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Monday, July 23, 2018
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Hybrid, a collection of targeted news sites in Asia, embraces growing slowly and knowing its audienceIt recently passed 10 million unique visitors per month, and it’s profitable: “We're not going to hire 50 reporters and a whole video crew and pump in all these resources and not have the revenue to support it.” By Shan Wang. |
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In South Africa, community radio stations — lifelines for local news in rural areas — can get a boost with Volume“You can't bridge mainstream to community media when the community doesn't have the ability to present their reporting.” By Christine Schmidt. |
What We’re Reading
Twitter / nydailynews
The entire New York Daily News social team was let go… but someone forgot to change the passwords. →
Confused Travolta GIF is a sad but accurate representation of how the local news community feels today.
Business Insider / Avery Hartmans
The engineer who blew the whistle on Uber’s culture of sexual harassment was just hired by The New York Times →
Susan Fowler Rigetti will serve as the Times’ technology opinion editor, based in San Francisco.
The Maynard Institute
Here are the inaugural fellows of Maynard 200 — 11 more fellows than planned →
“Maynard 200 aims to expand the diversity pipeline in media by training 200 diverse storytellers in the next five years. The pilot program of Maynard 200 will bring together 26 journalists in total for two weeks of training. Fellows will receive training in one of three tracks: Media Entrepreneurship, Newsroom/Media Management, and Storytelling.”
Berkman Klein Center
Here are the Berkman Klein Center’s 2018–19 fellows →
“Members of the Center's community pursue a wide range of research methods, networking efforts, and educational activities, as well as coding, prototyping, and building.”
The Information / Jessica Toonkel and Tom Dotan
YouTube TV shows the tough economics of skinny bundles →
“The streaming services were meant to provide a cheaper alternative to traditional cable…But they haven't changed the fundamental cost structure of cable. Entertainment companies charge the new services as much — or in some cases, more — than what they charge satellite and cable services to carry their TV networks.”
New York Times / Lincoln Pigman
Russia, accused of faking news, unfurls its own “fake news” bill →
“Under the proposed rule, part of a creeping crackdown on digital rights under President Vladimir V. Putin, websites with more than 100,000 daily visitors and a commenting feature must take down factually inaccurate posts or face a fine of up to 50 million rubles, about $800,000.”
The Guardian / Rory Carroll
The billionaire who bought the LA Times: “Hipsters will want paper soon” →
“I’m a complete news junkie. It's got nothing to do with the business analysis. It's got to do with an analysis of what's important for humanity.”
Twitter / ProPublica
An update on ProPublica’s collaborative reporting project to reunite immigrant families →
We covered the project here.
nydailynews.com / Harry Siegel
Another reason to support local news: Stop the problem before it gets too big, too expensive →
“We know what happens when the state stops investing the time and money to maintain things in part because few reporters, their own industry hurting, are there to keep watch. People get sick as the rain keeps coming and mold grows behind walls and poison flakes fall. Eventually the roof collapses.”
Global Editors Network / Freia Nahser
How publishers covered the World Cup 2018 with AI and automation →
Le Figaro “created a tool to automatically generate visual summaries of every World Cup match within five seconds of the full-time whistle. ‘No human can work that fast!’ said Valentin Paquot, mobile CTO and innovation lead of new media.”
The Washington Post / Erik Wemple
Ta-Nehisi Coates is leaving the Atlantic →
“I became the public face of the magazine in many ways and I don’t really want to be that. I want to be a writer. I’m not a symbol of what the Atlantic wants to do or whatever.”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
For news publishers, smart speakers are the hot new platform →
“Now, along with dedicating people to the devices, publishers also are starting to create device-specific content, which is often shorter than regular podcasts and with a daily frequency. The Washington Post has its Daily 202 and Retropod that are short and created with smart speakers in mind; in the same way, NPR created a short, daily spinoff of its Planet Money podcast called The Indicator.”
New York Times / Maggie Haberman
Maggie Haberman: Why I needed to pull back from Twitter →
“On Twitter, everything is shrunk down to the same size, making it harder to discern what is a big deal and what is not. Tone often overshadows the actual news. All outrages appear equal. And that makes it harder for significant events — like Mr. Trump's extraordinarily pliant performance with President Vladimir Putin of Russia — to break through.” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded to some of Haberman’s criticisms here.
Columbia Journalism Review / James Ball
We need a new model for tech journalism →
“It's easy to see why some readers would feel whiplashed by the current, critical coverage of Facebook and Google, which seems to come out of nowhere. That's our fault as journalists: We've been too slow to spot how things have changed and to cover the sector as the corporate behemoth it is.”