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Monday, January 22, 2018
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A network of news outlets and data agencies wants to unlock untold data stories across EuropeData-driven news stories produced by members of the European Data Journalism Network are translated into English, French, German, Italian, Polish, and Spanish and then made available for free to all partner and non-partner news organizations. By Shan Wang. |
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Volt Data Lab grew from a personal blog for coding experiments to a full-fledged data storytelling agencyVolt started as a passion project, rode a wave of interest in Brazil for better online data stories, and today builds data-based stories and reports for a wide array of Brazilian organizations from legacy newsrooms to ad agencies. By Natasha Madov. |
What We’re Reading
ProPublica / Allison McCartney and Derek Willis
How ProPublica redesigned their Congress tracker for the government shutdown →
“As of this writing and since late Friday night, Congress has been unable to reach agreement to fund the federal government, resulting in a shutdown. What better time to keep track of what legislators are up to?”
The Hollywood Reporter / Etan Vlessing
Canada’s Rogers Communications terminates its $100M joint venture with Vice Media →
The joint venture had included “a Viceland Canada 24-hour cable channel and a Toronto production studio….The move follows Viceland Canada bleeding revenue and subscribers, according to the latest figures from the CRTC, the country’s TV regulator.”
Digiday / Sahil Patel
Facebook News Feed changes will cut into publishers’ branded content revenue →
News Feed changes mean that it will cost more to run paid campaigns to seed videos in front of users in the News Feed: "My gut says a lot of people are going to have to increase paid budgets to hit their guarantees," said one CRO of a digital publisher. "Candidly, does that change anything? I'm not sure — a lot of people were already masking that they were putting paid media behind some of this content — but it probably will affect the bottom line in some way."
Poynter / Daniel Funke
Google suspends fact-checking feature over quality concerns →
“Google’s algorithm erroneously linked a Washington Post fact check to a Daily Caller article about Mueller’s investigation team. The claim in question was never made in the piece.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Corey Hutchins, CJR
The Denver Post launches a paywall and hopes for a steadier future →
“Staffers rallied around their paper's new $11.99-per-month paywall, optimistic that the move might bring more resources to a beleaguered Post newsroom. Under Digital First Media, which is controlled by the New York City hedge fund Alden Global Capital, the Post has suffered through rounds of layoffs in recent years. They have cut into a newsroom that is now down two-thirds from its peak of around 300 employees.”
Facebook Newsroom / Samidh Chakrabarti
“In 2016, we at Facebook were far too slow to recognize how bad actors were abusing our platform” →
“I wish I could guarantee that the positives are destined to outweigh the negatives, but I can't. That's why we have a moral duty to understand how these technologies are being used and what can be done to make communities like Facebook as representative, civil and trustworthy as possible,” writes a Facebook product manager in charge of civic engagement.
BuzzFeed / Megha Rajagopalan
Cambodia’s democracy has fallen apart — and it played out to millions on Facebook →
“When Facebook first came to Cambodia, many hoped it would help to usher in a new period of free speech, amplifying voices that countered the narrative of the government-friendly traditional press. Instead, the opposite has happened. Prime Minister Hun Sen is now using the platform to promote his message while jailing his critics, and his staff is doing its best to exploit Facebook's own rules to shut down criticism — all through a direct relationship with the company's staff.”