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Tuesday, May 15, 2018
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News stories in Europe are predominantly by and about men. Even photograph sizes are unequal.Across 11 countries studied, 41 percent of bylines were male, 23 percent female. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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European news sites are among the worst offenders when it comes to third-party cookies and contentMajor news sites in seven countries averaged 81 third-party cookies per page, compared to 12 for other popular websites. By Shan Wang. |
What We’re Reading
the Guardian / Alex Hern
Facebook said it closed 583 million fake accounts in first three months of 2018 →
“In its first quarterly Community Standards Enforcement Report, Facebook said it took action on 837m pieces of spam and shut down a further 583m fake accounts on the site in the three months. But Facebook also moderated 2.5m pieces of hate speech, 1.9m pieces of terrorist propaganda, 3.4m pieces of graphic violence and 21m pieces of content featuring adult nudity and sexual activity.”
Wall Street Journal / Benjamin Mullin
With $40 Million, podcast upstart Luminary Media is building its own platform →
Here’s a “Netflix for podcasting” for you: “Unlike most of its competitors, which support their businesses primarily through advertising, Luminary Media's business plan includes signing users up for a subscription service granting them access to a portfolio of premium podcasts, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Washington Post / Paul Farhi, Jack Gillum, and Chris Alcantara
In this town, you can flip the channel all you want — the news is often the same →
“News stories broadcast on WJAC, the NBC affiliate in Johnston, Pa., have appeared on nearby station WATM, the ABC affiliate. And many of those stories are broadcast on WWCP, the Fox station there, as well. Not just the same topics — identical stories, reported by the same reporter or anchor, and repeated, almost verbatim at times, by the other stations. All three stations are either owned or managed by the Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group.”
Slate / Will Oremus
Twitter will start hiding tweets that ‘detract from the conversation’ →
“Twitter said it will begin hiding tweets from certain accounts in conversations and search results. To see them, you'll have to scroll to the bottom of the conversation and click ‘show more replies,’ or go into your search settings and choose ‘see everything.’ When Twitter's software decides that a certain user is ‘detracting from the conversation,’ all of that user's tweets will be hidden from search results and public conversations until their reputation improves.”
The Splice Newsroom
Seeking a wider readership, News Corp’s The Australian reaches out with its Chinese-language website →
“While community newspapers have catered to Chinese and other ethnic communities here for decades, the right-leaning national newspaper The Australian is the first major commercial outlet to offer news specifically catered to non-English speakers. High levels of Chinese immigration to Australia in recent decades have created a sizable pool of potential news consumers and advertisers that remain largely untapped by mainstream media.”
BuzzFeed / Mark Di Stefano and Ryan Mac
BBC News is completely dominating “news” results right now and Google is trying to fix it →
“Last week, the website Indivigital noticed that British searches for the term ‘news’ in Google News returned a flood of BBC News articles. Four days ago, every single result in the top 50 was a BBC News article, with 97 of the top 100 coming from the British broadcaster. By Monday morning, 48 of the top 50 were BBC News. It’s an issue that appears confined to the UK.”
The New York Times / Vindu Goel
How Facebook’s WhatsApp plays a central role in India’s elections →
“In the run-up to the May 12 vote in the state — the results of which are set to be announced Tuesday — India’s B.J.P. and Congress parties claimed to have set up at least 50,000 WhatsApp groups between them to spread their messages. At the same time, many others — their identities are unknown — distributed videos, audio clips, posts and false articles designed specifically to rile up the area's Hindu-Muslim fissures.”
The Salt Lake Tribune / Tony Semerad
Reacting to plunging revenues, the Salt Lake Tribune lays off a third of its newsroom and cuts several print sections →
“Along with cutting 34 newsroom employees, The Tribune will eliminate its high-profile Utah news section Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, having already gone dark with its Monday version of the local news page. Remaining pages devoted to news, features, entertainment, business, sports and puzzles will all contract slightly.”