Kamis, 31 Mei 2018

The Skimm launches a 1:1, bot-less (for now) texting service to help subscribers make decisions: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

The Skimm launches a 1:1, bot-less (for now) texting service to help subscribers make decisions

“People are always on their phones, but this isn’t ‘Let's just start shooting them info over text.’ When you integrate into somebody's routine in an intimate way, it has to feel right for the platform.” By Christine Schmidt.

How an online satire magazine in Bosnia and Herzegovina ends up reporting the news and fact-checking its peers

“The other day there was big news in Bosnia. They said a Hooters had opened up in Sarajevo…But we didn't even get the chance to mock the sadistic business model of the place — first we had to correct the facts. Which is, that it wasn't a real Hooters at all.” By Haris Dedovic.
What We’re Reading
Hapgood / Mike Caulfield
Join this project to produce 1,000 new Wikipedia articles on significant English-language local newspapers →
“The USNPL lists 7,269 news sources in the U.S. Only 2,702 of those produce ‘knowledge panels’ in Google, with the likely reason for lack of a panel being lack of a well developed Wikipedia page. Even aside from the knowledge panel problem, the lack of decent pages for local news means that students will not always be able to find any objective information. What struck me though was that this is a solvable problem. And it's one our students can help solve.”
Poynter / Daniel Funke
How to fact-check politics in countries with no press freedom →
"Staying alive and surviving is the most important strategy in order not to risk yourselves and your organization," Gülin Çavuş, a journalist at the Turkish fact-checking outlet Teyit, said. "It may sometimes be the best solution to postpone some of the projects and topics you desire to do, but you consider dangerous, to periods in which more democratic and freer press.”
Shorenstein Center / Elizabeth Arnold
Is the way we cover climate change now simply offering excuses for inaction? →
"There's still a pervasive doom and gloom, and this makes sense. It's logical when you're talking about people who are impacted by climate change, they are usually adversely impacted. But nonetheless, some of the work that's been done in social sciences over the years has found that when these stories just focus in on doom and gloom, they turn off those who are consuming them. Without being able to find their own place as a reader, viewer, or listener in those stories, people feel paralyzed and they don't feel like they can engage and have an entry point into doing something about the problem."
Reuters / Jessica DiNapoli
Marketing company Didit makes a $1.1 million offer for Gawker site →
“Long Island-based Didit also plans to keep Gawker's archives live. Other bids for Gawker are due July 9, and an auction will be held on July 12, according to the filing.”
Fast Company / Rina Raphael
Women’s coworking space The Wing is expanding into media →
“A little over a year ago, The Wing lured in millennial professional women with chic coworking spaces featuring onsite blowouts and empowerment-infused messaging. Now it’s announcing its first podcast, No Man's Land, to be produced by Pineapple Street Media (whose founder Jenna Weiss-Berman is also a Wing member).”
Poynter / Taylor Blatchford
AP Stylebook update: The plural of emoji is emoji →
"Treat the visual material as context or gestures when important to include, describing by paraphrasing: ‘Chavis sparked a flurry of responses against the airline after tweeting a GIF of large crowds at the gate, with the message #missinghoneymoon and an emoji string of a worried smiley, a ring, an hourglass and an umbrella propped on a beach.'”
Digiday / Jessica Davies
Axel Springer counters Google with its own consent management tool →
“The German digital media group, which owns Business Insider, Bild and Welt, has spent the last 18 months developing a GDPR consent management tool, which can also be adapted to address cookie-consent requirements under the pending ePrivacy Regulation once it is finalized, according to the publisher. Axel Springer's first partner is one of its competitors in Germany: media group Hubert Burda Media.”
Medium / Manish Singh
India’s Hotstar streaming service apparently drew well over 10 million concurrent viewers on Sunday →
“The real-time concurrent views, displayed publicly on Hotstar's website, peaked at 10.7 million, the highest any online streaming service has reported to date. 10.3 million is the official figure, Hotstar said in a later statement. (The Royal Wedding peaked at 1.29 million simultaneous viewers.)”

