QOTD: Multimedia Journalism

What is The Editor’s Prerogative? It’s when you take a piece of journalism and make it huge in scale and elaborate in delivery so that it is more in line with how important an editor thinks the story is than how new audiences actually want to consume it.

Khoi Vinh, former design director of the New York Times, on “Snowfall”-style multimedia stories

QOTD: Not Just Another Startup

The problem with the Billionaire Savior phase of the newspaper collapse has always been that billionaires don’t tend to like the kind of authority-questioning journalism that upsets the status quo.

Ryan Chittum, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review about the promise of Pierre Omidyar’s new media venture with Glenn Greenwald

Spotify Is Not the Cloud-Based Music Service of the Future Thom Yorke Is Looking For

It’s like this mind trick going on, people are like ‘with technology, it’s all going to become one in the cloud and all creativity is going to become one thing and no one is going to get paid and it’s this big super intelligent thing.’ Bullshit.

— Musician Thom Yorke, in an interview with Mexican website Sopitas, (via the Guardian), attacking Spotify once again. For good measure, Yorke called the music streaming service “the last desperate fart of a dying corpse.”

Why the NSA Hates Tor, the Network That Protects Internet Anonymity

The good news: Even the NSA can’t quite break it. The bad news: It hasn’t stopped trying.

Guardian Editors Debate a Former NSA Lawyer on PRISM, Snowden and Surveillance

No one’s views really changed, but it was an enlightening talk.

Meme’s Life

The rapid shortening in the lifespan of a meme is apparent. It used to take months for a meme to run its course. Now, it’s a good meme if it lasts a week.

— Cheezburger founder and CEO Ben Huh, to the Guardian’s Adam Davidi

Microsoft: Your Privacy Is Our Priority. No, Seriously. Stop Laughing!

Microsoft responds to a Guardian report saying that it helps the NSA and FBI spy on consumers who use its services.

I Bet This Never Happens to Justin Timberlake

… we are being spat upon by complete strangers while walking together on the street …

— Sean Parker, in an email to the Guardian about the backlash to his lavish June 1 wedding in Big Sur

NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Says Tech PRISM Denials Were “Misleading”

In a live online Q&A at the Guardian today, Edward Snowden, the man who revealed the PRISM documents and much more, said the leaks were having his desired effect.

The Whistleblower

The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife’s phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.

— NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, when asked by the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill about why he decided to become a whistleblower