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Thursday, June 21, 2018
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The Appeal focuses on an often undercovered aspect of criminal justice: local prosecutorsThe site, recently rebranded from In Justice Today, wants to shine a light on a more mysterious part of the legal system by focusing on local prosecutors and criminal justice policy. By Marlee Baldridge. |
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These are the three types of bias that explain all the fake news, pseudoscience, and other junk in your News FeedIndiana University researchers “have found that steep competition for users’ limited attention means that some ideas go viral despite their low quality — even when people prefer to share high-quality content.” By Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia and Filippo Menczer. |
What We’re Reading
Wall Street Journal / Benjamin Mullin
WordPress.com parent company buys Atavist, a maker of subscription-focused publishing software →
“The deal encompasses Atavist's proprietary content management system, its customer base and the Atavist Magazine. Atavist's primary product is a publishing software platform with free and paid tiers. The free version allows users to create their own home pages and build multimedia stories; the paid tiers allow users to launch paywalls, collect subscription fees and sell individual stories. The software has more than 200,000 users, but only a ‘small percentage’ pay for premium versions.”
Co.Design / Mark Wilson
The Weather Channel brought a tornado to life with hyper-realistic graphics in the name of “immersive storytelling” →
"We wanted to do something that would bring [weather stories] to our audience in a strong and memorable way," says Michael Potts, VP of design at the Weather Channel. "We want great moments. We want to engage our audience, and we want our content to be shareable."
Solution Set / Joseph Lichterman
Should publishers raise prices on subscribers who use adblockers? →
“AP reporter Ryan Nakashima wanted to know if readers would be willing to pay more for an ad-free news experience, so he partnered with the Bay Area News Group and created a modal that required readers who were using an adblocker to purchase a subscription or turn off their adblocker. Based on the experiment, Nakashima recommended that publishers should charge ad-blocking subscribers an extra $1 or $2 per month.”
The Guardian / Jim Waterson
The Guardian, News UK, and the Telegraph are launching a joint advertising business →
The Ozone Project, launching in the fall, will allow potential advertisers to buy online ad space across news titles the Guardian, the Times, the Sun, and the Telegraph from one single site. The deal involves only digital advertising, and all the newspaper groups will continue to have their own independent sales teams, who will compete against against each other for business. There will be no sharing of editorial content or data.
Digiday / Brian Morrissey
The Financial Times: We stopped advertising on Facebook over political ads policy →
"It is dangerous to describe journalism as political content. Journalism is journalism, and political lobbying is political lobbying. To conflate the two is an extremely dangerous precedent, particularly in this era when there are so many question marks about the veracity of news. We pulled out, and we are yet to be convinced that Facebook is taking this issue seriously."
Facebook / Tess Lyons
An update from Facebook on its fact-checking program →
Its third-party fact-checking program is currently in 14 countries and will expand to more over the course of this year, Facebook says (the option to fact-check video and photo content on the platform will expand to four countries): “These certified, independent fact-checkers rate the accuracy of stories on Facebook, helping us reduce the distribution of stories rated as false by an average of 80 percent.”
Instagram / Kevin Systrom
Instagram launches IGTV, a longform vertical within its app →
“IGTV is different in a few ways. First, it's built for how you actually use your phone, so videos are full screen and vertical…When you follow a creator on Instagram, their IGTV channel will show up for you to watch. Anyone can be a creator — you can upload your own IGTV videos in the app or on the web to start your own channel.”