selection is great too. A few of the options available: National Geographic Traveler, People, Sports Illustrated, Bon Appétit, HGTV, Popular Mechanics, Golf Digest and Runner’s World.” Getting closer to ‘one login, one price for everything.’
The Atlantic: Mike Pence Pretends That Donald Trump Never Happened.
“Should the Trump candidacy fail, as now seems likely, those leaders stand ready to deny that the revolt ever happened. [snip] The solution for 2020? Bring back the professionals — and return to business as usual.” It’ll work only if the obverse doesn’t give the media more clickthroughs.
NY Times: Why New Jersey’s Trains Aren’t Safer.
You could just have crush zones, like the long sand inclines you see on ski mountains for brakeless trucks. Tech fails. Analog (physical) fixes are more reliable. And CHEAP. NJ Transit’s skint.
The New Yorker: How a Conservative Paper Ended Up Endorsing Hillary Clinton.
“We see him as a dangerous guy who would roll back press freedoms, who has sworn to do that. If he would crush freedoms in one area, we have no doubt he’d do so in others.” But will the rank-and-file listen? They’re off in Fox/Drudge/Breitbart la-la land. Just the places where you’d want to carry a makila, to defend yourself against sudden backstabbings because of the opinion-du-jour.
Guardian.UK: New Jersey train crash - critical injuries reported in Hoboken – live updates.
Train never stopped, apparently hit end-of-track bumper in the station at cruising speed. Only worse situation would be a head-on, or a head-on in a tunnel. I cringe to think of it, after riding the rails to NYC for thirteen years.
FishbowlNY: Cuts Coming to Guardian US.
Terrible to hear. They’ve been my go-to alternative to paywalls at the Times and Post. Getting to the point where a guy can’t be a news blogger without investing significant $ to do so. Maybe if media orgs would stop posting opinion in what should be factual current event articles, they’d save money ...
FishbowlNY: Gallup Poll - Americans Don’t Trust the Media.
Duh. If you have to work unbelievably hard to dig out a single naked fact out of a forest of opinion, it’s a fail for the industry.
DeSmogBlog: Obama Again Sounds Climate Change Alarm But Continues Supporting Fossil Fuel Industry.
Wishy-washy, but worth a perusal.
Open Culture: Doonesbury Imagines a Trump Candidacy Back in 1999. And Nails It!
Omigod. Share this around.
‘White anger against Democrats’ meme.
Okay, media, who’s blocking progress in Congress? So why are you harping on this misdirected anger, instead of educating?
For shame. You all need to be made to wash dishes, clean toilets and do some coal mining.
10,447 unread.
I think I’ll just “Mark All Read” and wait for current news to hit. I did note that Gene Wilder passed away while I was gone. I think that was about the only event of real note that mattered. Many great performances, but his interviews after he left the spotlight were often just as memorable (IMHO). A clearsighted, good man. RIP, Gene.
FishbowlNY: NY Times to Shutter NYT Now App.
Not esp. surprising. Another app I can erase.
FishbowlNY: NPR Is Closing Its Comments Section.
“Montgomery added that social media provides a much better platform for discussing NPR stories than the site’s comments section. He’s right, of course.” Um, Twitter just encourages snark. So I respectfully disagree.
Rolling Stone: Matt Taibbi on the Summer of the Media Shill.
“Media power comes from trust and respect, and both are eroded quickly if you only ever give people what they want to hear.” Can we underline that one, relink it generously?
CNN Money: John McLaughlin of ‘The McLaughlin Group’ dies at 89.
I suspect he modelled his show after the ‘popularity’ of the Buckley/Vidal debate in ‘68.
The Atlantic: Aetna to Withdraw From Nearly 70 Percent of Its Obamacare Exchanges.
“Back when UnitedHealth was the only insurance company bailing out, it was easy to dismiss as just one company trying to boost its bottom line. But when all five big insurers are bleeding money, it’s clear you’ve got bigger problems.” Looks like the media wants to make it a talking point. We’ll see if any candidate takes the bait, or that it survives the news cycle.
Slate: Shadi Hamid on Islamic exceptionalism.
“Islamism is by definition illiberal, and they would promote things that are contrary to classical liberalism, in the sense of non-negotiable personal rights and freedoms, gender equality, protection of minorities.” Another information point, for those curious.
FishbowlNY: The Drudge Report Meets Usain Bolt.
“In the month of July, there were a total of 2,678,400 news-making seconds. If you divide the Drudge July page views total by that number, you get an average of 549.66 page views per second.” One look at the DR, you feel the world’s falling apart. As bad as Amazon’s “Most Read” email, if not worse. Do we as a society really love bad news this much?
FishbowlNY: Even The WSJ Has Had Enough of Donald Trump.
The Hill: Carville - Trump is ‘pretty stupid when it comes to politics’.
“What’s happening is people see this guy is a loser and he’s not running a very smart campaign.” Carville can’t wait for Trump’s response tweet, I bet ...
NY Times: The Perfect G.O.P. Nominee.
“The Republicans have their candidate: It’s Hillary.” Been saying it for ages.
