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Friday, December 15, 2017
 | Shine the light on ourselves“Every new story of allegations taking down a media heavyweight reveals just how much our industry needs to improve.” By Sam Sanders. |
 | AI, with real smarts“You’ll sleep better, of course, if you don’t think too deeply about how much of your personal information now lives in the corporate domain, and appreciate that your consistency is part of your charm.” By Rachel Davis Mersey. |
 | Go global“A story performing well in one market could, theoretically, perform well in multiple markets, and reach many more people. If a content platform supports that, by enabling a translation-friendly workflow, you could have a relatively inexpensive way to increase your reach.” By Paul Ford. |
 | A recession, then a collapse“The last recession was brutal for newspapers and local news. The next one could be an extinction-level event, especially for small dailies owned by big corporate chains that have pillaged local newsrooms and local leadership.” By Matt DeRienzo. |
 | Training is an investment, not an expense“Newsrooms can and should have people, or at least one person, dedicated to thinking about their journalism, their audience, the tools they have available, and how to best connect all three.” By Charo Henríquez. |
 | Think local, act global“We will continue to work in collaboration across borders in Latin America, doing fact-checking over social networks — more and more on WhatsApp, which is one of the region’s main sources for information consumption and sharing.” By Mariana Moura Santos. |
 | Finding an information-life balance“Twelve months later, how are you feeling? Do you have a sense of dread every time you open your Twitter app? Does your heart sink whenever you get a breaking news alert on your phone?” By David Skok. |
 | Value is the watchword“Watch for intensified pitches stressing the value proposition: Exclusive ‘news that you can only get here.’ Trustworthy journalists. Reporters who have deep sourcing and deep knowledge of a crucial beat.” By Rick Berke. |
 | Conquering calm“Following one of the most intense years of news coverage in recent memory, mixed with the ongoing tectonic shocks of technology, more news consumers will likely tire of the machine-gun salvo of incremental factoids wrapped in large-font breathlessness.” By Almar Latour. |
 | Honesty in advertising“This is the era of media companies as facilitators. How can we build and leverage tools that move the entire advertising ecosystem forward? Media is now a proactive economy, not a reactive one.” By Jarrod Dicker. |
 | The year journalists become relationship builders“This year, a meaningful number of journalists will understand that their deeply encoded aloofness to the public is really the mutation that's afflicting journalism — and they will begin to rethink and recode their work as both reporters and relationship-builders.” By Andrew Haeg. |
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A year in fake news, and what to look forward to (or how to tune out) in 2018A few thoughts from an exhausting year in fake news (or whatever we end up calling next year). By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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Newsonomics: 15 terms that summed up 2017 in news and news coverageFrom “meltdown” to “roll-up” to (of course) “fake.” By Ken Doctor. |
What We’re Reading
Poynter / Daniel Funke
It’s been a year since Facebook partnered with fact-checkers. How’s it going? →
“Facebook declined to comment for this story pending the publication of their own review of the fact-checking partnership later this month.”
Reuters / David Shepardson
The FCC plans to fine Sinclair $13.3 million over paid programming it didn’t disclose →
“The proposed fine, which covers about 1,700 spots including commercials that looked like news stories that aired during newscasts for the Utah-based Huntsman Cancer Institute over a six-month period in 2016, could bolster critics of Sinclair's proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Co.”
The Guardian / Agence France-Presse in Oslo
Norway is the first country in the world to end national radio broadcasts on FM →
“The country's most northern regions and the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic switched to digital audio broadcasting (DAB) as scheduled on Wednesday, said Digitalradio Norge (DRN), an umbrella group for Norway's public and commercial radio. The transition, which began on 11 January, allows for better sound quality and more channels and functions at an eighth of the cost of FM radio, according to authorities.”
Facebook Newsroom / David Ginsberg and Moira Burke
Facebook asks, ‘is spending time on social media bad for us?’ →
It cites academic research: “In one experiment, University of Michigan students randomly assigned to read Facebook for 10 minutes were in a worse mood at the end of the day than students assigned to post or talk to friends on Facebook. A study from UC San Diego and Yale found that people who clicked on about four times as many links as the average person, or who liked twice as many posts, reported worse mental health than average in a survey.”
Facebook Newsroom / Shruthi Muraleedharan
Facebook will now let you snooze people, pages, or groups for 30 days →
On top of features like Unfollow, Hide, Report and See First, users can now “Snooze” a person or page they don’t want to see so their posts don’t show up in the News Feed for 30 days.
Recode / Peter Kafka
Apple has finally turned on its podcast analytics feature →
“For instance, podcast creators can now see (aggregated and anonymized, not device- or user-specific) data about when listeners stopped listening to a particular episode. The data Apple is providing only comes from people using its newest software: iOS 11 and iTunes 12.7. So it won't be complete.”
Medium / Sarah Toporoff
Five innovative audio implementations in the news industry →
From news bulletins via closed chat apps like WhatsApp to personalized daily news briefs on a news homepage, newsrooms are testing the benefits of delivering stories via audio.
Online News Association
The Online News Association is launching a network for diversity mentorship in newsrooms →
“Newsrooms often cite recruiting and retention of diverse talent as a priority. The Collaborative aims to support newsrooms making investments in addressing this challenge. We will create a peer network for sharing ideas, document best practices for mentorship programs and — best of all — open a challenge competition to support innovative mentorship initiatives from a pool of $125,000.”