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Thursday, June 29, 2017
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Talking Points Memo doubled its subscribers in a year — now it’s trying to find new extras for them“We’ve learned a lot over the last few years about how to construct a business model that allows a substantial but still relatively small news organization to thrive.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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You can now use social audio app Anchor to publish podcasts“Our hope is that we can remove all of the technical and difficult aspects of the process to the end user.” By Joseph Lichterman. |
What We’re Reading
Digiday / Jessica Davies
In the latest Instagram Stories vs. Snapchat battle, BBC News picks a side →
“Typically, BBC News' Instagram Stories get an average of 100,000 views, with around half of those watching to the end, according to Mark Frankel, social media editor at BBC News.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Melanie Faizer
Bringing Buddha to the newsroom: media with mindfulness →
It's a frequent practice at News Deeply, a New York-based startup that focuses on comprehensive coverage of complex issues that are widely overhyped and misunderstood, such as Syria, refugees, oceans, and water.
Journalism.co.uk / Mădălina Ciobanu
With $500,000 in funding, Full Fact is building two automated fact-checking tools for journalists →
Mevan Babakar, digital product and supporter communications manager at Full Fact, talks about how the two tools (Live and Trends) will work, and how we can lower the barriers to entry for fact-checking to avoid creating a “civic vacuum” that is detrimental to both news consumers and the industry.
MarketWatch / Trey Williams
The New York Times newsroom is planning a walkout in solidarity with copy editors →
"Editors — and yes, that especially means copy editors — save reporters and the Times every day from countless errors, large and small…. Requiring them to dance for their supper sends a clear message to them, and to us, that the respect we have shown the Times will not be reciprocated."
Wired / Nicholas Thompson
Instagram unleashes an AI system to blast away nasty comments →
“If…the system works, Instagram could become one of the friendliest places on the internet.”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
Trump bump in subscriptions wanes for publishers →
“Some have sustained their increases. They have multifaceted circulation strategies that have been in place long before the election and have broadened their marketing messages beyond Trump, though.”
Poynter / Alexios Mantzarlis
Poynter gets Omidyar and Open Society money to expand its fact-checking work →
“New initiatives will include an innovation fund to reward new formats and business models for fact-checking, an impact tracker to help evaluate and monitor the efficacy of this type of work, and a tool to turn the links fact-checkers use into a searchable database of trustworthy primary sources.”
Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism
Tow-Knight is offering stipends to attend ONA to journalism educators →
“Each fellow will be required to share her or his insights on classroom best practices or journalism education issues with colleagues online or in person, in consultation with Tow-Knight.”
Variety / Daniel Holloway
MTV News is the latest to cut writing staff to refocus on, yep, social video →
“MTV News had, since late 2015 and the addition of several writers and editors who had previously worked at the website Grantland, pursued a strategy designed to age up its digital audience…But since 2015, according to network insiders, overall traffic for MTV News' digital content has declined 64%, with time spent down 59%. Traffic for editorial video streams is down 97%.”
Online News Association / Alex Laughlin
Looking to launch a podcast? Advice from an audio producer →
“This blog post is intended to help improve the industry norm and elevate industry-wide expectations for the medium, and to serve as a guide for smaller newsrooms that might be interested in getting into podcasting. After talking with several colleagues who work in audio at different organizations, I've come up with a quick list of considerations for newsrooms starting a podcast. It is intended for decision-makers in major media outlets who are considering investing in podcasting.”