Austin Hill turns the tables on me
From 1999 until the summer of 2002, I worked in the communications department for a software company called Zero-Knowledge Systems (now Radialpoint). This trip to the other side of the media divide (I was working as a freelance journalist prior to taking the job) was a wonderful experience for me, and one of the best parts was working with all of the great people at the company. One of those folks was Austin Hill, who co-founded the company along with his father and brother.
Austin is now at work on Akoha, his latest tech start-up, and he's also blogging up a storm here. Austin has started doing interviews with folks in the Montreal tech and blogging community and he recently put me in front of the microphone. You can read the interview here. (I sent him one of my new, professional-looking headshots for the interview, but he opted instead for one that features me having way too much fun at a company holiday party from years ago. Damn you, open bar!) Give it a read, and I highly recommend Austin's blog to anyone interested in the technology/entrepreneurship/start-up scene.
Assignment Zero Launches
Today is Zero day for NewAssignment.net, a non-profit networked journalism project led by Jay Rosen and funded by Reuters, Craig Newmark, the Sunlight Foundation, and others. I'm going to be working on developing a distributed fact checking system to help verify the reporting, but there are a lot of great folks who have already done huge work to get this site launched. Today we introduced the first assignment, a joint project with Wired. I encourage you to join up. Anyone can. Everyone should.
Steve Fox, formerly of washingtonpost.com, explains the project:
...Today, citizen journalism takes a step forward with the unveiling of Assignment Zero.
After years of hearing the internal journalistic debates of “who is a
journalist,” Jay Rosen proposed last year to bring together the best
qualities of professional journalists and citizen journalists under one
umbrella. He then assembled an amazing team of editors, developers and
designers who spent the last several months making his vision reality.It’s a simple concept recently, one Jay dubbed “pro-am journalism.”
Assignment Zero will use the crowd to do much of the traditional
legwork needed to do go reporting — the first story will examine the
history and practice of crowdsourcing. The crowd will be assisted by
professional editors and the final product will be pulled together and
written by Wired’s Jeff Howe.The theory is that by using a large pool of reporters, you get more
sourcing, more anecdotes, better reporting, and ultimately, a better
story...
Regret Runner Up; Twitter
The Seventh Annual Weblog Awards were announced on Monday. Regret the Error was up for Best Canadian Weblog and was defeated by the lovely folks at Drawn.ca. Always the runner up for Best Canadian Weblog, never the...you get the picture. It was an honor just being nominated, though it's a shame I didn't win; Julien Smith, podcaster extraordinaire, was on hand at SXSW to accept for me. He was instructed to act like a drunken fool on stage. Your loss, SXSW. Congrats, Drawn!
Oh, and I've begun to Twitter here.
Welcome
Hey there. Thanks for stopping by. I'm a freelance journalist and author in Montreal, Canada. I serve as an associate editor for PBS MediaShift, a website that reports on trends in new media and journalism. I edit RegretTheError.com and wrote a book of the same name. I'm also the co-author, with Michael Calce, of Mafiaboy: How I Cracked The Internet and Why It's Still Broken. Both books are listed to the right.
I write weekly columns for Hour and Columbia Journalism Review online, and am a former columnist and blogger for The Globe And Mail. Read my bio by clicking on the "About Me" link above, or check out the "Writing Samples" page to read some of my work. If you're interested in speaking with me about an assignment or project, email me at the address listed below.
Recent Writing/Work