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Friday, April 1, 2016
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What happens to a great open source project when its creators are no longer using the tool themselves?PANDA, the four-year-old Knight News Challenge-winning newsroom application for storing and analyzing large data sets, still has a respectable community of users, but could now use a new longterm caretaker. By Shan Wang. |
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Is Der Spiegel’s leaked Innovation Report one of the key documents of this (German) media age?A stern self-analysis: “We inflate our importance. We can't confess to weaknesses and certainly can’t show them. We don’t surprise often enough. We try too little that is really new. We set the wrong priorities.” By Shan Wang. |
What We’re Reading
Columbia Journalism Review / Charles Berret and Cheryl Phillips
Data journalism: A crucial skill that most J-schools aren’t teaching →
For advanced positions in data journalism — jobs that deal with statistics and mapping, novel forms of data visualization, rich online databases, and machine learning — little is available in the way of data journalism education preparation.
Medium / Advance Notice
Breaking News launches its Advance Notice newsletter →
It’s a look ahead at the coming week in news.
New York
Andrew Sullivan joins New York Magazine as contributing editor →
“He will write features throughout the year, and cover the 2016 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. He begins his new role today.”
Digiday / Jessica Davies
Inside BuzzFeed’s international news app strategy →
“BuzzFeed has chosen to evolve its U.S. app, which launched last June, rather than develop independent apps for each market in order to avoid creating a complicated user experience and the ‘technological nightmare’ of trying to localize multiple apps across multiple app stores, according to BuzzFeed managing editor of mobile Stacy-Marie Ishmael.”
Fortune / Dan Primack
Slack raises $200 Million at $3.8 billion valuation →
“The company has now raised $540 million in total VC funding, including a $160 million Series C round in April 2015 at a $2.8 billion post-money valuation.”
The Los Angeles Times / Anh Do
Editor and 70-plus others fired at the Orange County Register →
The layoffs came on the same day that Digital First Media completed its $49.8 million purchase of the paper.
BuzzFeed / Joseph Bernstein
Many of Breitbart.com tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos’s bylined articles are reportedly written by unpaid interns →
“Milo Yiannopoulos is not one person," said the Breitbart employee. "That person does not exist. It is a collective consciousness of various different people who come and go.”
Digiday / Sahil Patel
The Onion is coming to Snapchat Discover →
“The Onion's launch is part of a broader partnership between Snapchat and Univision, which acquired a 40 percent stake in The Onion in January to broaden its reach beyond the Spanish-speaking audience. Per the terms of the deal, Univision will work with Snapchat to create a series of special editions around tentpole events, live sports and the current presidential campaign.”
Bloomberg / Gerry Smith
The Wirecutter made $150 million in e-commerce in 2015 →
BuzzFeed, Hearst, and Vox Media are all testing affiliate sales, too.
The New York Times / Stephen Hiltner and Susan Lehman
How The New York Times covered the first 12 hours after the Brussels bombings →
“More than three dozen reporters, editors, web producers and graphic artists — scattered across the globe in venues as far flung as Hawaii, Beirut, Moscow, Havana, London, Paris, New York and, of course, Brussels — swung into gear, and began to put the story together just moments after the first bomb went off at the Brussels Airport.”
Financial Times
Brands begin to see marketing benefits in livestreaming →
“For technology companies including Twitter, Facebook and Google's YouTube, livestreaming has the potential to be another big revenue stream, as online video advertising takes off. Digital video advertising spending grew 46 per cent to $7.7bn in the US last year, according to eMarketer, the research group, which forecasts the market will hit $13.4bn in 2018.”
From Fuego
How Habitat for Humanity Went to Brooklyn and Poor Families Lost Their Homes —www.propublica.org
How a Small Tech Site Found a New Way for Publishers to Get Paid —www.bloomberg.com
How a Small Tech Site Found a New Way for Publishers to Get Paid —www.bloomberg.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.