During my long chaotic career as a journalist, I landed at the bleeding edge of new media several times, including late in 1995. This was a few years after leaving the non-profit Center for Investigative Reporting followed by two-year stints at Mother Jones, New West/California and KQED, as well as a few months helping a tiny group of entrepreneurs launch the web-based magazine Salon.
One afternoon, I took a tour of the warehouse headquarters of Wired magazine down in Soma courtesy of one of the magazine's editors who knew me from my years teaching at the U-C Berkeley. I was instantly entranced by the office culture: Casual dress, computers, rock music and a few dogs here and there.
But the real attraction lay on the other side of a common kitchen area where HotWired was located. This was the online side of the nascent Wired publishing empire, and I knew it was getting funding from some of the corporations we had been unsuccessfully courting when I was EVP at KQED.
HotWired presented a striking scene. Row after row of 20-somethings sat working on laptops perched on doors balanced over sawhorses, with the Chili Peppers blasting and a whiff of marijuana in the air. A couple former interns of mine stood up to greet me and showed how they were designing content for a whole range of websites.
Right after I left the office, I made a call home to say, "I've just found the next place I want to work." My next move was putting the word out on my network -- if anyone heard of a job at HotWired, throw my name into the mix.
It took several weeks but the call eventually came from HotWired offering me a job as producer of what would be the web's first daily political news site, called The Netizen.
Although the starting salary was barely half what I'd previously been making, and I did have the needs of a new family at home to consider, I accepted the offer without hesitation and said I could start the next day.
On day one, I was introduced to a small staff of producers and designers with very little journalism experience. They were smart, highly motivated and ready to invent something cool.
I quickly hired two of the brightest young journalists (and former students) from Berkeley I knew and set out to work with the engineering team -- the head of which I knew from Mother Jones, as we set a crash course to build The Netizen.
If memory serves, we launched the website in something like 28 days. Our timing was perfect.
It was a presidential election year, so we hired three experienced political writers as our correspondents and they fanned out across the campaign trail to cover the re-election effort of incumbent Bill Clinton and his Republican challengers, including the eventual nominee, Bob Dole.
I was given complete editorial independence for the operation, which quickly attracted a very large audience among the early adopters then flocking to the web. Day after day we published smart, snarky takes from all sides of the political spectrum with a decidedly Libertarian streak, in accordance with the dominant philosophy of the staff writers and columnists I was managing.
For me this was refreshing -- new ideas sprouted daily, young staffers were quickly growing into experienced journalists, and we were able to generate controversy almost without trying.
Email was still new and the messages from readers that poured in upon publication included some that were outright abusive, often misogynistic, which disturbed me and was a harbinger of things to come. But other than that, I loved the chaotic two-way communication cacophony of the web.
Free to say whatever they wanted, readers blasted off at our writers in a way traditional journalists would never have tolerated. After all, we were used to being the last word on a topic, not the first. But everyone handled it in good spirits at The Netizen as we quickly rocketed into position as one of the leading news sites anywhere on the web.
It felt like I was a helping guide a ship heading toward outer space.
(To be continued)
***
THE HEADLINES:
* Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine shows promise against Delta variant in lab study (Reuters)
* Judge Throws Out 2 Antitrust Cases Against Facebook -- The decisions were a major blow to attempts to rein in Big Tech. The judge said one of the complaints, from the Federal Trade Commission, lacked facts and gave the agency 30 days to refile it. (NYT)
* Arizona county will replace voting equipment, fearful that GOP-backed election review has compromised security (WP)
* Citing Delta Variant, L.A. County Urges Residents To Wear Masks Inside Again --The recommendation comes regardless of vaccination status, public health officials said. (HuffPost)
* Red Cross: Indonesia faces virus catastrophe (AP)
* California will ban state-funded travel to Arkansas, Florida, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia in response to anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation in those places, officials announced on Monday. (California Today)
* Trump’s Lawyers Make Late Bid to Fend Off Charges Against His Business -- An indictment against the business, the Trump Organization, and a top executive, Allen Weisselberg, could come as soon as this week in Manhattan. (NYT)
* NY prosecutors to indict Trump Org insider - but not Trump, sources say (Reuters)
