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Thursday, October 20, 2016
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Connecting science with society, Undark hopes to help elevate the standards for science journalism“Science influences our lives in countless ways every day, and as science journalists, if we don't make that connection really clear, we're not doing our jobs.” By Ricardo Bilton. |
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Can you make learning about gerrymandering fun? Fusion teamed with mobile gaming devs to try“We wanted to experiment with how we could use game play and video games within journalism.” By Joseph Lichterman. |
What We’re Reading
USA TODAY / Jefferson Graham
USA Today Network launches a virtual reality news show →
The VRtually There series is co-produced with YouTube and focused initially on “action content,” such as bringing viewers into a hot-air balloon festival in New Mexico or next to high-liners above Arizona’s canyons. While currently weekly, the show has ambitions to become daily.
Business Insider / Jake Kanter
BuzzFeed’s UK profits quadrupled after a period of major investment →
“BuzzFeed UK has filed abbreviated earnings at Companies House for the 12 months to the end of December 2015. They reveal the website's profit grew from £140,772 ($172,000) in 2o14 to £558,408 ($677,000) last year. The earnings do not provide any insight on BuzzFeed's revenue, but because it is classified as a small company under UK law, they will be below £6.5 million ($8 million).”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
On the hunt for direct audience connections, publishers turn to desktop push notifications →
The Washington Post for instance has sent around 20 Chrome notifications since September, and has gotten around 200,000 signups and is seeing a 33 percent click-through rate. The Guardian’s Mobile Innovation Lab has been experimenting with everything from quizzes to factchecks through notifications.
BuzzFeed / Charlie Warzel
While you were watching the final presidential debate, Trump launched Trump TV →
The Facebook Live broadcast, featuring punditry and specials pro-Trump ads in place of normal commercials, quickly ballooned to around 200,000 concurrent viewers but quickly fell off to around 120,000. In the middle of the debate, the feed held steady at around 170,000, trailing only the ABC News debate feed on the platform.
Facebook / Josh Roberts
Facebook adds 360° video and photo features to Instant Articles →
“Readers will see the 360° content in-line and have the option to navigate by turning their device or by tapping and dragging. USA Today network and Bild have experimented with 360 videos and photos on Facebook and are the first to showcase their integrations in Instant Articles.”
BuzzFeed / Craig Silverman et al.
Huge hyperpartisan Facebook pages are pushing false and misleading info →
“Our analysis of three hyperpartisan right-wing Facebook pages found that 38% of all posts were either a mixture of true and false or mostly false, compared to 19% of posts from three hyperpartisan left-wing pages that were either a mixture of true and false or mostly false.”
Washington Post
The Washington Post is offering free unlimited access to its site on Election Day →
“The Post is bolstering its election night coverage with five hours of live, original programming, which will be extended if necessary until the presidential race is called, from The Post's Washington, D.C. newsroom beginning at 7:00 p.m. ET. This will be streamed live on The Post's site, its national news app, Apple TV, Fire TV and Facebook.”
The Wall Street Journal / Suzanne Vranica and Jack Marshall
Global spending on print newspaper ads is expected to fall 8.7 percent in 2016 →
“Global spending on newspaper print ads is expected to decline 8.7% to $52.6 billion in 2016, according to estimates from GroupM, the ad-buying firm owned by WPP PLC. That would be the biggest drop since the recession, when world-wide spending plummeted 13.7% in 2009.”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
Publishers test desktop push notifications →
“The Washington Post launched Chrome notifications in September, and since then, it's gotten around 200,000 signups, which amounts to a 10 percent opt-in rate, said Joey Marburger, the Post's director of product.”
Talkingbiznews / Chris Roush
The Wall Street Journal will have more digital than print subscribers by the end of this year →
“Digital members should outnumber print subscribers during the current fiscal year. This growth is powered by mobile, which has overtaken desktop to become WSJ's no.1 platform in terms of reach.”
The Marshall Project
The Marshall Project releases the code for its custom CMS into the wild →
“By releasing EndRun's code, we hope developer-journalists in other newsrooms can learn from our experiences and be inspired to try new techniques in their systems.”
Press Gazette / Dominic Ponsford
The U.K.’s Press Association is preparing to start using robot reporters →
“This won't be replacing any of our fantastic journalists, it will be more a case of offering an extra level when it comes to short market reports, election results and football reporting.”