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Friday, January 12, 2018
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If Facebook stops putting news in front of readers, will readers bother to go looking for it?The idea that the value of a piece of news is defined by likes and comments — that taking in information without getting into a back-and-forth with your uncle about it is somehow unworthy — is actually a profound ideological statement. By Joshua Benton. |
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Facebook drastically changes News Feed to make it “good for people” (and bad for most publishers)News publishers that have relied on Facebook for traffic will suffer. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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Maybe the science and psychology of “post-truth” can’t explain this moment at allPlus: A French law against fake news during elections; Facebook meets with its fact-checkers; fake news jeans. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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Newsonomics: Can a new management team soothe the roiled Los Angeles Times newsroom?New hires from The New York Times and The Washington Post bring new faces to a news organization that has been in flux under Tronc management. By Ken Doctor. |
What We’re Reading
Digiday / Jessica Davies
Spiegel Online CEO Jesper Doub on the pivot to consumer revenue, the duopoly, and privacy regulations →
“The issue is, how can [platforms] identify a credible journalistic source? Who makes that decision? If you look at the U.K., Germany, France, Spain, it's easier as there's a common sense of what professional journalism is. But if you look at a country like Turkey where the government has a totally different view on what proper journalism is, how do you handle that as a platform? Do you adhere to what the government view is in that country? It's a difficult thing to do.”
Reuters / Jessica DiNapoli
Peter Thiel submits a bid for Gawker’s remaining assets →
“Gawker, which has been inactive for more than a year, is conducting an auction of its remaining assets, including its domain names and nearly 200,000 archived articles. Thiel has not said why he wants Gawker, though the potential acquisition would let him take down stories regarding his personal life that are still available on the website, and remove the scope for further litigation between him and Gawker.”
The New York Times / Michael M. Grynbaum
After Trump called Haiti and African nations “shithole countries,” how news organizations handled it →
“Mr. Acosta, on CNN, the first network to broadcast the term without asterisks, said the word several times on-air, even as Mr. Blitzer opted for the more chaste ‘S-hole.'”
Motherboard / Jason Koebler
Facebook is deprioritizing our stories. Good. →
“Journalism that is engineered to be viral, to be liked or picked by an algorithm is not journalism, it's marketing.”
Recode / Peter Kafka
Facebook shares are falling because Wall Street doesn’t know what to make of Mark Zuckerberg’s News Feed changes →
Facebook shares dropped 5 percent overnight.