* As Portland, Ore., copes with unprecedented heat, illnesses spike and roads buckle (WP)
* Australian virologist Danielle Anderson, who worked at the Chinese lab near where the coronavirus was first discovered, cast doubt on speculation that the disease leaked from the lab. She said she arrived there in November 2019, around the time a report said Wuhan scientists fell ill from a COVID-19-type illness. "If people were sick, I assume that I would have been sick — and I wasn't," she said. [HuffPost]
* Months before collapse, condo president warned of growing damage (WP)
* A new report found that California’s white and black populations are declining, while its Asian and Hispanic populations continue to grow. (San Francisco Chronicle)
* It’s Some of America’s Richest Farmland. But What Is It Without Water? -- A California farmer decides it makes better business sense to sell his water than to grow rice. An almond farmer considers uprooting his trees to put up solar panels. Drought is transforming the state, with broad consequences for the food supply. (NYT)
* NSA surveillance program exposed by Snowden still raises privacy concerns, member of privacy watchdog says (WP)
* There’s only one drug designed to treat postpartum depression. Why does Kaiser Permanente make it so hard to get? (KQED)
* America’s workers are exhausted and burned out — and some employers are taking notice (WP)
* Peering Under Vermeers Without Peeling Off the Paint -- High-tech scanning techniques used by geologists, planetary scientists, drug companies and the military are revealing secrets of how artists created their masterpieces. (NYT)
* Nine years after Greek art heist, stolen Picasso found, police say (WP)
* Californians are fueling Austin’s housing boom. (San Francisco Chronicle)
* China's unprecedented crackdown on its internet sector (Reuters)
* Why Young Adults Are Among the Biggest Barriers to Mass Immunity -- Many young adults are forgoing Covid vaccines for a complex mix of reasons. Health officials are racing to find ways to change their minds. (NYT)
* Suicidal crises, mental fatigue: Kids grapple with reentry (AP)
* After airstrikes and drone attacks, the U.S. and Iran near a breaking point (WP)
* Biden Faces Intense Cross Currents in Iran Policy -- The airstrikes the president ordered on Iranian-backed militias show how he has to navigate between using force and pursuing diplomacy to revive the nuclear deal. (NYT)
* Undeclared conflict? America's battles with Iran-backed militia escalate, again (Reuters)
* Top U.S. general says security in Afghanistan deteriorating (AP)
* Mysterious Phone Calls From Miami Condo Rubble Puzzle Family--Myriam and Arnie Notkin have been missing since the Surfside building collapsed, but calls kept coming from their landline. (HuffPost)
* ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ at 50: The tender yet terrifying movie that never lost its flavor (WP)
* Man Putting Huge Amount of Pressure On Self To Excel At Completely Meaningless Activity (The Onion)
***
"Give It Away"
Red Hot Chili Peppers
What I've got you've got to give it to your pappa
What I've got you've got to give it to your daughter
You do a little dance and then you drink a little water
What I've got you've got to get it put it in you
What I've got you've got to get it put it in you
What I've got you've got to get it put it in you
Reeling with the feeling don't stop continue
Realize I don't want to be a miser
Confide w/sly you'll be the wiser
Young blood is the lovin' upriser
How come everybody wanna keep it like the kaiser
[Chorus:]
Give it away give it away give it away give it away now
Give it away give it away give it away give it away now
Give it away give it away give it away give it away now
I can't tell if I'm a kingpin or a pauper
Greedy little people in a sea of distress
Keep your more to receive your less
Unimpressed by material excess
Love is free love me say hell yes
I'm a low brow but I rock a little know how
No time for the piggies or the hoosegow
Get smart get down with the pow wow
Never been a better time than right now
Bob Marley poet and a prophet
Bob Marley taught me how to off it
Bob Marley walkin' like he talk it
Goodness me can't you see I'm gonna cough it
[Chorus]
Lucky me swimmin' in my ability
Dancin' down on life with agility
Come and drink it up from my fertility
Blessed with a bucket of lucky mobility
My mom I love her 'cause she love me
Long gone are the times when she scrub me
Feelin' good my brother gonna hug me
Drink my juice young love chug-a-lug me
There's a river born to be a giver
Keep you warm won't let you shiver
His heart is never gonna wither
Come on everybody time to deliver
[Chorus]
What I've got you've got to give it to your mamma
What I've got you've got to give it to your pappa
What I've got you've got to give it to your daughter
You do a little dance and then you drink a little water
What I've got you've got to get it put it in you
What I've got you've got to get it put it in you
What I've got you've got to get it put it in you
Reeling with the feeling don't stop continue
Realize I don't want to be a miser
Confide w/sly you'll be the wiser
Young blood is the lovin' upriser
How come everybody wanna keep it like the kaiser
Give it away give it away give it away give it away now [x3]
Give it away now [x20]
Give it away...
Nooow
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