 |
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
 |
The Internet sets writers free…to get new audiences, and also to “dive into a giant flaming garbage pile”An extended conversation on the economics of building a career writing on the web today: “Unfortunately, it looks a little grim.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
 |
Hot Pod: What does an audio producer actually do, anyway?Plus: Panoply grabs some big partners, question marks at Acast, and success in local podcasting through Hearken. By Nicholas Quah. |
What We’re Reading
The Guardian
The Guardian is shutting down its Media and Tech Network →
“As we're sure many of you are aware, times are tough in the advertising market which the Guardian depends on to fund much of its journalism. Consequently, the decision has been taken to close the Media and Tech Network at the end of January.”
WAN-IFRA / Michael Spinner-Just
Axel Springer launches a soccer daily newspaper (in print!) in Germany →
“Fussball Bild is published Monday through Saturday in the format ‘Nordisch Tabloid’ (40 cm x 28 cm) with 32 pages for a price of 1 Euro. The initial print run is 300,000 printed copies.”
Vox Media Storytelling Blog / pietro.passarelli
How Vox annotated Trump’s inauguration speech in real time →
Inspired by NPR’s live factchecking project, Vox built its own tool using OpenedCaptions, a service that makes C-SPAN 1 captions available over the web in real time. The intermediate server code and the Google app script it built is opensourced here.
Digital Content Next
Big publishers made on average just $7.7M from distributed content in the first half of 2016, report suggests →
“Video, which represents 85 percent of the total, $6.5 million, is driven by TV/cable companies' OTT monetization. The remaining 15 percent slices across social media, Google AMP and syndication.”
Recode / Tess Townsend
New York Times deputy tech editor Quentin Hardy leaves to run editorial for Google Cloud →
“Google confirmed the news and said Hardy's role was new, but declined to share further details, such as what exactly the job entails.”
Digiday / Lucinda Southern
Looking for reach, The Sun fully embraces Instant Articles →
The Sun is participating in a Facebook trial that lets publishers post five stories in one Instant Articles bundle every day.
The Washington Post
The Washington Post launches a newsletter for an international audience →
“Delivered to coincide with the start of a European business day, the newsletter will highlight the day's essential reads, selected for global readers.”
Wired / Emma Grey Ellis
Fake think tanks fuel fake news — and President Trump’s Tweets →
"It used to be you could trust a dot-edu or a dot-org," says Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. "Now some of the main hate sites are dot-orgs."
Journalism.co.uk / Catalina Albeanu
Verification and local investigations: Inside two organizations plugging the gaps →
A look at Bellingcat and The Bristol Cable.
Politico / Ken Doctor
Tronc buys Spanfeller’s Daily Meal, in niche food strategy →
“Expect Daily Meal content to begin appearing on Tronc's newspaper websites from Orlando and Chicago to San Diego.”
The Guardian / Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer
The team behind the Panama Papers calls for a similar collaborative investigation of Donald Trump →
“Let us assume a source approaches a reporter of the Washington Post with important information which is hard for them to corroborate. Why not reach out to a colleague who already did work on this topic, even if at a rival publication – the New York Times, CNN, ProPublica, Fox News or where ever – for help? They might have the missing piece of the puzzle, they might have the vital second source and they might have what it takes to publish the story. So why not collaborate?”
The Hollywood Reporter / Mia Galuppo and Tatiana Siegel
Netflix gets world rights to the Gawker–Hulk Hogan documentary →
The film is “Nobody Speak: Hulk Hogan, Gawker and Trials of a Free Press.”
BuzzFeed / Charlie Warzel
The right is building a new media “upside down” to tell Trump’s story →
“Welcome to the New Media Upside Down: a parallel universe (think the Upside Down from the Netflix series Stranger Things) that operates as a mirror image of its mainstream counterpart with its own ‘alternative facts,’ audience, and interpretation of truth. “