Rabu, 30 Mei 2018

How the Middle East’s Al-Hudood eases even its haters into reading its irreverent satire: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

How the Middle East’s Al-Hudood eases even its haters into reading its irreverent satire

Its Facebook chatbot asks angry readers what insults they want to level at the publication, then ends up looping them into a conversation. It’s also building a network of satire writers by training members of its community, who then train others. By Isam Uraiqat.

How Venezuelan satire site El Chigüire Bipolar stays funny in a country whose leader is tightening his grip

“I wouldn’t say we give hope with humor. That's a stretch. But at least we’re helping bridge a gap with the censorship that’s happening on TV and radio.” By Juan Andrés Ravell.
What We’re Reading
The Daily Beast / Erin Biba
What it’s like when Elon Musk’s Twitter mob comes after you →
“[There] is an army — mostly young, mostly white, almost entirely men — that marches behind him. These MuskBros, as we call them, make it their mission to descend on women who criticize Musk, and tear them to pieces. I know, because it has happened to me. More than once.”
Virginian-Pilot / Robyn Sidersky
Tronc buys Norfolk’s Virginian-Pilot for $34M →
“The Virginian-Pilot is the largest daily paper in Virginia. It was founded in 1865 and has a print Sunday circulation of 132,000. The Virginian-Pilot has won three Pulitzer Prizes and was a 2018 Pulitzer finalist in investigative reporting.”
Medium / Richard Gingras
Google’s Richard Gingras on journalism in a digital age →
“None of us involved in this pursuit, whether news organization or technology platform or journalist or journalist-to-be, should assume someone else will play the role of educating our societies about journalism's purpose, of maintaining the ethics of the profession, and above all, maintaining the trust of the citizens we serve.”
The Guardian / Eleanor Ainge Roy
Papua New Guinea bans Facebook for a month to root out “fake users” →
“Dr. Aim Sinpeng, an expert in digital media and politics from the University of Sydney, said the ban raised some troubling questions, because when Facebook had been banned in other countries it was usually in the run-up to elections, or banned indefinitely, like in China. ‘One month is an interesting time limit for a ban, I am not exactly sure what they think they can achieve, and why a ban is necessary. You can do Facebook analysis without it. And what data are the government collecting? If they are concerned about fake news there are many ways to do it without issuing a ban on a platform,’ she said.”
The Washington Post / Margaret Sullivan
Elon Musk wants to fix media mistrust with a dopey rating system. There’s a better way. →
“An ill-conceived rating system — Musk says smirkingly he would call it Pravda, Russian for ‘truth’— can never begin to touch the value of roughly 1,300 daily newspapers that are now gasping for breath. Local philanthropy and eventual nonprofit status are probably a part of the solution — if there is one.”
Digiday / Max Willens
How The New York Times plans new subscription products →
“Four criteria are used to assess new product ideas: the market opportunity, the potential to build a subscription business, unmet needs in the market and whether the Times has an advantage in meeting that need. The Times uses qualitative and quantitative data. In the case of parenting, it found that Times readers got parenting coverage and content elsewhere and wanted the publisher to cover it more.”
The Verge / Russell Brandom
Facebook and Google hit with $8.8 billion in lawsuits on day one of GDPR →
“The lawsuits, which seek to fine Facebook 3.9 billion and Google 3.7 billion euro (roughly $8.8 billion in dollars), were filed by Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, a longtime critic of the companies' data collection practices.”
Poynter / Rick Edmonds
Why The Salt Lake Tribune fell so far so fast →
“The Deseret News site is free. Even with a different viewpoint that will appeal to readers who want an independent take on city and state news, that’s a killer price to compete against when the offerings of local news are bound to be often the same.”
Bloomberg.com / Shoko Oda
A look at JX Press Corp., a Japanese news-breaking startup →
“Tokyo-based JX Press has 24 staff with an average age of 29, two-thirds of which are engineers. The company has two main products: subscription-based breaking news service Fast Alert and a free mobile news application called NewsDigest.”
Monday Note / Frederic Filloux
Dear publishers, if you want my subscription dollars, here is what I expect →
“Publishers can't have both ways; people paying for content should be spared advertising, period. OK, some super-premium or branded content ads could be tolerated. Also, like it or not, consumers expect flexibility in their expense allocations. They hate the idea of being hooked with no exit. And always, many digital publications have unbearable technical flaws. Fact is, the most robust growth in subscription segments are from news outlets that invest the most in technology.”
The Guardian / Mark Sweney
Discovery is shutting down its European TV hub as it mulls a post-Brexit plan →
“Discovery broadcasts more than 100 TV channels across Europe from its headquarters in west London, making the pay-TV giant the biggest broadcaster to use the UK as a hub for the continent. Now it’s moving to a U.S.-based transmission system.” European playout hub for broadcasting its channels, affecting up to 100 jobs, as it moves to a US-based transmission system.
Digiday / Max Willens
How The New York Times plans new subscription products →
“Four criteria are used to assess new product ideas: the market opportunity, the potential to build a subscription business, unmet needs in the market and whether the Times has an advantage in meeting that need.” For its new subscription product for parents, the Times felt it had a market advantage in the coverage area, and also conducted “focus groups and one-on-one interviews about things like what parents need, which will inform a prototype to be released later this year.”

