Why is it that outsiders understand the news and media business better than insiders? Because they don’t have blinders on. And that’s why when a reporter asked Hollywood star Denzel Washington to comment on fake news, he got straight to the heart of the matter: If you don’t read the newspaper you are uniformed. If you do … Continue reading When Denzel speaks the truth about media
Earlier this month, folks from Google invited me along with Kara Swisher and Audrey Cooper for a conversation about the future of news. Towards the end of the conversation, we were asked what Google could do in order to help the news and media industry. Obviously, we joked about buying the New York Times, but when asked, I pointed out that Google is good at one thing — software — and instead of trying to do crazy things, why not build tools that help the news ecosystem? Why not create tools that help data novices make sense of information? Or how about a smarter, simpler and more nimble analytics tool just for reporters? (Or simply buy Chartbeat!) I forgot to mention one tool that they could build in their sleep, and in the process help not only save many reporter hours but make the news better, smarter and more contextual.
