Sunday, February 13, 2011

Is all writing copywriting now?

Nate Silver's piece on the New York Time's website, 'The Economics of Blogging and The Huffington Post' makes the following statement:

"I’ve also done a fair amount of uncompensated or undercompensated writing — there is certainly a time and a place for it, particularly if you’re trying to establish or re-establish your brand."

This conflation of reputation and brand is intriguing. It seems to me that if you follow this line of thinking it suggests that somehow all writing is advertising that exists to reinforce a writer's 'brand'. For me, self promotion has never been the point of writing and I expect many others would bristle at this conceptualization.



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Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Stealth videography in Cairo

New York Times foreign correspondent Stephen Farrell describes his pared down kit for stealth reporting at Tahrir Square

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/what-not-to-bring-to-tahrir-square/

Multimedia
Lens: What Not to Bring to Tahrir Square
By By STEPHEN FARRELL
Published: February 8, 2011
Less is more for journalists in Cairo, Stephen Farrell reports. Less equipment can mean more access. Or, at least, fewer hassles.

“At one checkpoint you will encounter a thug with a nail-studded plank; elsewhere, a member of the professional class twirling a golf club, who smiles and remarks, ‘Interesting times, no?’”

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