Sabtu, 26 Mei 2018

Welcome to GDPR: Here are the data privacy notices publishers are showing their Europe-based readers: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

Welcome to GDPR: Here are the data privacy notices publishers are showing their Europe-based readers

We’re seeing what publishers have decided to implement on their websites as of May 25 — whether they’ve decided to block European Union and European Economic Area-based traffic outright, set up buckets of consent for readers to click through, or done something simpler (or nothing new at all). By Shan Wang and Christine Schmidt.

What is it that journalism studies is studying these days? A lot about newsrooms, less about everybody else in the news ecosystem

Also, has the “fake news” moment already passed for academics? By Rasmus Kleis Nielsen.

Is your fake news about immigrants or politicians? It all depends on where you live

Plus: Facebook is accepting proposals for fake news research, and fake news was growing as a topic of media discussion even before the U.S. presidential election. By Laura Hazard Owen.
What We’re Reading
CNN Money / Michael Kaplan
Facebook and Google are already facing lawsuits under GDPR →
“There is no grace period,” James Dipple-Johnstone, the deputy commissioner of the UK’s data protection authority. “We will be looking at the algorithms they use to profit off data to make sure they are fair,” he added.
Poynter / David Beard
The New York Times’ Showtime series shows how the journalism sausage is made →
“Director Garbus effectively creates a screen within a screen for the tweets that drive the news — and frequently cuts to the CNN broadcasts of Times scoops to a broader world. Like director Alan Pakula in ‘Presidents,’ Garbus also showcases juxtapositions, beginning the first episode with newsroom reactions during Trump's ‘American Carnage’ inauguration speech. She ends the episode with one of the strangest juxtapositions ever, Trump at the Easter Egg Hunt while reporters finish a story that settles on the most contentious word of this administration: collusion.”
Lenfest Institute / Joseph Lichterman
How local publisher Whereby.Us is building an email newsletter referral program →
"We knew that so much of our growth was happening just by word of mouth and we wanted to find a way to systematize that process, but creating a referral program is a really big tech lift."
Columbia Journalism Review / Jared Schroeder
Are bots entitled to free speech? →
“All of this requires us to identify what is human about journalism — and what is fundamental about it. Could a bot programmer invoke a journalistic shield law to protect her program's code, including the sources it used to construct a report, from compelled disclosure? If a bot files FOIA requests, should it be exempt from fees because it intends to scrape the data and publish it in tweets or on a blog?”
Media Nation / Dan Kennedy
The Boston Globe announces another round of downsizing →
“We are optimistic that the buyout, the first in two years, will result in the savings we need to create a sustainable Globe. If we do not get enough takers, we'll have to consider all other options, including layoffs.”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
Some publishers stop Facebook ad spending over policy that treats publishers as political advertisers →
At least two publishers — The Financial Times and New York Media — have suspended their paid media spending on Facebook out of fear that their news articles will be treated as political advocacy ads. Facebook “executives have said Facebook recognizes that news about politics is different and was committed to finding a way to distinguish news from non-news content in the archives, but didn't give specifics or a timeline.”
Poynter / Alexios Mantazarlis
Four serious questions about Elon Musk’s silly credibility score →
“The vision that one easy hack can fix media bias and massive online misinformation is pervasive among certain quarters. But it’s fatally flawed.”
Medium / Karen Rundlet
Who is watching local TV news? New research provides some surprises →
“New Knight research published today shows that the TV audience is largely 55+ years and shrinking, albeit slowly, as more Americans get their news from social media and smartphones.”
The Coral Project
The Coral Project, after being “incubated” by Mozilla, is looking for a new home →
“Over the coming year, we will be offering hosting options for our open-source software, and also looking for a new home for The Coral Project — either as a standalone organization or by partnering with an existing nonprofit or for-profit organization in a related sector.”

