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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
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Hot Pod: This American Life is plotting new shows to join SerialPlus: Google plans its podcast play, Anchor joins the social-audio game, and SoundCloud’s financial numbers raise questions about viability (or acquisition). By Nicholas Quah. |
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Brain food: Here are 15 smart people talking for 5 minutes each about journalism’s futureSmart people talking about building a startup culture, the value of small projects, the curse of expertise, and more. By Joshua Benton. |
What We’re Reading
American Press Institute / Natalie Jomini Stroud
How hyperlocal news outlets are taking shape across the U.S. →
A survey of 210 respondents from 144 different hyperlocal sites (though the research was conducted in 2013).
Duke Reporters Lab / Mark Stencel
Global fact-checking sites are up 50% in a year →
“The Duke Reporters' Lab annual census of international fact-checking currently counts 96 active projects in 37 countries. That's up from 64 active fact-checkers in the 2015 count.”
Digiday / Sahil Patel
Inside Great Big Story, CNN’s attempt to out-BuzzFeed BuzzFeed →
Great Big Story launched in October as an independent subsidiary of CNN. Nine million uniques have visited the company's site and mobile apps since launch. The average age of its audience is 25 — half that of CNN's on TV.
The Guardian / Hannah Ellis-Petersen
BBC3, a TV channel aimed at younger audiences, becomes online-only →
In a cost-saving move for the BBC, the channel, launched 13 years ago, becomes the first in the world to make the transition from TV broadcast to a solely online platform as BBC3's budget is cut from £85m to £30m.
The Media Briefing / Chris Sutcliffe
The Guardian is considering ‘producing some journalism which only our members can access’ →
“Our newly imagined membership offering is about offering readers a little bit more of what they like with the day's core news staying absolutely free. It's a new approach, but we think it's an exciting opportunity to better serve both our audiences and our advertisers.”
Poynter / Ben Mullin
How BuzzFeed built its investigative news team →
The team now includes 20 journalists across the U.S. and U.K.
TechCrunch / Megan Rose Dickey
Reddit hires Twitter’s former news manager as its first-ever head of journalism and media →
Mark S. Luckie, also the the person behind Today in Black Twitter, will work with media organizations, as well as government organizations, to understand how they're currently using Reddit and what their needs are from the platform.
Fast Company / Noah Robischon
How BuzzFeed’s Jonah Peretti is building a 100-year media company →
Across all the platforms where it now publishes content, the company generates 5 billion monthly views—half from video, a business that effectively did not exist two years ago. Traffic to the website has remained steady—80 million people in the U.S. every month, putting it ahead of The New York Times—even though as much as 75 percent of BuzzFeed's content is now published somewhere else.
Poynter / Benjamin Mullin
How the San Antonio Express-News broke news of Scalia’s death →
In a week or so, nobody might remember that the Express-News broke the story. But everyone would remember if Scalia was still alive and the Express-News inaccurately reported word of his death.
The Telegraph / Patrick Foster
BBC to axe television and radio divisions as part of radical management overhaul →
“While the broadcaster is committed to the keeping its television channels and radio stations on the airwaves for the foreseeable future, Lord Hall is said to believe that the quickening pace of technological change means that the boundaries between media such as television, radio and online are blurring.”
LA Observed / Kevin Roderick
The Los Angeles Times reorganizes for digital →
“The nerve center of the Los Angeles Times newsroom will now be the ‘news and enterprise hub,’ where editors from cross the paper will work with writers, visual journalists artists, social media feeders and others to cover the top stories of the day for the web.”
From Fuego
How BuzzFeed’s Jonah Peretti Is Building A 100-Year Media Company —www.fastcompany.com
Giphy Closes $55 Million Series C At A $300 Million Post-Money Valuation —techcrunch.com
Mark Luckie Joins Reddit As Head of Journalism and Media —www.nbcnews.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.