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Tuesday, July 24, 2018
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12 prototypes, eight weeks, and lots of tapping: What’s worked (and hasn’t) in the BBC’s quest for new storytelling formatsA highlight in an article that reveals context when it’s clicked. A video with a scrollable transcript that speeds up or reverses the video, too. A movie trailer–like intro, drawing readers into the setup of the story. Which ones worked? By Christine Schmidt. |
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Netflix helped propel this podcast from a canceled show to a six-figure successPlus: A big fat Leonard Lopate debacle at WBAI, “podcasts by women, for everyone, no creeps allowed,” and publishers are building teams around smart speakers. By Nicholas Quah. |
What We’re Reading
The New York Times / Paul Mozur and Sheera Frenkel
Facebook, trying to move forward in China, registers a Chinese subsidiary →
“Yet late Tuesday, in a sign of possible complications, the corporate registration was taken down from the Chinese government website and some references to the new subsidiary appeared to be censored on social media in the country.”
the Guardian / Jim Waterson
The Guardian Media Group says its digital revenues now outstrip print for the first time →
“GMG, which also owns the Observer, said it had a total of 570,000 members who give regular financial support to the organization, up from 500,000 at the end of last year. Income was further boosted by 375,000 one-off contributions from readers in the past 12 months. Digital revenues grew 15 percent to £108.6 million, as income from the print newspaper and events business fell by 10 percent to £107.5 million.”
Washington Post / Paul Farhi
The city that never sleeps is losing reporters to report on it →
"It's astonishing that this is happening in the media capital of America. Local news is a direct link between a community's safety and preservation, whether it's putting a spotlight on the need for a new stoplight on the corner or on a corrupt city council person. We don't have the legs to do that in New York anymore. The community doesn't have the watchdogs it once had."
Medium / Don Day
So what’s the plan? Corporate media is looking out for shareholders, so who’s looking out for readers? →
“Instead of getting bogged down in the problems of the current situation — we as an industry and as a society — must start to think about what comes next.”
Journalism.co.uk / Caroline Scott
The Economist shares what works (and doesn’t) on Instagram →
“As well as a mix of images and videos on its feed, the news organization regularly posts Instagram stories, not only pushing out its content, but asking its followers to engage with them and tell them about themselves — something the publisher has only started doing this year. But when the team tried a new format where journalists spoke directly to camera about different issues and asked people to get involved, it bombed.”
Quartz / Thu-Huong Ha
Forbes ended up deleting a misinformed op-ed arguing Amazon should replace libraries →
Though the much-ridiculed, now-deleted piece didn’t come from someone who paid to write for the site, as Felix Salmon briefly claimed in a popular Tweet on Tuesday.
BuzzFeed News / Jane Lytvynenko
A doctored video of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is spreading on Facebook →
The fake interview branded as CRTV’s took real moments from Ocasio-Cortez’s interview with PBS’s Firing Line and edited them to look like she was giving nonsensical responses to basic questions. (CRTV is a conservative television station owned by pundit Mark Levin who has also written a book called Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism.)
International News Media Association (INMA) / Jasper Fulcher
While Snapchat growth slows, The Telegraph is still seeing returns →
“With 313,000 subscribers and counting, we're now looking ahead to developing the channel further, with a raft of new format and content ideas in the pipeline. The project has proven that The Telegraph brand has impact across age demographics.”
Poynter
A (regularly updated) guide to anti-misinformation actions around the world →
From Belarus to Indonesia to Uganda, many governments are cracking down on fake news, to varying levels of severity and with mixed results. Cambodia, for instance, which will see a national election at the end of July, has expanded its crackdown on fake news in the weeks leading up to the elections. (It’s unclear how the government is even defining “fake news.”)
Columbia Journalism Review / Amanda Darrach
A wake for the Daily News →
Seeking to shield young innocents from the harsh reality of the day, interns had been sent off to a mid-morning screening of Jurassic Park.
MM.LaFleur / Charlotte Cowles
Chalkbeat CEO Elizabeth Green knows a good story when she sees it →
“Everyone, especially my former colleagues, thought I was crazy to walk away from offers at established publications to work on this thing that no one had ever heard of. But to me, there wasn't great job security anywhere; it seemed just as safe to strike out on my own as it would be to take a full-time job where I could be laid off at any minute. Also, I couldn't see a newspaper wanting to support the kind of coverage that I cared about, because it wasn't particularly commercially viable.”