Andrew Orlowski

Collected Journalism

Tag: media

  • Teachers: Feel my Truthiness – Jimbo

    by

    Andrew Orlowski

    –

    Yes, it’s that time of year when children eagerly gather round a kindly old man with a beard. He makes great promises to them, if only they just work hard enough. But they just get a load of obscenities back.

    Only it’s not Santa.

    Wikipedia’s Maximum Leader and peripatetic salesman Jimmy Wales breezed into London yesterday. This time he’s pitching Jimbo’s Big Bag of Trivia at teachers and lecturers.… Read More

    Continue reading »

  • ‘Use me as a mouthpiece’, pleads Guardian hack

    by

    Andrew Orlowski

    –

    Ben Goldacre, The Guardian‘s Mr “Bad Science” writes witheringly about sloppy science journalists. Many of them are simply “juggling words about on a page, without having the first clue what they mean, pretending they’ve got a proper job, their pens all lined up neatly on the desk,” he writes.

    They trade on scare stories, and rely on “rejiggable press releases”. Dr Goldacre is a real scientist, you see.

    But last week found Ben in a frantic rush, commissioned to … Read More

    Continue reading »

  • Google’s founders are less humble (and jetless) than you think

    by

    Andrew Orlowski

    –

    Casting around for an example of the simple life to use in an Arab-bashing column, veteran columnist and editor Alexander Chancellor alighted on what he must have thought was the perfect foil to the free-spending Saudis.

    It appeared right there in front of him, on his PC, nestling between some coloured balls.

    Unlike Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, wrote Chancellor on Saturday, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin “don’t have private jets, Rolls-Royces, yachts or any of the other pointless … Read More

    Continue reading »

  • Amazon’s Kindle: a $399 folly

    by

    Andrew Orlowski

    –

    Amazon's kindle ebook readerReading has never been cheaper, and for most of us, requires no additional machinery – only the source material itself. So why do we need to pay the online retailer Amazon.com $399 to read books?… Read More

    Continue reading »

  • Braindead obituarists hoaxed by Wikipedia

    by

    Andrew Orlowski

    –

    The veteran BBC TV composer and arranger Ronnie Hazlehurst died on Monday night. His long career at the corporation produced some of the most (irritatingly) memorable theme tunes: including The Two Ronnies, Reggie Perrin, Last Of The Summer Wine, Blankety Blank and the Morse Code theme for Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em.

    But when his obituaries appeared yesterday, there was an odd addition to Hazlehurst’s canon. Apparently he had emerged from retirement a few years ago … Read More

    Continue reading »

  • John Doe blogger is ‘Person of the Year’

    by

    Andrew Orlowski

    –

    Time

    Few publications in the world take themselves as seriously as Time magazine, and Christmas each year finds it at its most unctuous and self-important, as Time chooses its “Person of the Year”. This year, the award for newsmaker of 2006 is given to “You” – the internet user.

    But perhaps not you or me. The kind of internet user lauded by Time doesn’t do what most of us do – window shopping on eBay, adding bon mots to Popbitch or … Read More

    Continue reading »