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Tuesday, January 17, 2017
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This is The New York Times’ digital path forward“For all the progress we have made, we still have not built a digital business large enough on its own to support a newsroom that can fulfill our ambitions.” This new internal report outlines how the Times aims to improve its journalism to help do just that. By Joshua Benton. |
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Here’s how Twitter is reacting to The New York Times’ 2020 reportThe Times released the report on Tuesday, and Media Twitter is already dissecting its every word. By Joseph Lichterman. |
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The Washington Post is putting a big bet on video (and trying to break into Daily Show-style comedy)Owner Jeff Bezos is also pushing the Post to experiment with more user-friendly video ad formats. By Joseph Lichterman. |
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Hot Pod: If we want podcasting to remain open to everyone, we’re going to have to organizePlus: A new call-in radio show aims to bring people together, a new sales partnership for PRX, and the benefits of doubling down on live programming for public radio. By Nicholas Quah. |
What We’re Reading
The Nevada Independent
Jon Ralston’s Nevada Independent launched today →
We wrote about it in November; the Times had a piece today.
Variety / Janko Roettgers
It’s official: Twitter has shut down Vine →
“Twitter had given users the chance to download their Vines through the service's mobile app in recent weeks, but removed that feature from the new app Tuesday. Third-party tools that download Vine's directly from the service's website should still work, but are likely going to violate Vine's Terms of Service.”
rasmuskleisnielsen.net / Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
An optimistic take on fake news →
“An optimistic take on fake news may thus (perhaps pessimistically) suggest that the most important questions we face around media and democracy today concern real news, and how real news—often on an eroding resource base—can cover highly partisan politics, reach more people, and connect societies that in some cases seem more and more polarized in terms of both social values and relative affluence.”
BuzzFeed
ProPublica is partnering with BuzzFeed, NYT, and Univision on a project tracking hate crimes →
As part of the project, the news organizations are asking people to submit their own accounts of being attacked for their race, ethnicity, religion, or gender.
Recode / Kurt Wagner
Facebook looks like it’s going to stop paying publishers to make live videos →
“Instead, Facebook is pushing publishers to create longer, premium video content as part of a larger effort led by Facebook exec Ricky Van Veen. The hope is to get more high-quality video onto the platform and into your News Feed — the kind of stuff, presumably, you might find on Netflix.”
Poynter / Benjamin Mullin
‘A marriage of Twitter and The Economist’: How Axios is serving up news for social media addicts →
“On Wednesday, visitors to Axios.com will be greeted by a vertical stream of news that resembles the Facebook timeline, or Twitter’s feed. But instead of posts from friends or celebrities, Axios’ feed will consist of short, newsy bulletins created by the company’s team of writers and curators.”
The Verge / Amar Toor
Facebook rolls out a fake news filter in Germany →
“Lawmakers have considered imposing fines on Facebook and other social media companies that allow fake news to spread…It was reported last week that the German government has opened an investigation into the spread of fake news, after Breitbart published a false story claiming that a mob set fire to a church on New Year's Eve.”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
Publishers love newsletters, but grapple with the underlying tech →
“So more of them, including The New York Times, Financial Times and Washington Post, have taken matters into their own hands and built their own [email systems].”
Condé Nast
Wolfgang Blau is the new president of Condé Nast International →
“A move aimed at bringing digital authority to the heart of the organisation’s leadership.”