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Thursday, February 25, 2016
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A Q&A with Google’s head of news Richard Gingras on its vision for the Accelerated Mobile Pages project“There's a lot more we can do in evolving the format. AMP is not just about news and not just about articles.” By Shan Wang. |
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Why journalists interested in drones should be watching an FAA reauthorization billAn amendment would make newsrooms’ use of small drones legal in most circumstances, opening up a field that has been wrapped in red tape. By Matt Waite. |
What We’re Reading
Boing Boing / Cory Doctorow
Google launches Project Shield to protect news sites from DDoS attacks →
“Increasingly, DDoSes are deployed by governments and political movements to shut down news sites that are critical of them. This is especially hard on independent news sites in autocratic and developing nations…this is where Google’s Project Shield comes through.”
MediaShift
MediaShift launches a media metrics and analytics site, MetricShift →
Metrics editor Alexandra Kanik said, “A real need exists for actionable, accessible reporting on how [small to medium] organizations can use the tools and knowledge already out there to make data-driven decisions with their own metrics.”
Politico Media / Joe Pompeo
New media players seek to make their mark on the 2016 campaign →
“As digital outlets have proliferated, some of them growing to match the old guard's scale and prominence (if not always its newsgathering prowess), each recent presidential election has seen its share of new players breaking onto the scene.”
The New York Times / Nick Corasaniti
CNN’s investment in political coverage is paying off →
“Committing $50 million more than it spent in 2012, CNN added 45 journalists to its political team. It doubled the size of its special events and logistics unit, making it possible to negotiate, plan and execute the town halls in a matter of days. Online, its political reporting has all but taken over the network's home page.”
The Conversation / Damian Radcliffe
Five years after the Arab Spring, how does the Middle East use social media? →
“Although social media's contribution to sociopolitical change in the region may have been overstated, it did help amplify discontent and provided global media outlets with valuable on-the-ground insights. At a time of information scarcity, social media offered perspectives that might otherwise have been hard to come by.”
NPR.org / Bob Boilen
Behind the scenes of an NPR Tiny Desk Concert →
NPR made a 360-degree video of Wilco’s recent show at the Tiny Desk.
The Brookings Institution
A new report from Brookings explains the importance of explanatory journalism →
The project includes interviews with Vox’s Ezra Klein and The New York Times’ David Leonhardt.
AdWeek / Tim Baysinger
The New York Times would consider “banning adblocking readers who are not subscribers” →
“In the end, they’re not really helping pay for what they consume,” said CEO Mark Thompson.
Re/code / Peter Kafka
Meet the brains that power BuzzFeed’s tech and The New York Times’ video →
“Meet BuzzFeed's Dao Nguyen, whose title is publisher but who is really the one who runs all of all the company's tech; and the Times' Alex MacCallum, who is responsible for both audience development and video at the paper.”
Digiday / Lucinda Southern
Inside Axel Springer’s answer to Facebook’s Instant Articles →
“In September, Upday launched in beta and now has around 1,200 publishers on board — including The Economist, The Daily Telegraph, Le Figaro, Der Spiegel and Axel Springer publications — all eager to take a stand against platform offerings like Facebook's Instant Articles and Apple News. During this test period, Upday claims users were spending over two hours a month using the platform.”
Politico / Joe Pompeo
New media players like Gawker and Fusion seek to make their mark on the 2016 campaign →
“You can’t just put out the same headlines. You have to be different.”
Medium / Simon Owens
Email newsletters are the new zines →
“Speaking to newsletter writers, it struck me how attracted they were to the newsletter's inefficient means of discovery.”
Bloomberg.com / Gerry Smith
Google gives publishers what Facebook and Apple haven’t: A paywall →
The New York Times will share more than 60 stories a day through Google AMP, because “the Times asks readers to buy digital subscriptions after getting 10 free articles a month. Google readers count toward that limit. Facebook and Apple readers don’t.”
From Fuego
Mark Zuckerberg Asks Racist Facebook Employees to Stop Crossing Out Black Lives Matter Slogans —gizmodo.com
OPINION: Six hot media startups to watch in 2016 —america.aljazeera.com
Nearly Eight-in-Ten Reddit Users Get News on the Site —www.journalism.org
Facebook Officially Launches Canvas To Give Advertisers Rich Media Pages In Its App —techcrunch.com
Mark Zuckerberg Asks Employees To Stop Crossing Out “Black Lives Matter” On Facebook’s Walls —techcrunch.com
Fuego is our heat-seeking Twitter bot, tracking the stories the future-of-journalism crowd is talking about most. Usually those are about journalism and technology, although sometimes they get distracted by politics, sports, or GIFs. (No humans were involved in this listing, and linking is not endorsing.) Check out Fuego on the web to get up-to-the-minute news.