Twitter is boring. It’s a random stream of content, mostly promotional. It’s great for celebrities broadcasting to their fans, but for the rest of us, it needs help. And with the CEO gone and the company disappointing investors, it’s time for a change. I’m not talking about financial engineering, CEO candidates, or “sell it to Google.”…
Say what you will about NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, but he finally figured out how to publish something clear on deflategate. Or putting it in the terms that the Wells Report used, it is “more probable than not” that you can actually figure out what Roger Goodell is saying. Look, Goodell is a mess. It took…
I wrote yesterday about the Times’ journalistic lapses and passive-voice innuendo in reporting about Hillary Clinton’s email account. Later on Monday, Margaret Sullivan, the New York Times‘ public editor, explained how the paper screwed up in an article called “A Clinton Story Fraught With Inaccuracies.” While her explanation clarifies what happened, it uses passive voice to allow…
If you opened your New York Times on Friday, you got the impression that the Justice department was opening a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton. Actually, it isn’t. After the newspaper recognized its errors, it papered over the original article and headline with passive voice. You’d expect this sort of innuendo from outlets with a conservative…
In the year 2000, when I was the top technology analyst in the television industry, I began to see the outlines of the transformation of television. TiVo had delivered a big shock to the television schedule. Video on-demand was another tremor. I could see the whole edifice shaking. I wrote a piece called “The End Of TV (As We…
I studied the television industry for more than a decade. It doesn’t work the way you think it does. Since TV is a highly visible but stodgy industry ripe for disruption, it’s a great topic for #5BullshitThings, highlighting industries that work in incomprehensible ways and why they do. I’ll explain your bloated cable bill, why TV programs…
Is there any point in giving an interview and not saying anything? Politicians and executives do this all the time. It means things are going poorly but there is no plan to fix them. Ask Red Sox President and CEO Larry Lucchino. Despite their massive payroll, the Red Sox are in last place for the third…
If you haven’t yet figured out that you cannot control social media, where have you been sleeping for the last ten years? Hey, Fifty Shades publicists, I’m talking to you. Here’s the simple syllogism: Social media is vibrant because anyone can say anything. Haters feed on each other. Therefore, when you create a social media event, it…
Thanks to Wiley’s Non Sequitur for today’s wisdom about how context affects what we think is bullshit. (And why I still have a beard.)