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Monday, December 4, 2017
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AL.com’s new Facebook brand, Reckon, aims to build an identity that breaks out of newspaper voice“Can we, as an established news company, create something that feels like a news startup focused around investigative and enterprise news, done for a social audience?” By Christine Schmidt. |
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Want to write for Publish.org? Every step of the process — from pitching to edits to payment — will be open“Our big premise is, we’re trying to be an open news desk for the internet. At the end of the day, we’re just trying to fuel a healthier, more open ecosystem of journalism.” By Shan Wang. |
What We’re Reading
Digiday / Lucia Moses
The Information launches $199 and $749 annual subscription tiers (the $10,000 one is still available, too) →
“Jessica Lessin, CEO and founder of The Information, said the new, lower-cost subscription tier was designed to serve people who are early in their careers and haven't reached their earning potential and are looking for events where they can meet people from outside their own companies.”
Recode / Rani Molla
Video will make up 75 percent of mobile traffic in five years →
Overall, worldwide mobile data traffic will increase to 110 exabytes per month in 2023, according to a report by telecommunications equipment company Ericsson, or the equivalent of 5.5 million years of streaming HD video. It's eight times the 14 exabytes per month we used in 2017.
The Splice Newsroom
As transformation sweeps Malaysia’s newsrooms, the millennial-focussed R.AGE finds a surprising niche in investigative journalism →
“R.AGE, is the multimedia unit at Malaysian newspaper The Star. The 10-member team has won 18 awards since the site relaunch, and its latest exposé investigates a trafficking scam under which Bangladeshis travel to Malaysia expecting to be studying, only to be forced into work. Videos garner about 500,000 monthly views and Facebook followers have increased from 25,000 to 65,000.”
BuzzFeed / Craig Silverman
Trump has unleashed ‘unprecedented’ levels of polarization in how people view the media →
“The survey found that 74% of respondents who identify as Democrats, or who lean Democratic, have "a great deal" (19%) or "a fair amount" (55%) of confidence in the media. Meanwhile, just 19% of respondents who identified as Republicans, or who lean Republican, expressed "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of confidence in the media.”
The Drum / Shawn Lim
Digital will account for 94% of the growth in adspend between 2017 and 2020 →
“Zenith has announced its advertising spend forecasts, revealing that it expects Internet advertising's share of global adspend to continue to rise, reaching 40% in 2018 and 44% in 2020.”
The New York Times / Paul Mozur
China’s top ideologue calls for tight control of the Internet →
“Wang Huning stepped onto the world stage before an audience that included Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, along with an all-star cast of Chinese tech entrepreneurs. He called for security and order on the internet as part of five proposals he made to guide the future of cyberspace. He also emphasized China's technological prowess, and said more should be done by the government to guide the development of new industries like artificial intelligence and quantum computing.”
Reuters / Jonathan Barrett, Tom Westbrook
Australian regulators are investigating Facebook and Google for disrupting the news media market →
“The government ordered the probe as part of wider media reforms, amid growing concern for the future of journalism and the quality of news following years of declining profits and newsroom job cuts and the rise of fake news.”
MediaShift / Jane Elizabeth
10 things news orgs can do now to prepare for 2018’s social media battles →
“3) Stop posting all those links.” (Based on Elizabeth’s API report on how social media teams could fight misinformation.)
Buzzfeed News / Katie Notopoulos
Trolls locked this reporter’s Twitter account for 10 days, prompting her to explore how Twitter’s rules can be exploited →
“Viewed in the context of Twitter culture in 2017, it is very obviously a bad faith campaign by white nationalists and alt-right accounts to target members of the mainstream media for harassment by exploiting Twitter's policies, which are riddled with loopholes and vague interpretations.”
Medium / Jennifer Dargan
Is your newsroom talking about bias? Either way, here are eight questions to start the conversation →
“Today as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow, I'm investigating how to best encourage journalists to examine their unconscious bias because I've seen impressive results when they do. They are able to produce more thoughtful, more inclusive, more accurate work. They are also able to be better colleagues and more skillfully address situations involving bias.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Alexandria Neason
Out of 149 newsrooms, 0 responded to CJR’s questions about their sexual harassment policies →
“Sixty-six percent of participating staff journalists said their companies had clear sexual harassment policies—a good sign. But just 21 percent strongly agreed that they understood those policies.”
Business Insider / Maxwell Tani
Dean Baquet says the criticism of the Times’ neo-Nazi profile was ‘the most ridiculous overreaction’ →
“[I]n my view, the overreaction from readers who we try to address and certain academics … who never have actually done much journalism, I think their reaction was too strong. It was not a mortal sin.”