The real reason why I didn't like him was for what he did to Nova. Nova was one of my favorite programs growing up and he absolutely ruined it with his annoying personality, stupid jokes/puns, and over simplifications. In a science show the science should be first, not the twit talking about it.
I'm not sure I understand why you feel it is good for you if Pogue is leaving NYT and going to Yahoo?
If you don't like him I can understand a comment like this expressing disdain and schadenfreude because something bad happened to him. But from what is being said (by Pogue) this is a actually something good for Pogue and has no impact on you positive or negative. And has no impact on Nova (Pogue says "I’ll still keep up my NOVA specials") so why the delight?
Here's what you get I) Good riddance I hate him (real valuable) ii) Some sort of conspiracy theory about ethics and issues. iii) Character attack/insinuation with some cheesy comment about his hiring manager and Yahoo based content and iv) never forget to work congress and government in there because a guy who does quirky videos on the iPad is only one step away from journalism and government coziness.
He worked at the Times for more than a decade, during an era when journalists with much smaller names than his own (think Jayson Blair) damaged the rep of the paper. The public editor called him out for it, even:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/opinion/06pubed.html?_r=0
Also, he works in a space where his industry colleagues constantly face conflict of interest issues. It's not a "conspiracy theory" if it's common knowledge.
If you think that's "the worst in HN," then this comment is no better.
Err, sorry. What I meant to say is that, while I agree with part A of your post, part B is total garbage. In conclusion, you are 100% wrong, and in fact, you are everything that's wrong with the internet.
It's one thing to bash someone who posts up a new service, a new idea, or a new project. It's entirely different when (in my case) you question a part of the machine that makes good on proving that there might be a conflict of interest when it comes to journalism and how the subjects they cover are treated.
Is that true? Is it really visited more often than Facebook, Google, Twitter, or YouTube? Alexa doesn’t agree[1].
According to a recent article[2], Yahoo is the most popular website in 2 regions: Japan and Hong Kong.
[1] http://www.alexa.com/topsites
[2] http://www.fastcocreate.com/3019595/creativity-by-the-number...
It's Yahoo properties, not Yahoo.com. Big boost: they bought Tumblr.
“Yahoo ranks as the most-visited website in the U.S., according to the latest report from ComScore” (So: ‘US’, not ‘the world’)
and: “Traffic to Tumblr [...] did not contribute to Yahoo's overall traffic number[...] Tumblr ranked as the 28th most popular U.S. property” (Again, just the US, and not even that popular)
http://www.informationweek.com/cloud-computing/software/yaho...
Alexa stats are interesting, because people who install searchbars voluntarily are also probably more likely to click on an ad and buy your penis enlargement cream.
First of all, Alexa is crap. It might be accurate in this instance, but it's crap nonetheless, especially for sites under the top 1000.
Second, those are not sites in the traditional sense. Google is a search engine, YouTube is a video sharing service, etc. That leaves Yahoo.
Huh? Sure, Yahoo tops Google if you exclude Google's biggest property and the entire mobile market (which Google controls nearly 80% of).
That's like if you saw a headline that said "Apple controls more of the desktop market than Microsoft (granted, the win doesn't include business customers or machines running Windows 7 and older)."
1: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/08/22/yahoo-tops-goo...
I never understood the appeal of this guy, nor his qualifications. Both he and Mossberg were woefully non-technical for technical reviewers.
Though I did stop reading anything from Kim Komando once she explained how a floppy drive worked, and she got all the facts wrong. (That was long enough ago that someone might explain how a floppy disk worked.)
If Pogue was the only tech reporter, there'd be a problem, but he's not. The web is full of extremely technical blogs and forums.
If you start small, write glowing reviews of products and company directives so that you get invited to pressers and tours, and maybe someday you too can get invited to go work inside the very companies the public trusted you to cover in an unbiased fashion! Be careful though, anything under 4.5 out of 5 stars and you might get a phone call from the PR department expressing their disappointment while they take you off of their most exclusive lists.
Congresspeople who take jobs as lobbyists after their terms in office are synonymous with journalists who join companies they covered "in the public's interest" during their professional careers.
