 |
Monday, April 23, 2018
 |
Wellness apps, but for news: Can Neva Labs build a news reading experience that feels healthy?"If you took away advertising from the platforms we have currently, if you took away the need to addict people and harvest their data and keep them refreshing their pages, what would that experience look like?" By Shan Wang. |
 |
Saying “I can just Google it” and then actually Googling it are two different thingsPlus other findings from a new study’s interviews with that increasingly common creature, the “news avoider.” By Christine Schmidt. |
 |
Combine an “editorially responsible” algorithm + political news, and you have Current Status“I see my role as a sort of reinforcement editor, ensuring that the good stuff is always percolating to the top. Sometimes the news isn’t as neat as an algorithm wants to make it.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
Data Journalism Awards / Marianne Bouchart
Get inspired with these 11 data journalism projects, from Argentina to South Africa →
Following the money, humanizing the data, examining high speed rail, gaming the vote, and more.
Poynter / Kristen Hare
Newsday wants to move from 'voice of God' editorials to convening conversations →
"The next chapter in opinion journalism is instead of dictating the conversation, we're convening the conversation," said Sam Guzik, editor for platform and strategies, opinion. "It's less about telling people what to think and more about saying ‘Let's come to a consensus and find the way forward as a community.’"
The New York Times / Nellie Bowles
Campbell Brown is helping Facebook remake its relationships with publishers — but who is she? →
“A year and a half into her tenure, Ms. Brown, who became a school-choice activist with close ties to conservative politics after her TV career, is emerging as a fiery negotiator for her vision of Facebook as a publishing platform, according to interviews with more than 30 people who work or who regularly interact with her.”
Digiday / Max Willens
Content recommendation services are trying to break out of their widget-shaped boxes →
“These new products all look and function differently: Revcontent's Engage.im ditches the traditional widget look in favor of an infinite scroll filled with partner publisher content, which can be personalized and partners can monetize however they want; Outbrain's Sphere looks similar to other widgets, but displays publishers' brand names very prominently, a move designed to distinguish it from Facebook.”
Wall Street Journal / Christopher Mims
Google gathers more personal data than Facebook does — so why aren’t we talking about it? →
“As justifiable as the focus on Facebook has been, though, it isn’t the full picture. If the concern is that companies might be collecting some personal data without our knowledge or explicit consent, Alphabet’s Google is a far bigger threat by many measures: the volume of information it gathers, the reach of its tracking and the time people spend on its sites…”
Columbia Journalism Review / Corey Hutchins
The Economic Hardship Reporting Project sets up a special fund for laid-off Denver Post staffers →
“The latest fund dedicated to former Denver Post journalists is something of a public statement, according to [the project’s executive editor, Alissa] Quart. ‘We've been sort of focused like a laser [on] supporting staff that are being laid off when there's a bad actor involved like Alden Global Capital,’ she says. Last fall, when billionaire Joe Ricketts shut down local news sites Gothamist and DNAinfo after staff voted to unionize, EHRP offered a $5,000 grant to writers displaced from the sites.”
The New York Times / Amanda Taub and Max Fisher
How Facebook’s News Feed can stoke outrage and violence in fragile democracies →
“A reconstruction of Sri Lanka's descent into violence, based on interviews with officials, victims and ordinary users caught up in online anger, found that Facebook's newsfeed played a central role in nearly every step from rumor to killing. Facebook officials, they say, ignored repeated warnings of the potential for violence, resisting pressure to hire moderators or establish emergency points of contact.”