Tag: nytimes

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New York Times Co. Leads Funding for New Online J Site ‘Daylife’

daylifeA formal announcement is forthcoming from Daylife — the news site that has popped up in conversation over the past year because of Craig Newmark, Jeff Jarvis and others’ involvement in the project.

The New York Times Company appears to be one of the top investors, which could foreshadow a bold move into user-generated news and reader-customizable content.

Staci Kramer at Paid Content writes:

The mission is to gather and organize news in ways that are most relevant to the user. That could be by event, topic, author, geography or other factors. Source pages that show what a journalist writes about or who is quoted are part of the mix. RSS plays an important role. In an interview, [Upendra] Shardanand [founder of Firefly] said the distributed platform—designed for use across multiple sites—will be open “to a degree” with options for revenue sharing and licensing for those doing a heavy volume. “Anyone can take what we’re building and add it to their own site … Obviously, we have to make some revenue.”

Nice to see the Times making a proactive move long after their relatively idiotic acquisition of About.com. Interested to see how — if at all — Jay Rosen‘s NewAssignment.Net is involved.

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NYT Researcher to be Freed after 18 months in Chinese Prison

Zhao YanZhao Yan, the New York Times research based in Beijing who was greatly overshadowed by the comparatively brief jail term served by NYT reporter Judith Miller, will be released after 18 months in isolation in a Chinese prison.

The New York Times reports that Zhao has been found not guilty of one charge and may be released within days. Reporters Without Borders:

Zhao, 42, who had been held in custody by state security for 18 months, was facing charges of “divulging state secrets”, an offence punishable by the death penalty, and of “fraud”.

He had been accused of giving the news of the political retirement of Jiang Zemin to his newspaper before it was made known officially. The New York Times has always maintained that the news had not come from Zhao.

“We are absolutely delighted at the announcement of the imminent release of Zhao Yan,” the organisation said. “They have finally accepted the innocence of a brave man who became the scapegoat of a government which scorns investigative journalism”.

Can’t think of a better way to close out Sunshine week — an annual call of attention to current threates to open government — than the news of Zhao’s release. He was awarded for Reporters Without Borders.

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Iraqi Bloggers Continue Posting at TimesSelect

The four young writers that the New York Times scooped off of the blogosphere, three from Baghdad and one from Mosul, are still providing well-written posts about everything from health care to education to bombs to Eid celebrations at http://iraq.page.nytimes.com/.

This is yet another bonus for TimesSelect subscribers ($50/yr, but free if you subscribe to even just the Sunday Times).

In a week that saw a despicable display of editorializing by Washington Post ombudsperson Deborah Howell, topped with the mass deletion of reader feedback at post.blog, it has been revealed that the New York Times has ordered its editors to remove e-mail addresses from their print and online op-eds, thereby enabling only TimesSelect subscribers to e-mail as well as to access the truthiness of the likes of Frank Rich, et al. Worseover, American Thinker busted The Times last week for mis-captioning this photo, alleged to be from the site of the recent U.S. airstrikes in Pakistan.

Howell, wholly disregarding and abusing her ombudsly responsibilities failed to clear up false claims in her Abramoff report last week and the melee that followed, allowing that she did print wrong information, but encouraging readers to “stay tuned…”

Lame. Sunday talk shows of note include Sen. Kerry on Stephanopolous, Obama on Russert, and Sens. Lieberman and Roberts on Face the Nation. The coming week, on the other hand, is setting up to be quite newsworthy, what with French PM Chirac dropping his own nuclear bombshell, and news of Israel planning to attack Iran should diplomatic efforts to halt their nuclear projects fail.

AND NOW, AFP reports from Tehran:

Iranian officials have held talks with radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, a prominent opponent of US forces, with Tehran using the visit to repeat its call for foreign troops to quit Iraq.

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NYT features posts from Iraqi bloggers

In a brilliant move, the Sunday New York Times Opinion pages feature posts from four Iraqi bloggers in a piece titled: “Blogging the Iraqi Vote.”

If there was any consensus from the bloggers (A Star From Mosul, Baghdad Burning, Eject, and An Average Iraqi) it seemed to be that the 70 percent figure of eligible voters who made it to the poll is a consequence of an increasingly intolerable occupation.

I wonder if 70 percent of American voters would ever show up in a display of dissatisfaction with teh current regime at home?