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Tuesday, March 14, 2017
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The future of podcasting is strong, but the present needs to catch upPlus: The huge success of Missing Richard Simmons, windowing expands as a strategy, and The New York Times’ podcast-as-EP. By Nicholas Quah. |
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This email newsletter raised $300K from its (affluent, largely Silicon Valley–based) readers in 55 hours“One guy put in a hundred grand.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism / Anders Hofseth
Fake news, propaganda, and influence operations – a guide to journalism in a new, and more chaotic media environment →
“When the audience is trained to doubt everything they meet in the news, it may lead to devaluation and destabilisation of society's system for information, and a vacuum might appear. This poses a threat not only to the media itself. It is challenging the entire structure of society.”
The New York Times / Amanda Hess
‘Missing Richard Simmons,’ the morally suspect podcast →
“By turning a journalist into a friend and casting a man's personal life as a mystery, ‘Missing Richard Simmons’ has retooled the stale Hollywood documentary as an addictive media sensation. But it's also turned it into a morally suspect exercise: An invasion of privacy masquerading as a love letter. Mr. Simmons is a public figure, and that gives journalists a lot of latitude to pry. But a friend who claims to want to help Mr. Simmons should probably just leave him alone.”
Deutsche Welle
Germany will force Facebook, Twitter to delete hate speech and fake news →
The German ministry of justice is planning a new law that will force social networks to publish a quarterly accountability report, which will include information on the number and qualifications of employees responsible for deleting and blocking content that breaches Germany’s hate speech and slander laws.
Variety / Todd Spangler
Poynter / Alexios Mantzarlis
This online tool makes checking crowd sizes easier →
Outline an area of interest, and MapChecking will provide an initial estimate. But be warned: “Spatial analysis is OK for after the event analysis. But for real-time decision support you really need to understand the crowd dynamics.”
Watershed Post / Lissa Harris
Why a local news site covering the Catskills in New York is ending its daily and weekly coverage →
“I will keep the website running. We will still accept long-term display advertising. And we will still run stories occasionally, as our budget and my time allow. But without daily or weekly content, and without full-time attention to the invisible but vital role of running the business side, it won’t be a sustainable business. It will be a labor of love.”
American Press Institute / Natalie Jomini Stroud
Why we click on news stories →
“Headlines conveying disheartening news attracted attention up to a point — if the information seemed too disheartening, people avoided the story. Light-hearted news also resulted in clicks among those looking for stories would lift their spirits. Stories that actively irritated some of the participants, such as an article describing an anti-gay law in Uganda, yielded clicks.”
The New York Times / Emily Bazelon
How a wonky national security blog hit the big time →
“In the Trump era, the blog has at once lost its cachet in the highest echelons of government and become relevant to a far larger audience as the writers train their expertise on the biggest controversies of the new presidency. Lawfare contributors still have deep ties throughout the national-security and foreign-service career ranks, and many posts reflect their shared concerns about Trump and his team.”
BBC
Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger made a BBC radio documentary about the media in the Trump era →
Rusbridger “talks to journalists and news consumers across America in dispatches from President Trump’s ‘running war’ with the US media Alan asks why the media has been cast as Trump’s ‘opposition party’, how they are responding to the dilemmas and opportunities the new administration brings and whether the President is right to claim that the ‘mainstream media’ has lost the trust of the American people.”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
Why The Boston Globe embraced Facebook for notifications →
“The Boston Globe, like many publishers, wants to send breaking news notifications directly to people's phones. But when it explored the options on the table earlier this year, it hit a wall: Tweaking its app or assigning developers to plug into another platform was shaping up to be a big drain on resources.”
the Guardian / Katharine Viner
The Guardian says it has more than 200,000 paying members →
“By April 2019, we hope to be supported by the equivalent of 1 million members, who will help secure the Guardian's future in a tough commercial environment. Advertising conditions remain highly treacherous, with advertising in the Guardian — which helps pay for our journalism — down £11m this year. For every new advertising dollar spent in the US, 99 cents is now taken up by Facebook and Google.”