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Monday, July 10, 2017
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“There’s an opportunity to go deep”: What’s next for Rafat Ali’s growing travel site Skift, 5 years in“One of the things that we try to do, and I think it has worked well for us, is to surprise and delight. Surprise and delight is a marketing tactic. In our case, it's essentially constantly launching new things so that the industry is constantly surprised.” By Joseph Lichterman. |
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Musical (about marriage) as podcast? Why not, say the guys who brought you the sci-fi LimetownIt even stars Hamilton’s Jonathan Groff. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
CNN / Rem Rieder
Inside GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson’s journalistic gamble, the Las Vegas Review-Journal →
The Las Vegas Review-Journal is flush in cash and confidence a year and a half after being bought by the GOP’s most prominent donor, but “the idea that the Review-Journal is run as an independent body is laughable,” said Jim Wright, the paper’s deputy editor at the time of the sale.
The New York Times / Jim Rutenberg
News outlets to seek bargaining rights against Google and Facebook →
The News Media Alliance, the major newspaper industry trade group, will try to win the right to negotiate collectively with the big online platforms and will ask for a limited antitrust exemption from Congress in order to do so.
The Atlantic / Alexis C. Madrigal
The news business sinks ever closer to rock bottom →
“The newspapers probably won't get the help they need from Congress. And even if they do, they are in a weak position vis-a-vis the two most powerful information gatekeepers the world has ever known. The good news is that Facebook and Google, both the individuals inside of them and the corporate structures, may finally want to help the business of journalism. The bad news is that, at this point, these two companies may not be able to fix what they've broken.”
Poynter / Benjamin Mullin
With The City, USA Today Network is taking its local-to-national strategy to your earphones →
“The truth is, if you sat around and tried to come up with a podcast that was a perfect fit for Gannett, you’d probably come up with something like Robin Amer’s latest project. The co-winner of WNYC’s podcast accelerator competition, The City aims to feature serialized deep-dives into various cities across the United States.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Gwyneth Doland
Alt-weeklies look for a lifeline from nonprofits →
"People think of a nonprofit as having a charitable purpose, a public service. Well, journalism has always been a public service. You could argue that every bit of journalism we do has a charitable purpose."
Digiday / Lucia Moses
Facebook is aiming to test paid subscriptions with a few publications at the end of 2017 →
But according to one senior executive at The New York Times: "We've been briefed and are continuing to evaluate if we're going to participate. So far, we don't see any great upside."
Journalism.co.uk / Caroline Scott
Many newsrooms have data teams but few reporters have formal data training, a global study finds →
“When asked about the status of data journalism in their organizations, 46 percent said they have a dedicated data team, and of these, 70 percent operate with small teams consisting of fewer than five members. Although the majority of those who took part in the survey (86 percent) considered themselves data journalists, only 18 percent rate themselves as experts in data journalism.”
Vanity Fair / Sarah Ellison
Politico Playbook’s next generation on how to inherit a wildly successful newsletter and make it your own →
“They faced a tough job, stepping in for the indefatigable Mike Allen, who created and oversaw Playbook with an intensity and flair that felt hard to match. Lippman had helped Allen with his column since 2014, but he took over full-time with Palmer and Sherman one year ago, on July 11, 2016. Since then, the three have crisscrossed the country, launched a podcast, an afternoon newsletter, and thrown themselves into the event business.”