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Wednesday, August 24, 2016
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Business realities are impacting all college newspapers. But what happens when they’re for-profit?Gannett owns two college newspapers in Florida — it’s closed one and cutting costs at the other. By Joseph Lichterman. |
What We’re Reading
The Wall Street Journal / Steven Perlberg
Sports Illustrated and Fox Sports are teaming up to take on ESPN →
SI and Fox Sports “will share ‘significant’ content, according to Rich Battista, president of Time Inc. Brands.” On the business side, “ad sales units from Sports Illustrated and Fox Sports will be able to sell advertising across both entities, and the two companies will share in the revenue. They declined to disclose specific financial details.”
Digiday / Jessica Davies
CNN is going after Africa’s young, mobile audience — starting with Nigeria →
“On the social side, CNN has already dropped its three separate Africa Facebook pages — created for three of their TV shows: ‘Inside Africa,’ ‘African Voices’ and ‘Marketplace Africa’ — to create one Africa Facebook page. Within a few weeks, the new page has pulled in 250,000 followers, 10,000 joining in the last week.”
AP / Lauren Easton
The AP has a new iPhone app →
“The free app lets users personalize their news experience in a big way so they can stay on top of breaking stories of special interest to them. They can do this by customizing their news feed, choosing to follow specific topics and newsmakers as they appear in developing stories…and setting up news alerts by subject.”
WAN-IFRA / Brian Veseling and Ralf Ressmann
Want advice on a youth media strategy? Turn to Africa →
“We find that the younger groups are brand- and platform-agnostic; they want information now and fast, so we have to be everywhere to reach them. We found that the constant engagement is also extremely important, as the younger audience is switched on ALL the time.”
WAN-IFRA / Ingrid Cobben
How a Danish startup is building a community that’s willing to pay for news →
“After a €80,000 crowdfunding exercise à la De Correspondent, Zetland attracted another €1.5 million from investors, on top of half a million in government subsidies. Revenue comes from subscriptions, live shows and a moderator/booking-business.”
The Information / Cory Weinberg
Facebook’s new plan to expand its ad network (including with major publishers) →
“Some of its new targets for mobile ad sales are large publishers such as USA Today and Hearst, which have started selling ads through Facebook Audience Network after plugging into the social network's fast-loading article-hosting platform, Instant Articles.”
The New York Times / John Herrman
Inside Facebook’s (totally insane, unintentionally gigantic, hyperpartisan) political-media machine →
“While web publishers have struggled to figure out how to take advantage of Facebook's audience, these pages have thrived. Unburdened of any allegiance to old forms of news media and the practice, or performance, of any sort of ideological balance, native Facebook page publishers have a freedom that more traditional publishers don't: to engage with Facebook purely on its terms. These are professional Facebook users straining to build media companies, in other words, not the other way around.”
Insider / Nicholas Carlson
Here’s Gawker’s style guide from 2007 →
“In it, you will see why the internet reads like it does today.”
MediaShift / Jason Alcorn
Most newsrooms monitor digital metrics, but many aren’t acting on the data they collect →
A high percentage of respondents surveyed by the Engaging News Project, including editors and publishers, couldn’t even answer whether or not they were using A/B testing in their newsrooms.
Emarketer
US Snapchat users will increase by double-digit percentages this year and next →
“eMarketer projects 58.6 million US consumers will use Snapchat at least once per month in 2016. eMarketer's user estimate would represent 28.3% of US smartphone users and 18.1% of the US population. Both of these percentages would be a considerable gain from two years ago, when Snapchat was used regularly by just 10.3% of US consumers and less than 20% of US smartphone users.”
The Guardian / Jasper Jackson
Facebook and other platforms ‘will rob UK news industry of £450m by 2026’ →
“A report by strategy consultants OC&C predicts that news producers, especially newspapers, are still to feel the full impact of the shift by younger generations to using social media to find their news.”
Vanity Fair / Emily Jane Fox
BuzzFeed is dividing its news and entertainment divisions in a company-wide reorganization →
BuzzFeed Entertainment “will serve as an umbrella for all its entertainment content, including short- and long-form video, lists, quizzes, and micro-content.” BuzzFeed News “will expand under Ben Smith…bringing its health team, global news operation, and video news under his purview.”
CNN / Evan Perez and Simon Prokupecz
The FBI is investigating Russian hacks targeting New York Times reporters →
“News organizations are considered top targets because they can yield valuable intelligence on reporter contacts in the government, as well as communications and unpublished works with sensitive information, US government officials believe.”