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Thursday, April 27, 2017
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These national journalists are building a local site to bring a different kind of news to East TexasThe Tyler Loop fashions itself as a data-savvy, digital alt-weekly for the growing, increasingly diverse city of Tyler. By Shan Wang. |
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With its Amazon-inspired pilot project, Panoply used listener feedback to help decide its new shows“We’re basically asking [listeners]: Are we way off base? Are we a little off base? You tell us before we make a whole season of something drive you away.” By Ricardo Bilton. |
What We’re Reading
Variety / Todd Spangler
Some former BuzzFeed staffers are posting YouTube videos on why they left the site →
“I don't want my identity to solely be BuzzFeed.”
Facebook / Jen Weedon, William Nuland, and Alex Stamos
Facebook releases a whitepaper on how it plans to fight “attempts to manipulate civic discourse and deceive people” →
It differentiates among “information (or influence) operations,” “false news,” “false amplifiers,” and “disinformation,” which “is distinct from misinformation.”
The New York Times / Jonah Engel Bromwich
The BBC kids and their parents are back, in a cartoon →
“I just love Marion. I just love her,” says the former Elite Daily writer who created “THe Adventures of Mina and Jack.”
Facebook Media
Facebook and Knight are partnering to give local newsrooms and nonprofits “Facebook training and support” →
“Currently the pilot project is focused on local and community newsrooms that are part of the LION, INN, and Detroit Journalism Cooperative networks, as well as several major metropolitan news organization that are part of the Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, Houston Chronicle, The Miami Herald, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Dallas Morning News, The San Jose Mercury News, The Seattle Times, and The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.”
Axios / Mike Allen
BuzzFeed News is testing new features to get audience feedback about what to report on →
“We speak the native language — whether English or Portuguese — of the web, in text and video….We are committed to sharing what we know with our audience, from being clear about corrections to sharing documents with our audience, including the famous dossier. We are…testing some technical features aimed at getting even more feedback from our audience on what they want reporting on,” BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith wrote in a memo to staff.
Deadspin / Kevin Draper
Deadspin has a running list of ESPN layoffs →
“There will be plenty of names you have heard of, as ESPN reorients their daily lineup of shows, and their online video and stories to match.”
AdAge / George Slefo
It’s not just Google and Facebook driving ad spending, IAB says (Jason Kint disagrees) →
“73 percent of revenues in Q4 came from the top 10 digital companies, but they only contributed 69 percent of the growth. That means 31 percent of the growth came from companies outside the top 10. So the media is mistaken.” See Jason Kint’s responses on Twitter here.
The New York Times / Jane Perlez
The tech challenge of reporting under China’s watchful eye →
“All stories are a challenge. Everything. That's the point — the Great Firewall blocks so much.”
Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas / Paola Nalvarte
A write-up of Joshua Benton’s ISOJ 2017 podcast panel →
“News is not inherently interesting. Having a story to tell is not as important as the way you tell it,” said Eric Nuzum, SVP of original content development for Audible.
Pew Research Center / John Gramlich
How Pew used Google search data to study public interest in the Flint water crisis →
“This was our first use of data from the Google Health API, which is essentially an access point for analyzing large amounts of data about the terms that internet users searched for during a given period.”
The Outline / Joshua Topolsky
The Outline’s ad business is working well, Joshua Topolsky says →
“Not only is our interaction rate 13x industry average, our clickthrough (if you must use the metric) is 25x (that’s twenty-five times) what a normal ad does (to be clear: the goal of our units isn't even clicks, it's engagement and interaction).”
WAN-IFRA
These are the winners of this year’s European Digital Media Awards →
Including The Guardian, Expressen, the BBC, Metro, Dagbladet, and Axel Springer.