 |
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
 | The rise of bridge roles in news organizations“In 2018, it’s important we start seriously thinking about how these roles — and the people in them — can evolve. These jobs are not easily categorized and are difficult to explain not only during a dinner party or in conversations with our parents — even colleagues battle to grasp their peculiarities.” By Federica Cherubini. |
 | VR reaches the next level“2018 is the year we all need to stop making excuses and jump head first into the unknown. We must embrace these technologies and understand the future of media will not be driven by what we’re already comfortable with.” By Ray Soto. |
 | The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms“For those who see the relationship between platforms and publishers as a zero-sum game, having a platform like Facebook or YouTube stepping away from news might seem like a win.” By Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. |
 | The year local media gets conservative“2018 will be the year that every media market in the country gets its own Fox News-style voice at the local level.” By Will Sommer. |
 | Social and media will split“As users migrate to these closed systems, they’re also shifting away from the type of broad-based algorithmic feeds packed with news and media content that were the hallmark of first-generation social media.” By Taylor Lorenz. |
 | Better design helps differentiate opinion and news“Readers see articles posted on social media or shared by friends via email or messaging apps. It needs to be immediately obvious to the reader whether that content is news or opinion, and that’s something the industry is sorely failing at. “ By Rachel Schallom. |
 | The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention“It is increasingly clear that the operation of the platforms, both from an antitrust perspective and even more importantly from the perspective of democratic governance, has received remarkably little scrutiny.” By Richard J. Tofel. |
 | Women come back“I am tired of seeing the same old faces dominate news and politics. I want to hear and see young, sensitized, informed, and clever people, from all perspectives and backgrounds, populate my infoscape.” By Zizi Papacharissi. |
 | Peak push“Push notifications can feel intrusive and I suspect many complaints about the editorial choices for push alerts are triggered by annoyance at being interrupted rather than their subject matter.” By Nathalie Malinarich. |
 |
Apple, off-Apple, and adaptations: These were the most important podcast trends of 2017“I am struck by a distinct sense that we're smack dab in the middle of a really slow but considerable change. Where we'll be this time next year, I have no idea. But I can't shake the feeling that it won't look much like today.” By Nicholas Quah. |
What We’re Reading
Washington Post / JK Trotter
If you miss Gawker, don’t let Peter Thiel buy its archives →
“What remains of Gawker now, following Thiel's successful effort to ruin it after it published a story declaring that he was gay, is a corporate estate under the supervision of a bankruptcy court. Six of the websites that made up Gawker Media were purchased at auction by Univision last year, but Gawker.com and its published stories were left behind as assets for future liquidation. That leaves the possibility that someone will buy the site's archive, delete it and use copyright law to force the removal of any remaining copies online.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Meg Dalton
Q&A: Jezebel’s new EIC on its legacy of fearless feminist reporting and what’s next →
“In this climate where survivors are being believed and white men are losing their jobs and professional standing, I’m seeing Jezebel reporting from five years ago, six years ago, seven years ago re-circulating on Twitter. We’re seeing traffic from reporting that Jezebel alumni did several years ago. It’s really gratifying that large swaths of the Internet, they remember. They remember reading those allegations first on Jezebel.”
Axios / Sara Fischer
Former Mashable editor Jim Roberts joins Cheddar as EIC →
“The company is also launching ‘Cheddar Scoops,’ an exclusive-news reporting unit. Business Insider’s Alex Heath is the first Cheddar Scoops hire.”
The New York Times / Kevin Roose
The “alt-right” created a parallel Internet. It’s an unholy mess. →
“What I found on these sites was more pitiful than fear-inspiring. Sure, some alt-tech platforms were filled with upsetting examples of Nazi imagery and bigoted garbage. But most were ghost towns, with few active users and no obvious supervision. As technology products, many are second- or third-rate, with long load times, broken links and frequent error messages. A few had been taken offline altogether.”
Storify
Storify is shutting down →
“Storify will no longer be available after May 16, 2018.”
Twitter
Twitter makes it easier to thread tweets and spot tweet threads →
“We’ve made it easy to create a thread by adding a plus button in the composer, so you can connect your thoughts and publish your threaded Tweets all at the same time. You can continue adding more Tweets to your published thread at any time with the new ‘Add another Tweet’ button. Additionally, it's now simpler to spot a thread — we've added an obvious ‘Show this thread’ label.”
Press Gazette / Dominic Ponsford
The first robot-generated stories from the Press Association’s automated news service have made it into print →
“RADAR – the automated news service set up by PA (the Press Association) and Urbs Media – has begun trialling computer-generated data-driven content. The project is funded by a €700,000 grant from Google's Digital News Initiative. The plan is for the project to create 30,000 localised stories a month from data using Natural Language Generation software to write them automatically.”