newspapers

Write one of these memos about your own website

The net is all abuzz today about this angry memo from Bill Gates to a list of Microsoft bigwigs back in 2003. It's a classic: Gates tries to buy some Microsoft software, has a terrible user experience, and lets people know exactly what he thinks.

Funny, but here's a challenge. Assign yourself any random task on your newspaper's website, like trying to sell a car or give away a dog or maybe just find the forums. Take notes. And then write a Gates memo. Bet you can do it, with feeling.

Rolling over in Walter Williams' grave

I had dinner Friday night with Dean Mills and several other folks from the University of Missouri J-School. Not one word was said about the death of print, the crushing debt loads taken on by big publishing companies, or other depressing topics that tend to dominate journalism conversations (and blogs) these days.

It was an upbeat conversation about exciting possibilities, all hope and energy and yes, optimism. Mizzou has all sorts of fascinating projects in the works.

Cesspool of misinformation?

The official Old Media party line, among the few remaining true luddites not yet laid off by their newspaper employers, is that New Media is a cesspool of misinformation while print is a rock of traditional credibility.

But the progress of the crackpot story about China drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba -- repeated by no less than Vice President Dick Cheney -- should knock a few holes in that argument.