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John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

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Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#191
post #133

About 12 years ago I was working for a PC Magazine competitor when they cut the Managing Editor loose, a man who'd worked there 20+ years and was in his late 50s. I ran into him in the bathroom, tears in his eyes, asking me what he was going to do now? That this is how they reward decades of loyalty? Ironically that magazine, dedicated to predicting future technology trends, would go down the toilet some years later…

"Companies have no loyalty folks...neither should you." That's a broad brush to paint with; companies are just a group of people, not some inhuman construct. People make the decisions and just like every other aspect of life, some people care don't put their impact on others first, or can't because of circumstances. Not every company discards employees like garbage, and it's a lousy narrative to propagate.

I believe it is healthy to take at least some aspect of their mind-set on this.

Unless you have a contract with a golden parachute, anything could happen in a moments notice. Very few people outside of senior management have such parachutes, and even then not all of them negotiated for a good one.

If nothing else, keep your resume and linkedin up to date.

Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#194
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have advertisers (listener funded) so they're able to sift through the news in a reasonably balanced way. Each show also has crowd-sourced, listener produced podcast album art that's generated about an hour after the show airs live. Try listening to the noagendashow at 2X speed to start.

They're a propagandist's take on the news, with their own slant (but probably not an agenda). Balanced, no; but not completely right wing nut job, so they're tolerable to find out what's happing in the non-right-on liberal space. Often wrong, often hilariously so. Continually confusing personal and tribal loyalty with patriotism and idealism. For example, criticism of Trump means criticising the office of the preside…

I'm amused that JCD can look out his window at the mud flats and refute careful measurements by the NOAA. [0]

They do some interesting analysis and some digging and often paint a pretty poor picture of typical news outlets but there's a fair amount of chaff with the wheat.

[0] https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_update.s...

Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#196
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea. Assuming those are all 'outside columns' (I don't know as I haven't read PC Mag in years), it seems like the veracity of the story Dvorak's been told will become clear very soon.

It wouldn't entirely surprise me if this was a political issue. He's right-wing enough that he leans into, as another poster put it, "info wars lite." It wouldn't shock me if some advertisers no longer wanted to appear alongside him, pre-emptively, and his twitter thread notes that someone was complaining about him with some anti-Trump comments. Then again, maybe not. I guess it'll become more clear once we find out…

Wayne Rash and Whitson Gordon are no longer listed as Columnists, but Tim Bajarin still is and had a new article posted yesterday.

Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#197
Those of you who are Dvorak fans (as am I) should find, read, and support the No Agenda podcast and email newsletter he's been doing with Adam Curry for about 10 years now. In the latest newsletter, John argues that he was fired for writing negative things about 5G networks -- and offers evidence that PCMag routed links away from his critical columns to more positive pieces.

I got to work with John a bit over the years. He is many things, but I have never known him to lie, or get his facts wrong when reporting. If what he says about PCMag unlinking from his columns about 5G is true, it's even more rude and insidious than the way he was fired.

John argues that it's more evidence that advertising drives much if not all supposed "journalism" these days. I hope he's wrong, but fear he's more right than most of us know or suspect most of the time...

Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#198
post #6

He may always have been wrong, but he was like a lovable crazy uncle who is always wrong. This is a terrible way to treat a legend.

I won't have that! He wasn't always wrong.

You know what they say about stopped clocks...

Re: John Dvorak: “Yesterday I was fired from PC Magazine”

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true. Dvorak should start his own venture...a lot of fans would jump (the sinking) ship in an instant.

He should do his own Wordpressed based blog with Adsense and other advertisment on it to earn money. Do podcasts and stuff like that.

If you didn't know, he has a blog (http://www.dvorak.org/blog/) and is a co-host of the No Agenda Show Podcast (http://www.noagendashow.com/) and DHUnplugged (https://www.dhunplugged.com/)
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