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Friday, May 13, 2016
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Pop quiz: How closely have you been following the Facebook Trending Topics mini scandal?There was a reason that you obsessed over this all week, and that reason was to get a perfect score on our quiz. By Nieman Lab Staff. |
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“An essay in bot form”: Text with this basic text bot to read about (and discuss) the bot boom“The bot was made to argue about something. The point of the bot wasn’t to serve you. It was to propose an argument in and of itself.” By Shan Wang. |
What We’re Reading
Politico / Ken Doctor
Gannett gears up for a long battle over control of Tribune Publishing →
It's trench warfare that could well last months –- and may run into mid-2017, sources say.
Digiday / Brian Morrissey
‘Facebook is everything to us’: How Little Things grew to 50 million users in under three years →
On the feel-good site’s success: “I can't imagine that changing because we're adding true value to the ecosystem. It's not based on what I think or what Facebook thinks; it's based on what the users think. They're voting with their mouse or their finger.”
Journalism.co.uk / Catalina Albeanu
How to find stories in the Panama Papers database →
“You should look at a database as you look upon an interviewed person or at a source — it can lie to you. You have to ask the right questions.”
Poynter / Ben Mullin and Kristen Hare
Newsrooms are experimenting on Facebook Live by eating stuff. Live. →
Already, a curious subset of live-streams are dominating the genre: The spectacle video.
The Toast / Nicole Cliffe and Mallory Ortberg
The Toast is closing July 1st →
“Theoretically, if this industry went further into the ground which it most assuredly will, would we want to keep running the site as a vanity project? Probably not! We would just stop doing it.”
BuzzFeed / Matthew Champion
Alan Rusbridger steps down as chair of The Guardian’s owner →
“In recent weeks there has been a public campaign against him as anonymous Guardian staffers told rival papers he was to blame for the media organization's current financial crisis.”
Facebook / Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg: “We have found no evidence” that conservative topics were suppressed →
“In the coming weeks, I’ll also be inviting leading conservatives and people from across the political spectrum to talk with me about this and share their points of view.”
Digiday / Garett Sloane
The mixed, early impact publishers are seeing from Facebook Instant Articles →
For IGN, “instant posts reached on average 12 percent of the publisher's total audience of more than 3.5 million Facebook fans, while non-Instant reached an average of 7 percent of fans.”
Facebook / Justin Osofsky
Wall Street Journal / Mike Shields
Facebook tweaks rules on video ads after Mic tests new units →
Mic had created custom Facebook banner ads to help monetize its editorial videos, and Hulu and Airbnb both paid to be featured marketers. Facebook shut down the tactic.
From Fuego
We Are Closing The Toast July 1st —the-toast.net
Alan Rusbridger Steps Down As Chair Of The Guardian’s Owner —www.buzzfeed.com
donald trump alter ego barron —www.washingtonpost.com
Guardian editor: Time for a ‘new route to the future’ —www.capitalnewyork.com
How losing my dad helped me gain a new outlook on work —www.poynter.org
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.