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Friday, April 13, 2018
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People read news differently (i.e., worse) on phones than they do on desktop, new research suggestsPlus: A proposal to let Facebook users come up with “formulas” for their own News Feeds, and what happens to fake news when it isn’t profitable anymore? By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
Columbia Journalism Review / Oliver Bateman
Dead stories and the small fees for killing them →
“Between March 2016 and the end of 2017, I earned a measly $27,000 from selling my work to mainstream publications — a wage that would be unsustainable for someone who didn't live in an affordable city like Pittsburgh, and whose partner did not have health insurance and other benefits. Around $4,000 of these earnings came from fees for killed work, roughly a quarter of what I would have made if those stories had been published.”
Berkeleyside
First in the nation: Berkeleyside raises $1M from its readers in a direct public offering →
“Berkeleyside announced today that it has raised $1 million in capital from 355 of its readers, making it the first news site in the country to do a successful Direct Public Offering.”
The Information / Tom Dotan
Univision laid off more than 150 people on Thursday →
“The company laid off more than 150 people on Thursday, across the company, including at the beleaguered Fusion Media Group. These cuts follow the layoffs of about 20 people last month. Earlier this week, a top executive in Fusion, Gizmodo Media Group editor in chief Raju Narisetti, announced he was stepping down.”
New York / Madison Malone Kircher
“Traffic has plummeted since the upgrade”: Publishers worry about the future of Snapchat Discover →
“It’s hard to motivate people to sink time into sick animation work when the numbers come back and it's like, ‘oh, almost no one is seeing this.'”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
The New York Times is giving early access to podcasts as a subscriber perk →
“15,000 people have signed up for a newsletter that will notify them when a new episode is ready, twice as many as expected.”
New York Times / Sydney Ember
Colorado civic group pushes to buy embattled Denver Post from New York hedge fund →
“We believe that The Denver Post is vital for Colorado. It should be owned by people in Denver, but it should also be owned by people statewide because it's a statewide paper, not just a Denver paper.” They’ve raised $10 million so far.
Digiday / Max Willens
Why publishers’ membership programs often include access to editorial staffers →
“It takes work figuring out who's good, who can communicate clearly, who can gauge a room.”
Medium / Ernst-Jan Pfauth
Reinventing the Rolodex: Why De Correspondent is asking its 60,000 members what they know →
1. We ask readers to submit an expertise title. 2. We verify their credentials. 3. We categorize members in expert groups. 4. We reach out to members to proof articles and invite them to join relevant conversations.
LA Times / Andrea Chang
Tronc cuts dozens of employees, including former LA Times editor Lewis D’Vorkin →
“The layoffs, which included Tribune Interactive’s Los Angeles-based video and online content teams that operated separately from The Times, were due to a change in the company’s business strategy, according to a source familiar with the cuts who was not authorized to speak publicly.”