(Disclaimer: I'm not saying that this was Pogue's position re: Yahoo. This is a rampant problem in new and old media in general.)
Tech coverage on traditional media must be a dwindling business.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/27/will-th...
http://valleywag.gawker.com/nyt-tech-columnist-david-pogue-m...
http://www.nytpick.com/2010/01/david-pogue-breaks-nyts-ethic...
This is such an unnatural sentence, it doesn't surprise me at all to see it as complete spin. Its beyond rare to pledge loyalty to a company, when you are leaving it to join a competitor. And Newspapers are so full of conflicts of interest (especially a place as politicised as NYT), that any reference to 'ethics' that is not self-serving is only by coincidence.
_________
It is quite likely that Pogue's reviews (e.g. great review of Flickr changes) were honest reviews and that he wasn't trying to curry favor with prospective future employers.
However, I hope that this job offer leads to more thoughts on conflicts of interest and perhaps requirements (from NYT etc) regarding journalists reviewing companies from whom they might accept job offers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=u-vDf...
> "CNET is not going to give an award or any other validation to a product which CBS is challenging as illegal, other networks believe to be illegal and one court has already found to violate the copyright act in its application. Beyond that, CNET will cover every other product and service on the planet," a CBS spokesperson said.[0]
USA Today questioned CNET's as well as CBS' credibility going forward:
> CBS, once called the Tiffany network, will never be viewed again as pristine. The ethical media rule is that corporate business interests should never interfere in journalism – or at least not so blatantly, publicly and harmfully. It made me wonder if 60 Minutes had ever suffered the same treatment.[1]
Why does CBS still exist? Why does CBS get a free pass simply for being the second largest broadcaster in the world? Why aren't we actively boycotting everything CBS lays its slimy hands on?
I am sad to conclude that your conclusion is correct. Nobody cares. Once you are big enough, you know you can get away with certain things.
[0] http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57566906-93/cea-gives-dish-...
[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/01/30/cbs-cnet-ce...
Are there really 12,000 new applicants per week that would even be remotely qualified? Even if only half of those are technical job applicants, I find that hard to believe. Resume spam from everyone who's unemployed.
[1]
Similarly, Pogue's content is full of inaccuracies, gross over-simplification, leading conclusions, and ignorance beyond what can be considered excusable. I suppose he'll be right at home at the "world's biggest startup".
But the comments here, especially the dismissive ones, seem to miss out on his popularity at the Times. Granted that "popularity" != "good" for a number of things but he brought a lot of readers to the Times and that was something the Times needs if they want to stay in business.
It annoys me when people make that choice (popularity over quality, as I felt Dr. Michio Kaku did with his TV stuff) but I have come to recognize it is there choice to make.
I guess it is showing a shift from Yahoo to be a quality content producer.
I spent seven years as an editor at top NYC magazines, and saw time and again that great journalists - even great brand-builders - aren't usually great at creating and managing new ventures. There are exceptions, though, and I hope Pogue is one of them.
I haven't read much from him since I was a kid, when I had a copy of Macworld Mac & Power Mac Secrets and was stuffing the book's 3.25" floppies into my Powermac 6100 to use ResEdit, but I especially remember the prose being engaging even apart from the interesting tricks and hacks the book covered. In his book computers lived in a world with people, rather than in a universe unto themselves, so I learned a little extra.
Scanning through a few columns again, the writing is no less clear, and even though I generally care about how something works rather than how well, no less correct. And on areas where I have no insider experience or information, like cell phone billing practices, the writing was suprisingly helpful and entertaining: http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/t-mobile-hands-con...
This is a serious move from Yahoo. Given the sort of demographic that reads the New York Times and buys tech books, Yahoo must have paid Pogue a lot to have him switch from New York Times columnist David Pogue to Yahoo! columnist David Pogue. I wonder who will be next.
It used to be that internet media was playing in print media's game, but now the situation is reversing, and the weaker (either in content or profitability) outfits will go by the wayside.
This isn't necessarily a good thing, but it will happen.
should read
"So I was intrigued when Yahoo showed me how zeroes can fit on a check.
