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Tuesday, January 16, 2018
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Americans say greater access to news sources is actually making it harder to stay informedBut they’re evenly split on whether or not the news selection algorithms on sites like Facebook and Twitter should be regulated. By Ricardo Bilton. |
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For news nonprofits, the tax overhaul is bringing new uncertainty about future donations“For us, it’s rare that someone cites the tax deductibility as a reason for giving. People are supporting us because they're passionate about what we're doing. People want to be a part of the community thats supporting us.” By Ricardo Bilton. |
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Who needs video? Slate is pivoting to audio, and making real money doing itPlus: WBEZ tries to turn a podcast into a franchise, Science Friday joins WNYC Studios, and Gimlet opens up the HBO playbook. By Nicholas Quah. |
What We’re Reading
The Cut / Madeleine Aggeler
What Is Babe.net, the website behind the Aziz Ansari story? →
“It is a spinoff of the Tab, a news site that was founded by Cambridge University students in 2009, and whose content comes largely from student reporters at universities across the U.S. and U.K. It was founded by Eleni Mitzali, Amanda Ross, and other Tab editors, and its headquarters are at Tab Media's U.S. offices in Brooklyn.”
Adage / Garett Sloane
Vice may risk losing cool cachet with brands over sexism concerns →
Vice may be cool “but running a boys’ club culture is pretty counter to the values [our brands] are supposed to represent,” said one ad agency executive.
Adweek / David Cohen
Facebook’s News Feed bombshell shouldn’t have caught anyone off-guard →
"We've been openly discussing the decline in organic reach for a long time—almost four years. I know it's still surprising to many, but it certainly wasn't a secret."
Wired / Zeynep Tufekci
It’s the (democracy-poisoning) golden age of free speech →
“Here’s how this golden age of speech actually works: In the 21st century, the capacity to spread ideas and reach an audience is no longer limited by access to expensive, centralized broadcasting infrastructure. It's limited instead by one's ability to garner and distribute attention. And right now, the flow of the world's attention is structured, to a vast and overwhelming degree, by just a few digital platforms: Facebook, Google (which owns YouTube), and, to a lesser extent, Twitter.”
Journalism.co.uk / Caroline Scott
‘More views, angles and perspective’: Why community journalism may be the future of news →
“We will see the movement evolve from communities producing shaky, hand-held footage to everybody being able to make content that is effectively as good as the broadcaster’s.”
Medium / AJ Labs
How Al Jazeera used gamification to conduct audience research. →
The project doubled as news quiz and as a way for AJ Labs to gain some insights about some of its most loyal readers.
Digiday / Max Willens
How the Texas Tribune is enlisting the newsroom to grow membership revenue →
By moving its membership operations out of its development department and into editorial, the Texas Tribune wants to better align the priorities of its membership program with reader interests.
Digiday / Lucia Moses
‘We’re pivoting to words’: Slate says podcasts are now 25 percent of revenue →
Slate, which avoided the Facebook video gold rush that gripped the industry last year, has invested in video — to great success. In 2018, it plans to double its podcasting team to 10 people and increase its writing staff by 20 percent.