The Irony: Complaining about Linkbait with Linkbait

By Tim Berry

Here’s an irony: Mashable’s thoughtful post titled Stop Linkbait Before It Ruins Content Marketing is surrounded by linkbait. And what’s there on the right, in the sidebar? An ad, then “what’s hot,” one about an injured kitten and the other about Justin Bieber. Both of which are, well, linkbait. Right? The post, by Sam Slaughter, starts like... Read More »

Compare And Contrast These 2 Blog Pub Strategies

By Tim Berry

Yesterday my email stream included two starkly contrasting approaches to getting links and mentions from bloggers. One offered me free guest posts, supposedly good quality posts on relevant business topics. The email had links to examples. It’s author said… Having graduated in International Business and Journalism a few years ago, Ive covered everything from global... Read More »

Good News for Local Journalism — I Hope

By Tim Berry

This week what my local (Eugene, Oregon) newspaper is doing with an iPad app makes me feel better about the future of journalism in the new online age. I’ve got a newspaper habit. I begin my day with the local paper. While I make my coffee and gather a breakfast, a browse the headlines, and... Read More »

The Difference Between a Journalist and a Blogger

By Tim Berry

What’s the difference between a journalist and a blogger? I see this from both sides because I was mainstream journalist for 10 years in the 1970s, then entrepreneur and consultant, software guy, and lately I blog a lot. A real journalist tries to tell the objective truth, reports facts fairly, strives for balance, and discloses bias.... Read More »

Is Print Journalism Dead?

By Tim Berry

Is print journalism dead? I got the question overnight in email from a student working on a research paper. He’d seen this post on this blog about that. He asked me to answer these three questions.  So these are his questions with my answers. 1.) What are the factors that have led to falling sales? Start... Read More »

Is Objective Journalism Doomed?

By Tim Berry

Do you ever wonder what happened to objective journalism? I have a thought about that. Until the web changed everything, we got our news from a very few sources: There was a newspaper or two in every city. There were three major networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS, offering television and radio news. There were a few... Read More »

Missing the Bonding Agent of Mainstream News

By Tim Berry

What an irony: when we all depended on a very few quasi-monopoly mainstream news media, news was more fact and less opinion. Who would have predicted that? I suppose this is hard to believe, but when I was in Journalism grad school a few decades ago teachers, students, and even practicing journalists believed in news... Read More »

Business Journalism Problem: Good Advice is Boring

By Tim Berry

I posted here yesterday about a Jay Goltz’ “Cash is Not King” post on NYTimes. I said: So what’s up with this? Is it just man bites dog, good journalism because it’s surprising, reversing standard wisdom? Yes, it is: good journalism, not-so-good business writing, because it’s playing to a catchy headline. It surprises people. He... Read More »