Jumat, 25 Mei 2018

Media change deniers: Why debates around news need a better evidence base — and how we can get one: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

Media change deniers: Why debates around news need a better evidence base — and how we can get one

“If we let media change deniers drive the conversation, the result will be dumber journalism, less-informed public debate, and ineffective and counterproductive public policy. Even if what they say sometimes ‘feels right.'” By Rasmus Kleis Nielsen.

Who’s creating the top Facebook videos? “Not people you've necessarily heard of”

Babies and puppies continue to rule the day, and only 2% of the most engaged Facebook videos were posted by traditional publishers. By Laura Hazard Owen.
What We’re Reading
ProPublica
ProPublica launches a short-term email newsletter on blood splatter analysis →
“Think of this material as being similar to episodes of a podcast. These stories will give you insight into [Pamela] Colloff's investigation, her reporting process and how she pieced together the narrative.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Tony Biasotti
The “really dangerous” precedent for reclaiming public records →
“California is unusual in having a clear precedent that allows for some clawback of public records releases.”
Medium / BBC News Labs
Inside the BBC’s “innovation incubator” →
“We decided to take a snapshot of a typical day in the office, as seen from the desks of seven of our developers, engineers, and producers.”
Politico / Nancy Scola
Twitter will use Ballotpedia to verify election candidates in the midterms →
“It’s part of a trend of tech companies outsourcing decision-making on political questions. YouTube, for example, is using Wikipedia to identify hoaxes, and Facebook is working with third-party fact checkers on election-related content.”
Recode / Kurt Wagner
Snap is launching an accelerator to try to invest in the next big media business →
“The new accelerator, which Snap has named Yellow, will invest $150,000 into 10 different creators or startups beginning this fall.”
Poynter / David Beard
How The New York Times chose parenting as its third standalone product →
“A big lure of parenting was the average age of parents — less than the average subscriber. Once in the NYT’s fold, those parenting subscribers may upgrade to the full product.”
Digiday / Lucia MOses
“No one thinks this is a good idea”: Some frustrated publishers are sitting out Google’s GDPR meetings →
“Google is set to have meetings today with media trade associations and various publishing company representatives to address their concerns about Google's position on the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation. But the meetings themselves have become a flashpoint of controversy, dividing publishers.”
Poynter / Kristen Hare
Six small papers joined up to cover the opioid crisis in Long Island →
“The East End News Project plans to continue for the rest of the year with a focus on opioids. But it's just the beginning of the partnership, Menu said.”

Kamis, 24 Mei 2018

Vox’s new Netflix series is really good, but it doesn’t get us any closer to figuring out what news on streaming platforms looks like: The latest

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

Vox’s new Netflix series is really good, but it doesn’t get us any closer to figuring out what news on streaming platforms looks like

The real revolution in video news will be when someone, someday, figures out a way to make timely, high-quality, democratically useful news work natively on a streaming platform. By Joshua Benton.

