Jim Romenesko

This weekend, The New York Times' 'Social Q's' columnist Philip Galanes received the following question:

An acquaintance had her breasts enhanced. She never announced the fact or discussed it. Should I have commented on her new look the first time I saw her? She hasn’t sought my opinion, so I’ve said nothing. But it seems odd to me.

A tough question for sure, and the lawyer-novelist-interior design consultant -turned-advice columnist has some choice advice ("I’d avoid a direct reference to her chest and make a general-purpose compliment instead, like 'You’re looking awfully well today.' She’ll understand the coded message..."). But what if a Web site you're acquainted with has some work done? What are you to do then?

Journalists who click on Jim Romenesko's Poynter Institute-hosted media news blog may notice that site has undergone a dramatic redesign.  read more »

And exhale, everyone. If you have clicked on Romenesko over the last 20 minutes you were redirected to this site and noticed a frighteningly different-looking page--Jim's Tumblr page, maybe?

It's not a redesign.

"No, that's our default when our damn unreliable servers go down," he wrote in response to a question from Media Mob.

As you may know if you read half a dozen media news and gossip sites, Howell Raines profiled the Poynter Institute's Jim Romenesko in this month's Portfolio. Mr. Raines calls Mr. Romenesko's media news site, "a high-tech tom-tom for angst-ridden members of a dying tribe" and calls the man himself "both the medium and the message." (Mr. Romenesko linked to the story himself, pulling one of the least flattering statements, "From guru to geezer in cyberspace," as befits what all media writers are contractually-bound to refer to as his modest Midwestern demeanor.)  read more »

Who was the big media star of the weekend? The Huffington Post's citizen journalist extraordinaire Mayhill Fowler, of course! After her rope line "interview" with Bill Clinton made headlines, Ms. Fowler has found herself at the center of a journalistic ethics-new-new-new media kerfuffle.

After the jump, a snapshot of Ms. Fowler's big weekend (as compiled with the help of the redoubtable Jim Romenesko):  read more »

Congratulations to media-blogger Alan Mutter, proprietor of Reflections of a Newsosaur. Dismayed that people spent Election Day e-mailing one another food stories instead of political news, Mutter came up with a blog post that led ultra-detached media-news king Jim Romenesko to briefly drop his deadpan Len Downie mask and offer a rare, perhaps unprecedented, flicker of commentary:

Alan Mutter found that two-thirds of Wednesday's stories in his most-emailed study had nothing to do with the election. He says this suggests there's a major disconnect between what editors want to print and what readers want to read. I say this suggests that people know that their friends already have read a million stories about the election and don't want another one e-mailed to them.

• 0 comments