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Public radio stations are saving Gothamist sites
Last year, billionaire Joe Ricketts shut down Gothamist and DNAInfo a week after newsroom employees unionized. Though there was immediate public outcry over the decision, the sites' future has remained bleak and uncertain, but, as Wired reports, they're now getting an unexpected helping hand from some old-school media -- public radio. At least three public radio stations -- New York's WNYC, Washington DC's WAMU and Southern California's KPCC -- will be taking over Gothamist and associated sites like LAist, DCist and DNAInfo, maintaining their archives and adding new content in the near future.
Hey, NPR: Stop trivializing eSports scholarships
On Monday, NPR's All Things Considered host Robert Siegel talked to New Tech City podcast host Manoush Zomorodi about Robert Morris University's new athletic scholarship program, the first of its kind in the United States – scholarships for League of Legends players. The hosts rattled off the stats: $500,000 for 30 scholarships, similar to some football scholarships the school offers. Zomorodi noted that 32 million people watched the final League of Legends championship game this year, more than watched the last game of the NBA finals. After talking to Robert Morris University's Associate Athletic Director Kurt Melcher, this happened: ZOMORODI: And from what I saw, Robert, it really was just like the football team or the track team - a tight-knit group. SIEGEL: (Laughter) So what's it like to be a collegiate e-athlete? Laughter. That's pulled directly from NPR's transcript of the broadcast, and you can listen to it here (this conversation at 3:08). During the final minutes of Siegel and Zomorodi's talk, there were titters and chuckles at factual information about the League of Legends scholarship. This bothered me.