From Bible study to Google: How some Christian conservatives fact-check the news and end up confirming their existing beliefs

“I think that when people go to Google, they think about Google weighing facts instead of ranking results.” By Laura Hazard Owen.
What We’re Reading
Wired / Nicholas Thompson
Facebook’s new plan of attack on “false news”: Allowing academics to study their data and a public education campaign on News Feeds →
“Facebook knows it is at war, and it wants to teach the populace how to join its side of the fight.”
The Intercept / Maryam Saleh
A U.S. journalist took thousands of ISIS files out of Iraq, reigniting a bitter dispute over the theft of Iraqi history →
“Over the last four years, journalists, analysts, and local activists from Iraq and Syria have written about ISIS documents, including some that were taken from the countries in which they were found. But Callimachi appears to be the first journalist to obtain and remove a cache of documents this large. She traveled to Iraq when coalition forces launched a battle to retake Mosul from ISIS in late 2016. There, she was on the front lines, rushing into buildings that were cleared of the militants and stuffing documents and hard drives into trash bags she had brought with her. But her story, and her new ‘Caliphate’ podcast, which is based in part on the documents she obtained, have set off a controversy about outsiders taking historically important documents out of a country at war.”
AdWeek / A.J. Katz
Nielsen will now measure YouTube TV viewership on a local level →
“To measure local media viewing, Nielsen has developed the DMA [designated market levels], a group of counties that form common local TV markets. There are currently 210 DMAs across the U.S., and by including YouTube TV in Nielsen local ratings using the company's DTVR [digital in TV ratings], the company is enabling programmers and advertisers across local DMAs to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how audiences are consuming linear TV shows across digital platforms.”
The Hollywood Reporter / Jeremy Barr
Sinclair is laying the groundwork for a Fox News competitor →
“It may be just a matter of time before Fox News gets a real challenger from the right. Conservative media giant Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has long quieted speculation about plans to create a rival to Rupert Murdoch’s cable news empire, is making new moves to lay the groundwork for the plan.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Mary Annette Pember
Indian Country Today returns. Can it protect its editorial independence? →
“Freedom of the press is a thorny issue in Indian country, where tribes are sovereign entities. According to the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, tribal government can't deny its citizens a free press. However, since tribes own most reservation-based media, tribal leadership controls the purse strings and can therefore control the news content, theoretically. Although some tribes have adopted guarantees for freedom of the press in their constitutions, leaders can choose to ignore such guarantees.”
Recode / Rani Molla and Peter Kafka
Here’s who owns everything in Big Media today →
“The media landscape used to be straightforward: Content companies — studios — made stuff — TV shows and movies — and sold it to pay TV distributors, who sold it to consumers.” Here’s an infographic on the now-tangled web of distributors, content companies, and internet video companies.
European Journalism Centre / Adam Thomas
Why we work with Facebook and Google →
Should we work with Facebook and Google? This is the question Mathew Ingram asks of the journalism industry: ‘Are the millions of dollars that Google and Facebook have poured into the media industry and journalism worth it? That depends on what you see as the trade-offs that have been made in order to accept the funds, and whether you think the ends justify the means.’ It is a question we discuss a lot at the European Journalism Centre.”
OpenNews / Rachel Alexander
The diary of a local data reporter, telling the story of health care workers dying from opioid overdoses →
Finding data matches “kind of freaked me out, because that meant I had an actual story, and I felt like I was in way over my head. I'm not ProPublica, or even a 2 or 3-person investigative team at a major daily paper. I'm just one person who knew enough about databases to be dangerous. And I was terrified this wasn't a real story and that I was making it up.”
The Membership Puzzle Project / Emily Goligoski
We spoke to hundreds of independent news supporters over the last year. This is their member manifesto →
“While there are local differences, there are highly consistent themes in what we've learned from supporters across countries and organization type ranging from traditional subscription-based publishers like Outside Magazine to member-driven, born-digital newsrooms like De Correspondent and The Texas Tribune. Over and over, loyalists to specific, carefully selected news brands say they seek out organizations — and want to see more projects — that exemplify these design principles.”