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Wednesday, June 20, 2018
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Newsonomics: GateHouse's Mike Reed talks about rolling up America’s news industry“Content is our number-one priority,” Reed said. But he’s unwilling to publicly commit to any new level of funding or staffing to meet that goal. By Ken Doctor. |
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Newsonomics: GateHouse Media thinks services for small local businesses can help replace long-gone advertising“We’re never going to beat Google and Facebook in advertising. Let’s focus on what we can beat them at, and that’s being local and selling business owners something that they need terribly.” By Ken Doctor. |
What We’re Reading
Nieman Reports / Krista Kapralos
Why it’s important for local journalists to be the ones reporting local news →
“It is possible for a piece of information to be accurate, but not true…That's one reason why every reporter at Global Press Journal is from the community on which she reports: When you speak the local language and understand local customs, the information you gather is filtered in a culturally appropriate way.”
ProPublica / David Eads
Teamwork makes the dream work, according to ProPublica →
“Instead of rushing competing stories into publication, they decided to combine their efforts. The result: a Pulitzer Prize.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Karen K. Ho
Testing out a new future for Consumer Reports →
” In 2007, CR had more than 8.5 million subscribers across five titles. By May 31, 2017, CR's subscription numbers had fallen even more to 3.6 million print and 2.9 million online, a three-year decline of more than one million subscriptions and a drop of more than $31.8 million in subscription revenues between June 1, 2014 and May 31, 2017.
TechCrunch / Josh Constine
Facebook tests “subscription groups” that charge for exclusive content →
“Facebook is starting to let Group admins charge $4.99 to $29.99 per month for access to special sub-Groups full of exclusive posts. A hand-picked array of parenting, cooking and ‘organize my home’ Groups will be the first to get the chance to spawn a subscription Group open to their members. During the tests, Facebook won't be taking a cut yet.”
Windows Experience Blog / Rob Bennett
Meet Microsoft News: A new way to stay informed across the web, Windows 10, iOS and Android →
“Microsoft News represents the ways we keep people informed across the web, phone and PC, using our long-tested approach of curating news via publishing partnerships, human editors, and AI. We work with more than a thousand premium publishers and more than 3,000 brands in all major global markets – like USA Today, The New York Times, FOX News, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde, Die Welt, El País, BBC News, Kyodo News, and many more.”
Motherboard / Samantha Cole
The debate about American “concentration camps” is unfolding on Wikipedia →
“In 2018, the normal Wikipedia rules are difficult to apply.”
Recode / Kurt Wagner
Now Facebook will be putting autoplaying video ads inside Messenger →
Messenger first started selling ads inside Messenger 18 months ago, but they were static ads, not video. Stefanos Loukakos, who runs Messenger's ad business, said he's aware of the potential intrusiveness, and the company will monitor user behavior to determine if these ads turn people off.
New York Times / Katie Van Syckle
Meet the woman who “really runs” the New York Times newsroom →
“Ms. Powell-Brunson, 42, has worked at The Times for 18 years, and her responsibilities are vast and varied. She oversees operations for two of the paper's most logistically complicated sections — National and Politics — where reporters crisscross the country to cover primaries, fires, erupting volcanoes and the president. She is also in charge of the national bureaus and manages 11 desk administrative managers and two confidential administrative assistants.”
Medium / Meena Lee
Q&A: Siobhan O’Connor, VP of editorial at Medium →
“Another cool thing we launched recently was Trips Worth Telling. In April, we got a call from Michael Pollan, who wanted to curate a collection of stories about transformative experiences triggered by psychedelics.”
Politico / Jason Schwartz
FoxNews.com is getting low traffic on its family separation stories, so it’s downplaying them →
“When there's a topic like this, which is very uncomfortable for a certain segment of the audience, they just are looking the other way.”
Journalism.co.uk / Thea Matthews
Ofcom research reveals lack of diversity in UK radio →
While there was some problems with incomplete data with assessing industry demographics like disability and age, the dataset for gender was mostly complete: “63 per cent of board or senior management level roles are occupied by men.”
Digiday / Lucinda Southern
How BBC Stories experiments with audio to reach younger audiences →
“How does audio work that isn't radio and isn't a podcast? Can you get people to listen to a six-minute-long piece of audio on social media? Not many people are doing that.”
Goldthread / Victoria Ho and Dolly Li
South China Morning Post launches Goldthread, its third new site this year →
Abacus covers tech in China broadly, and Inkstone is a daily digest on Chinese life and politics, with an eye towards explaining China for people who might just be glancingly interested in the country or newly aware of its influence in global politics. The newly launched Goldthread focuses on food, travel and culture in China with a new theme each month, and is available first through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram (standalone website coming later this year).
Digiday / Max Willens
If selling a t-shirt makes as much money as sharing content on Facebook, why do both? →
“In PSA [ the clothing company], Good Media Group sees the chance to diversify its revenue and grow its brand beyond the internet as Facebook wanes as an audience builder and branded content distribution gets more expensive. … Branded content accounts for 60 percent of its revenue. Its consultancy, which advises clients on how to operate more ethically and sustainably, drives another 25 percent; the rest comes from programmatic and other sources.”
International News Media Association (INMA) / Li L'Estrade
MittMedia Homeowners Bot boosts digital subscriptions with automated articles →
Out of 102 respondents, 68 percent of readers couldn’t tell the article was written by a robot.