Slashdot Mirror
Rob Malda (CmdrTaco) Joins the Washington Post
kodiaktau writes "Slashdot founder and long time cat herder Rob Malda joins the Washington Post per an announcement today. According to the press release, he will be the Chief Strategist and Editor-at-Large working for WaPo Labs."
Rob has a more detailed description of the job on his blog: "Don Graham is trying to accomplish something that is a bit of a cliche these days: A startup inside an established corporation. A group that can exist at a nexus between newspapers, websites, cable networks, and TV stations and think about the big picture and the future without the normal burdens associated with a business operating at a large scale. ... They are actively iterating and experimenting in many directions, with strong support from the top of the organization. ... Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli assures me that I'll also be working with the newsroom where I can contribute words, ideas, and tools that will improve the experience of the journalists doing work that I personally believe transcends the bottom line."
Mr. Taco, we understand that you know a lot about this Twitter/Internet/Facebooks stuff. We would like to be hip with that vibe. You'll be in charge of helping our geriatric writing staff learn to do the twitters. You'll also be in charge of producing press releases with lots of hip jargon for the kids. But mostly you'll be in charge of bailing water out of the lower decks. It's starting to get pretty deep down there.
If you think you can handle that, please report to your new office and write up some press release about how you're going to change the face of the tired old Washington Post into something the kids will want to read--something with a cool new name like "WoPo" with a bunch of exclamation points after it, maybe some asterisks in there too--you be the judge on that. And more importantly, try to get the kids to give us their money and twits too. "Twits," that's what they're called right? Use a lot of that net jargon we're told you're down with. Then fax it over to Wired. We want to get this out before they run the presses.
Oh, and hire my grandson. He's lazy as dirt, but he knows a bunch of strange words and phrases that I think will help us still appear relevant.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Didn't he rather famously pan the iPod?
I came to the page expecting to see "First Washington Post" in the comments, and was disappointed.
-2B
A group that can exist at a nexus between newspapers, websites, cable networks, and TV stations and think about the big picture and the future without the normal burdens associated with a business operating at a large scale...They are actively iterating and experimenting in many directions...
Nexus, iterating, big picture...my head is spinning.
...that a famous buggy whip factory has hired one of the first combustion engine mechanics to help them figure out how to put six cylinders inside a horse without killing it.
Not sure if I feel more sympathy for the mechanic or the horse...
Still and all, Malda is a good and talented guy, slashdot has noticeably deteriorated in his absence, and I wish him all the best.
The creator of /. has been slashdotted? Oh the Irony.
What's his WaPo user number?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
They are losing relevance, not to say their ass:
February 11, 2012
(NYT) The newsroom, once with more than 1,000 employees, now stands at less than 640 people....Bureaus in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are gone. There were so many Friday afternoon cake-cutting send-offs for departing employees last summer that editors had to coordinate them so they didn’t overlap.
February 24, 2012
(AP) — The Washington Post Company reported on Friday a 22 percent drop in fourth-quarter net income.
CmdrTaco helped build something worthwhile at Slashdot. He's the kind of talent the Post needs more of if they are not to circle the drain with the rest of the sorry-assed newspaper industry, which the Web is destroying without replacing it with something better.
This is really cool, because I just finished reading how badly Washington Post screwed up with the "Inventor of Email" story. In fact, if you look at the comments you can see that former OSDN CEO Robin Miller (aka roblimo) suggested that they hire someone from the slashdot crowd to work on IT reporting. Maybe they took it to heart.