The Future Of Publishing Blog by Thad McIlroy
March 24th, 2026
Here’s an account of the background to the New York Times report on Mia Ballard’s “Shy Girl,” and of my involvement in the saga. I brought the “scoop” to the Times, and worked with them to develop it, although the published article obscures my involvement. The Times landed a big story, republished and remarked on…
May 15th, 2019
Everybody knows Kickstarter. Not everyone knows that Kickstarter is a major player in publishing, both for book-like objects and for journalism.
December 31st, 2011
Robotics is advancing by leaps and bounds, in no small part because of the superb FIRST robotics competition launched by Dean Kamen in 1989. A new development with value to the future of publishing is Boxie, the Story-Gathering Robot, invented by Alexander Reben at the renowned M.I.T. Media Lab. Boxie is a robotic journalist; it could handle those “man on…
November 16th, 2011
Over at PressThink Jay Rosen observed that professional journalism has been optimized for low participation. He explains that “until a few years ago, the ‘job’ of the user was simply to receive the news and maybe send a letter to the editor.” This was a logical outcome of the available technology. “Journalists built their practices…