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Wednesday, October 19, 2016
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With its broadened Story Lab, NPR is looking to build up its next generation of shows and podcasts“We are trying to be very conscious that pulling a lever in one place has an impact elsewhere.” By Shan Wang. |
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KQED is encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation with an in-house incubatorThe Bay Area public media giant has launched a series of programs to try to introduce innovation at all commitment levels — from an eight-week bootcamp to lunchtime talks. By Joseph Lichterman. |
What We’re Reading
SI.com / Chris Stone
Sports Illustrated is launching an NBA vertical →
This summer, I spoke with SI editor Chris Stone about why the Time Inc. sports publication is focusing on basketball: “It has a great audience, great conversation, great product, great leadership. We're hitching our wagon to that.”
NPR / Christopher Turpin and Anya Grundmann
NPR is funding three new podcast pilots →
Shows “about how the drugs we take change our bodies and our world,” “telling stories about black identity that aren’t always shared in the open,” and “about your alternate timeline.”
Journalism.co.uk / Catalina Albeanu
Nearly a quarter of North American news articles contain a social media embed, says report →
“Some 23 per cent of news articles contain a social media embed, and 10 per cent of these embeds have either been modified or removed by their author since the article’s publication.”
The Pulitzer Prizes
The Pulitzer Prizes are now open to magazines in all journalism categories →
“After the successful experiment and a close review of Joseph Pulitzer's intentions for the prizes, we decided that the time had come to open all categories to magazines…The broad expansion of digital journalism has led to a growing overlap in the work and roles of newspapers, digital-only news sites, and magazines.”
Wall Street Journal / Lukas I. Alpert
Washington Post to cover every major race on Election Day with the help of artificial intelligence →
“The plan is to use a data-crunching program called Heliograf, which was built in-house, to bolster efforts by the Post's team of 60 political reporters to provide detailed coverage of nearly 500 contests across the U.S.”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
Harvard Business Review built a bot on Slack that delivers workplace advice →
“HBR decided to use Slack's "Slackbot" automated-assistant feature to deliver a collection of 200-plus best-practice articles on topics ranging from how to deal with a narcissistic boss to how to respond when an employee gives notice. The articles all follow the same template, with distinct sections like case studies and do's and don'ts that are easily disaggregated. It broke those articles up into those distinct chunks and messages them to subscribers one chunk at a time.”
Politico / Alex Spence
BuzzFeed U.K. editor Janine Gibson detailed the company’s growth in Britain →
“BuzzFeed's U.K. operation made a profit of £558,408 in 2015, according to its latest publicly-available financial accounts — up from £141,772 the previous year. Revenues were not disclosed. (Under U.K. company rules, the accounts of privately-owned companies are accessible to the public; however, if their turnover is less than £6.5 million, they are required only to disclose limited information.)”
New York Times / Jonathan Mahler
Anti-Semitic posts, many from Trump supporters, surge on Twitter →
A new report by the Anti-Defamation League “found that 2.6 million anti-Semitic messages were posted on Twitter from August 2015 to July 2016. Of those, 19,253 were directed at journalists.”
AdAge / Garett Sloane
Pinterest is reportedly working on a new “Explore” section for publishers and brands →
“The design and content would be uniquely Pinterest but it gives publishers and brands a more structured playground to share to the site.”
The Financial Times / David Bond
The Independent becomes profitable for the first time in 23 years, after axing print →
“The company says its digital advertising revenues have grown by 45 per cent year on year and that it is likely to record about £20m of revenues in 2016. With a younger staff on lower salaries and no printing or distribution costs, the Independent said it now had a sustainable long-term future.”
The Guardian / Jane Martinson
UK’s Channel 4 News defends Facebook Live stream of battle for Mosul →
“Watched more than 500,000 times by lunchtime on Tuesday, the Channel 4 News feed prompted a mixed response with several users questioning the appropriateness of ‘liking’ and pasting emojis on scenes of potential devastation.”
New York Times / Sydney Ember
New York Times names A.G. Sulzberger deputy publisher →
“Mr. Sulzberger was widely considered the front-runner by employees in the newsroom, in part because he led the team that drafted The Times’s 2014 innovation report.”
Recode / Peter Kafka
Snapchat wants to stop sharing ad revenue with its media partners →
“Instead of sharing ad revenue that section produces, Snapchat wants to pay content partners a flat license fee up front and keep the ad money for itself.”
Digiday / Jessica Davies
BuzzFeed's shift to video is taking hold in its U.K. operations, with two new studios to focus on sponsored video →
"We'll no longer be relying on LA or New York to produce the content, so we'll have new capabilities to leverage for brands. That'll lower overall costs and speed up the production timeline, which is what everyone is asking for."