Forget Jayson Blair, Jack Kelley and Stephen Glass. What happens when you can’t even trust the words of a food critic? Bart Ripp, restaurant critic of the Tacoma News Tribune, has quit ”after 32 years in the newspaper business, 15 of them here as a features writer, historian, postcard savant and restaurant critic.” Now, according to … Read more
Take pity on us journalists. I tried to reach Toshiba’s PR handlers in Asia this morning. It’s not easy. Their Japanese site has a webpage which contains press releases but none of those releases contained contact numbers, names or emails. (How are we expected to ask follow up questions if there’s no contact number? A press release … Read more
Further to my post yesterday about whether other webmail providers are ahead of Gmail in scanning emails to target the user with ads, it would appear that they’re not. Microsoft is unequivocal in saying Hotmail does not. A MSN spokesperson says: Microsoft is deeply committed to protecting the privacy of users’ personal communications. MSN Hotmail … Read more
This week’s Loose Wire column answers readers’ questions on Bluesnarfing, the unpleasant term for the unpleasant process of remotely stealing the data from a Bluetooth-equipped cellphones, the wonders of PowerDesk and ExplorerPlus, and browser wars. Full text at the Far Eastern Economic Review (subscription required, trial available) or at WSJ.com (subscription required). Old columns at feer.com … Read more
With all this gadgetry, you’d think that plagiarism was a thing of the past. OK, it wasn’t plagiarism, more like fiction, but the point is the same: Watching Shattered Glass, the movie about fabulating New Republic ‘journalist’ Stephen Glass, the other night, I couldn’t help wondering why no one had picked up on his lies … Read more