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Tuesday, December 5, 2017
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Investigative journalism is tough for local newsrooms with fewer resources. The Abrams Nieman Fellowship focuses on that needThe Nieman Foundation, with funding from the Abrams Foundation, will support up to three fellowships next year for U.S. journalists working in local news. The fellows will spend two semesters at Harvard, followed by up to nine months working in the field on a public service journalism project. By Shan Wang. |
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Apple has acquired Pop Up Archive, an interesting startup that makes podcasts more searchablePlus: Public radio deals with a new wave of harassment allegations, Reddit and WBUR team up, et l’industrie du podcast au Québec. By Nicholas Quah. |
What We’re Reading
Digiday / Max Willens
TheStreet cuts staffers and refocuses on subscriptions →
“The publication laid off 10 editorial staffers last Thursday, its third round of layoffs in the past 14 months, after moves into video and branded content failed to turn around ad revenues. The finance news publisher will now try to rely more heavily on paid products like subscriptions and events. Most of TheStreet's consumer revenue comes from subscriptions to a paid newsletter — subscription revenue accounted for $4.9 million of $7.4 million in B2C revenue in the third quarter, according to a company filing.”
The Journal of Politics / Taylor N. Carlson
Modeling political information transmission as a game of Telephone →
“…the amount and quality of political information declines as it propagates through more people. This suggests that people farther removed from the initial source of information — farther down an information diffusion chain — not only will receive less information but that information will also be distorted, particularly from the introduction of information external to the initial source and a dramatic loss of specificity.”
Wall Street Journal / Benjamin Mullin and Suzanne Vranica
40 percent of The Skimm’s readers open all five newsletters each week →
“According to a recent presentation from theSkimm obtained by The Wall Street Journal, about 80% of its readers are female, and 45% earn more than $100,000 a year, according to the presentation. TheSkimm's revenue is on pace to double from last year, and it now has more than 60 full-time employees, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company also has more than 25,000 ‘Skimm'bassadors,’ devoted fans of theSkimm who encourage other people to sign up for the newsletter or download the app.”
The Outline / Jon Christian
How brands secretly buy their way into Forbes, Fast Company, and HuffPost stories →
“People involved with the payoffs are extremely reluctant to discuss them, but four contributing writers to prominent publications including Mashable, Inc, Business Insider, and Entrepreneur told me they have personally accepted payments in exchange for weaving promotional references to brands into their work on those sites. Two of the writers acknowledged they have taken part in the scheme for years, on behalf of many brands.”
Journalism.co.uk / Madalina Ciobanu
The new digital magazine Reporter will focus on investigative, participatory journalism in Luxembourg →
Journalists Christoph Bumb and Laurence Bervard, who previously worked for daily newspaper Luxemburger Wort, founded Reporter because they thought there was a need for a new type of media in Luxembourg: digital-only, independent, supported solely by readers, and involving the audience in the reporting process. The project has raised more than €150,000 in crowdfunding ahead of its launch in March 2018.
Poynter
Jay Rosen: Members ‘don’t want a gate around the journalism they’re supporting’ →
“Members want to see behind the scenes: How do newsrooms decide on what they'll cover, for instance? And they want to see something different than the commodity coverage they see everywhere else, something that helps connect them to where they live.”
Recode / Peter Kafka and Rani Molla
2017 was the year digital ad spending finally beat TV →
“Digital ad spending reached $209 billion worldwide in 2017, while TV brought in $178 billion, according to Magna, the research arm of media buying firm IPG Mediabrands. Bear in mind that this isn't because TV ads are cratering — TV ad spending is still flat or slowly growing, depending on the year. And in most cases big TV advertisers have yet to move much of their budget over to digital, even though Facebook and Google are working hard to make that happen.”
Performance Calendar / Colin Bendell
New versions of Safari will support GIFs stored as movies (at 1/14th the file size) →
“Animated GIFs are terrible for web performance. They are HUGE in size, impact cellular data bills, require more CPU and memory, cause repaints, and are battery killers…My daughter loves them — but she doesn't understand why her battery is always dead.”
Russian Ministry of Justice
Russia labels Voice of America a foreign agent after the U.S. labeled RT one →
Also the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty projects Current Time, AzatliqRadiosi, Sibir.Realii, Idel.Realii, Polygraph, Kavkaz.Realii, and Krym.Realii.