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Thursday, May 4, 2017
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Jimmy Wales on Wikitribune’s business model and why it might cover not just politics but also dog breeding “Political news, I think, is of the most interest right now, and so I think that that’s where we’ll focus at first.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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Hands across America: How to make local/national journalism collaborations workWorking together doesn’t always come easy to news organizations. Here are the hurdles — and how best to get around them. By Tim Griggs. |
Here are some takeaways from Electionland, a 1,000-person effort covering Election Day voting issues
What We’re Reading
Digiday / Ross Benes
Outside Magazine built its own recommendation widgets to replace Outbrain →
“With Outbrain's widgets, about 1 percent of its total visitors clicked through, while Outside's own recommendation boxes have about a 1.3 percent click-through rate, said Todd Hodgson, director of product management at Outside. That adds up quickly, he said. Outbrain had been supplying 10 percent of Outside's digital ad dollars.”
Wall Street Journal / Shalini Ramachandran
Media companies from NBCUniversal to CBS to Fox line up to make shows for Snapchat →
“Snapchat hopes to have two to three new episodes of original shows airing each day by the end of the year in the ‘stories’ section of the app, which displays collections of snaps from friends, as well as stories from media outlets. The shows will be three to five minutes long.”
Wall Street Journal / Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg
Airbnb is teaming up with Hearst on a print magazine guided by the travel site’s data →
The new print publication will roll out May 23 with a $3.99 cover price. Stories will be sourced from anonymous data points Airbnb collects. Editors will use the data to assign stories for an audience curious about local hot spots. For instance, Savannah, Ga., is one of Airbnb's top search destinations, so one piece in the first issue includes barbecue recommendations from a Savannah barbecue pit master.
Bloomberg.com / Devin Leonard
Pitchfork grows up →
“Much has changed since 1996. Today, [Pitchfork founder Ryan] Schreiber employs 51 people, runs music festivals in Chicago and Paris, and has Fortune 500 advertisers. In 2015, Condé Nast, publisher of the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, bought Pitchfork for an undisclosed sum, and now Schreiber works in a comfortable office at Condé's headquarters in One World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.”
Medium / Matt DeRienzo
In local journalism, death by 1,000 papercuts →
National outlets are seeing a so-called “Trump bump,” with new resources flowing into supporting better journalism. But Gannett, which on Wednesday eliminated newsroom jobs across as many as 37 local newspapers, is moving in the opposite direction.
The Drum / Seb Joseph
Axel Springer just struck a deal with AppNexus that could see it turn its back on Google’s DoubleClick →
The transition starts in 2018 when sites like BILD.de and businessinsider.de will gradually adopt AppNexus' technologies, including its ad server. Axel Springer's switch from Google DFP to AppNexus is the latest in a string of instances where publishers are turning to independent partners that can help them acquire, engage and monetize audiences across the open web.
Journalism.co.uk / Madalina Ciobanu
With P24, Público is experimenting with personalized audio catch-ups for its readers →
Each audio package has a duration of about eight minutes, and is featured on the Público website only, at the top of the homepage. A couple of months before the launch in April, the team started producing around 40 news audio pieces per day, and P24’s engine combines anywhere between five and ten of these items to create a personalized package based mainly on readers’ interests.
The New York Times / Jacqueline Williams
Journalists at 2 of Australia’s biggest papers strike over job cuts →
“On Wednesday morning, the company sent an email to staff members saying it would cut 125 full-time positions at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Melbourne, with cuts also expected at The Australian Financial Review. Last month, Fairfax management said that the company would need to trim 30 million Australian dollars, or about $22.5 million, representing nearly one-quarter of its editorial budget.”