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NYTimes's Pogue going to Yahoo

by nirvanatikku on 10/21/13, 3:13 PM with 70 comments

• by jusben1369 on 10/21/13, 5:35 PM

  Here's a post that brings out the worst in HN. Start from the top and see how far you get before you find anything positive. Here's what I hope to see i) What people think this means for YHOO. ii) What does this mean for traditional media and people attracted to web properties. iii) What might this service that he's launching look like? iv) Who else might copy/follow suit on this play?

  Here's what you get I) Good riddance I hate him (real valuable) ii) Some sort of conspiracy theory about ethics and issues. iii) Character attack/insinuation with some cheesy comment about his hiring manager and Yahoo based content and iv) never forget to work congress and government in there because a guy who does quirky videos on the iPad is only one step away from journalism and government coziness.

• by shortformblog on 10/21/13, 4:07 PM

  Pogue had a LOT of ethical issues while at the Times—issues where he'd be more likely be hit simply because of his employer. This move has the effect of simultaneously giving him a bigger platform and getting him out of the eye of the watchdogs. I can see why he went to Yahoo.

  http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/27/will-th...

  http://valleywag.gawker.com/nyt-tech-columnist-david-pogue-m...

  http://www.nytpick.com/2010/01/david-pogue-breaks-nyts-ethic...

• by ChikkaChiChi on 10/21/13, 3:54 PM

  Another shining example of ethics in journalism.

  If you start small, write glowing reviews of products and company directives so that you get invited to pressers and tours, and maybe someday you too can get invited to go work inside the very companies the public trusted you to cover in an unbiased fashion! Be careful though, anything under 4.5 out of 5 stars and you might get a phone call from the PR department expressing their disappointment while they take you off of their most exclusive lists.

  Congresspeople who take jobs as lobbyists after their terms in office are synonymous with journalists who join companies they covered "in the public's interest" during their professional careers.

  (Disclaimer: I'm not saying that this was Pogue's position re: Yahoo. This is a rampant problem in new and old media in general.)

• by Taylorious on 10/21/13, 4:22 PM

  Good riddance. Can't stand the guy. I know he attempted to make tech accessible to the average Joe, but he always dumbed things down so much I felt like he didn't really know what he was talking about. He also seemed to let personal biases get in the way of the reporting.

  The real reason why I didn't like him was for what he did to Nova. Nova was one of my favorite programs growing up and he absolutely ruined it with his annoying personality, stupid jokes/puns, and over simplifications. In a science show the science should be first, not the twit talking about it.

• by ChuckMcM on 10/21/13, 5:29 PM

  It is a good move on Pogue's part, he gets to do more of the stuff he likes to do.

  But the comments here, especially the dismissive ones, seem to miss out on his popularity at the Times. Granted that "popularity" != "good" for a number of things but he brought a lot of readers to the Times and that was something the Times needs if they want to stay in business.

  It annoys me when people make that choice (popularity over quality, as I felt Dr. Michio Kaku did with his TV stuff) but I have come to recognize it is there choice to make.

• by credo on 10/21/13, 4:03 PM

  Over the past year, Pogue has reviewed Yahoo's products on many different occasions. Presumably, his hiring-managers read all of them.

  It is quite likely that Pogue's reviews (e.g. great review of Flickr changes) were honest reviews and that he wasn't trying to curry favor with prospective future employers.

  However, I hope that this job offer leads to more thoughts on conflicts of interest and perhaps requirements (from NYT etc) regarding journalists reviewing companies from whom they might accept job offers

• by Samuel_Michon on 10/21/13, 3:39 PM

  “Yahoo has regained its position as the #1 most visited Web site on earth.”

  Is that true? Is it really visited more often than Facebook, Google, Twitter, or YouTube? Alexa doesn’t agree[1].

  According to a recent article[2], Yahoo is the most popular website in 2 regions: Japan and Hong Kong.

  [1] http://www.alexa.com/topsites

  [2] http://www.fastcocreate.com/3019595/creativity-by-the-number...

• by cake on 10/21/13, 4:00 PM

  This is big news, Pogue was/is one of the most important tech writer in my own opinion. He has a good approach of dumbing down tech products for the average joe despite beeing very knowledgeable.

  I guess it is showing a shift from Yahoo to be a quality content producer.

• by krosaen on 10/21/13, 5:53 PM

  To offset the negative top comments - I actually really like Pogue - his posts in the nytimes tech at least. He seems to understand the products he's using well enough to do a good job without getting so geeky or over concerned about minutia that it would alienate the lay person. I of course have my other sources for that, but I do check in on the nytimes tech section regularly.

