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Wednesday, March 1, 2017
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With its new editor on board, ProPublica Illinois’ ambitions are starting to take shape“I think the keys to making this kind of small operation work are collegiality, responsiveness, and flexibility.” By Ricardo Bilton. |
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A new study says young Americans have a broad definition of news“If I don't see it on social media, I'm not going to hear it.” By Joseph Lichterman. |
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This site is “taking the edge off rant mode” by making readers pass a quiz before commenting“If everyone can agree that this is what the article says, then they have a much better basis for commenting on it.” By Joseph Lichterman. |
What We’re Reading
Wired / David Pierce
Medium launches Snapchat Stories, but for Medium →
“The easiest way to explain Series is this: It’s Snapchat Stories, except they don't expire after 24 hours and you can’t swipe down to open a link. Also you can’t do any of the fun things you can do in Stories.”
Recode / Dan Frommer
Twitter will now let you mute specific words from your timeline – and mute ‘eggs’ without profile photos →
“These specific changes alone, obviously, aren't going to stop harassment and bad behavior on Twitter. But it is good that Twitter is increasingly using a combination of its user community and its algorithms to curb abuse.”
Poynter / Benjamin Mullin
Press freedom organizations are teaming up to start a news site →
“Later this year, a coalition of organizations including the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, the Knight First Amendment Center and the Index on Censorship will launch an as-yet unnamed news site to track press freedom violations in the United States. The site will not only track incidents spurred by the Trump administration, but his election and anti-press rhetoric was a major catalyst in its founding.”
Poynter / Melody Kramer
Here are 42 ideas for your newsroom’s next newsletter →
“The nice thing about newsletters is that they're great experimental platforms to test ideas and try new things. Consider these ideas starting points — I'd love to see you make these ideas better or try some of them out.”
Prnewswire
The Craig Newmark Foundation gives $1M to ProPublica →
“Independent investigative reporting is essential to shoot down false claims and expose bad actors. ProPublica is a leader in that kind of journalism, and we need more of it,” Newmark said.
WWD / Alexandra Steigrad
Refinery29 is “in the throes of an identity crisis” →
In 2015, the site attempted to make a move toward hard news, but it seems to be moving away from that focus.
Mashable / Jason Abbruzzese
Can a podcast actually save America? Three former Obama staffers think so →
On separating from The Ringer: “There’s a difference between being a commentator with partisan views, and having this little mini-brand within your company that is telling people to go to town halls and vote for people and organize. I don’t think that fit within The Ringer’s larger mission, and Bill [Simmons] understood that within about two minutes of talking to him.”
The Hollywood Reporter / Marisa Guthrie
CNN is now the No. 1 digital news brand, ahead of Yahoo News →
Its 105 million monthly uniques surpace “Yahoo News (93 million), The New York Times (85 million), The Huffington Post (80 million) and BuzzFeed (77 million), though this data does not include traffic from content published directly on social networks such as YouTube, Facebook and Snapchat, where many digital-native brands focus their efforts.”
NPR / Steve Drummond and Elissa Nadworny
Applying for a newsroom internship? Here’s some advice from NPR →
“As we started to read the current round of internship applications, we have some advice for you. The problem we see, over and over and over again? Well, let’s just say your cover letter needs some work.”