Happy Labor Day weekend. Andrew Beaujon’s back on Tuesday. Thanks for reading this week.
- Ask him about his cholesterol: The nation’s only full-time barbecue editor — no, he doesn’t weigh 400 pounds — understands why readers are obsessed with his health: “My job requires that I travel from one end of the state to the other eating smoked brisket, one of the fattiest cuts on the steer. And I can’t forget to order the pork ribs, sausage, and beef ribs,” Daniel Vaughn writes. Former Texas Monthly editor in chief Jake Silverstein says Vaughn has “figured out how to make the barbecue lifestyle compatible with staying above ground.” (Texas Monthly)
- What to do when you’re arrested: Whether it happened in Ferguson or elsewhere, first you should call the station where you were booked to get your arrest report. If necessary, file a FOIA request, Kristen Hare reports. (Poynter)
- Ideas for redesigning breaking-news experience: Although Twitter has driven the Ferguson story, the platform could still do a better job at handling breaking news. Brandon Schmittling has some suggestions. Here’s one: “Add a check mark next to any link that you’ve already visited.” (Fast Company)
- James Foley’s captors waterboarded their prisoners: “The Islamic State beheaded Foley last week in apparent retaliation for U.S. airstrikes on Iraq, where the militant group has seized large swaths of territory. The group, which also controls parts of Syria, has threatened to kill another American, journalist Steven J. Sotloff.” (Washington Post) | Related: Earlier this month, Dean Baquet shifted his newsroom’s stance on calling waterboarding “torture.” (The New York Times) | Previously: The Times “tied itself in linguistic knots during the Bush years to avoid describing waterboarding as torture,” Michael Calderone wrote in 2012. (Huffington Post)
New policy in effect: NYT describes waterboarding as torture: http://t.co/1sS8xvR8gV pic.twitter.com/1VTkrSihMh
— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) August 29, 2014
- HuffPost to host political debate: “Given the potential for brand growth and influence, and the migration of viewers to online video, an increasing number of newer, digital players jumping into the fray seems likely,” Joe Pompeo reports. (Capital New York)
- Twitter adds analytics for all: Just go to analytics.twitter.com and see how many people are really viewing and clicking your tweets. (Twitter)
- Are newsrooms obsessed with clicks? After two years of ethnographic research into the use of newsroom analytics, Angele Christin found journalists have a complex relationship with tracking traffic: “Many writers express cynical views about traffic and say that they do not care about page views. Yet they almost always check whether they are in the ‘top ten’ most read articles list.” (Nieman Lab)
- What bothers Mathew Ingram about pundits who claim the Internet is making journalism worse? “It’s the failure to appreciate that the complaints they have are the same ones that have been made about journalism for decades — combined with the unrestrained longing for some mythical golden age of journalism.” (GigaOm)
- ‘Rosewater’ trailer debuts: In the movie, written and directed by Jon Stewart, “Gael Garcia Bernal stars as Maziar Bahari, a journalist who was arrested and tortured in Iran for 118 days in 2009.” (Huffington Post)
- Newspaper front page of the day: The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, selected by Kristen Hare. (Newseum)
- Job moves, edited by Benjamin Mullin: Jonathan Hunt will be global vice president for marketing and partnerships at Vox Media. Previously, he was global marketing director at Vice. (Adweek) | Kimberly Pierceall is now a gambling industry reporter for the Associated Press. Previously, she covered Irvine, California for the Orange County Register. (AP) | Ellen Crooke is now vice president of news for Gannett Broadcasting. Previously, she was news director for WXIA in Atlanta, Georgia. (Gannett) | Robert Christie is now vice president of international media for Alibaba Group. Previously, he was senior vice president of corporate communications for The New York Times Company. (Capital) | Kim Segal will be an attorney for Broward County. Previously, she was a supervising producer at CNN. (Romenesko) | Brian Balthazar will be co-executive producer at “The View.” He was head of programming at AOL. (TV Newser) | Job of the day: The AP is looking for a breaking news journalist in San Francisco. Get your résumés in! (Journalism Jobs) | Send Ben your job moves: bmullin@poynter.org
Suggestions? Criticisms? Would you like this roundup each morning? This week, please email me: skirkland@poynter.org. You can reach your regular roundup guy at: abeaujon@poynter.org