• by shanselman on 10/21/13, 5:11 PM

  I wonder if he'll work remotely. ;)

  I never understood the appeal of this guy, nor his qualifications. Both he and Mossberg were woefully non-technical for technical reviewers.

• by barretts on 10/21/13, 4:15 PM

  Pogue is an okay journalist, but great at building a personal brand, which now extends to books and the conference circuit as well as writing.

  I spent seven years as an editor at top NYC magazines, and saw time and again that great journalists - even great brand-builders - aren't usually great at creating and managing new ventures. There are exceptions, though, and I hope Pogue is one of them.

• by devx on 10/21/13, 4:05 PM

  Since Microsoft is so "popular" today on HN, have you seen Pogue's hands-on review of Windows 8.1 yet?

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=u-vDf...

• by outside1234 on 10/21/13, 3:27 PM

  "... plus they gave me a ton of money."

• by nswanberg on 10/21/13, 11:03 PM

  Here is an argument for why the hated David Pogue writes about technology the way he does, and why it resonates: http://podcasts.infoworld.com/print/69418

  I haven't read much from him since I was a kid, when I had a copy of Macworld Mac & Power Mac Secrets and was stuffing the book's 3.25" floppies into my Powermac 6100 to use ResEdit, but I especially remember the prose being engaging even apart from the interesting tricks and hacks the book covered. In his book computers lived in a world with people, rather than in a universe unto themselves, so I learned a little extra.

  Scanning through a few columns again, the writing is no less clear, and even though I generally care about how something works rather than how well, no less correct. And on areas where I have no insider experience or information, like cell phone billing practices, the writing was suprisingly helpful and entertaining: http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/t-mobile-hands-con...

  This is a serious move from Yahoo. Given the sort of demographic that reads the New York Times and buys tech books, Yahoo must have paid Pogue a lot to have him switch from New York Times columnist David Pogue to Yahoo! columnist David Pogue. I wonder who will be next.

• by yawgmoth on 10/21/13, 4:50 PM

  Yahoo calling itself the "world's biggest startup" seems like a superlative example of bad faith. It is hard to take companies (or people, for that matter) seriously, when they openly claim to be something they know they aren't.

  Similarly, Pogue's content is full of inaccuracies, gross over-simplification, leading conclusions, and ignorance beyond what can be considered excusable. I suppose he'll be right at home at the "world's biggest startup".

• by smackfu on 10/21/13, 4:23 PM

  Once your personal brand gets well known, it's leaving money on the table to just be an employee at a business in a declining industry like newspapers.

• by daljeetv on 10/21/13, 6:56 PM

  At the end of the day one of Yahoo's primary strenghts is being a curator of information and bringing in Pogue in my opinion will improve this core competency or atleast make it seem like it does.

• by r00fus on 10/21/13, 7:08 PM

  Another marker in the deathbed of traditional print journalism. Add this to Bezos' purchase of the Washington Post, the departure of Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg from the WSJ, and you have indications that tech media is going to diverge and likely eclipse traditional media, the disruption will be complete.

  It used to be that internet media was playing in print media's game, but now the situation is reversing, and the weaker (either in content or profitability) outfits will go by the wayside.

  This isn't necessarily a good thing, but it will happen.

• by michaelpinto on 10/21/13, 4:19 PM

  The key question for me is if it's ethical for a tech company to own a tech site? And that's what I assume he'd be doing. Can you really trust the editorial coverage — and tech users are pretty aware of that sort of thing. Or maybe nobody cares: After all Fox news outlets no doubt give press to Fox entertainment properties like their films — but it's sort of sad to me.

• by aaronchriscohen on 10/21/13, 4:41 PM

  "So I was intrigued when Yahoo invited me to help build a new consumer-tech site."

  should read

  "So I was intrigued when Yahoo showed me how zeroes can fit on a check.

• by bluedino on 10/21/13, 6:10 PM

  >> Yahoo is getting 12,000 résumés a week from would-be employees.

  Are there really 12,000 new applicants per week that would even be remotely qualified? Even if only half of those are technical job applicants, I find that hard to believe. Resume spam from everyone who's unemployed.

• by tambourine_man on 10/21/13, 4:17 PM

  Mossberg leaving the Journal, Pogue leaving the Times.

  Tech coverage on traditional media must be a dwindling business.

• by dirwiz on 10/21/13, 7:10 PM

  Wonder if he'll be able to work from home?

• by wnevets on 10/21/13, 4:48 PM

  Some how he will manage to ruin yahoo