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Tuesday, July 31, 2018
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From a beloved blog to one sold-out show after another at a national theater, history gets an anti-colonialist retelling“Owaahh had this blog where readers come together around this internet fireplace. What if we made that fireplace a physical place? Would people actually show up to listen to history?” (The answer was yes.) By Shan Wang. |
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Where should the daily news podcast go from here? (Can we get away from “the commute”?)“There’s just this prevailing, unshakeable feeling that everybody’s drilling for oil in the same spot because some other guy found oil there already.” By Nicholas Quah. |
What We’re Reading
Poynter / Daniel Funke
Snopes fired its managing editor — and she doesn’t know why →
Brooke Binkowski joined Snopes in 2015 to lead the site's editorial team, which works remotely and has about seven staffers. At the time of her firing, she said she was editing about 15 stories a day, looking over video transcripts, and handling most media requests. "To me, this is symptomatic of a much larger problem of transparency within the company."
Washington Post / Dan Zak, Sarah Ellison and Ben Terris
'He doesn't like bullies': The story of the 37-year-old who took over the New York Times and is taking on Trump →
"A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times sits in direct contrast to the president of the United States: demure, private, vegetarian, self-effacing, and reliant on proving himself through hard work rather than trading on his famous surname, according to interviews with present and former colleagues and bosses."
Journalism.co.uk / Marcela Kunova
Another app that tries to encourage sharing stories from outside users' filter bubbles →
"News With Friends uses an algorithm which ranks stories based on editorial choices media research company Kaleida observes from leading publishers; through their tools which put stories in context and enable people to compare and contrast views; and via the social features that fuel informed and intimate conversations."
GIJN / Siran Liang
One Malaysian reporter's mission to spread data journalism across Southeast Asia →
Malaysian data journalist named Kuang Keng Kuek Ser started Data-N in 2015. The organization began by providing free training courses and expanding its network into the region's newsrooms and journalism conferences. Slowly, Kuang Keng got not only journalists — but, key to the sustainability of data journalism projects, entire newsrooms — interested in data journalism.
The New York Times / Nicholas Fandos and Kevin Roose
Facebook has identified an ongoing political influence campaign on its platform in the U.S. — hopefully before it’s too late →
“We're still in the very early stages of our investigation and don't have all the facts — including who may be behind this,” the company said in a statement. “But we are sharing what we know today given the connection between these bad actors and protests that are planned in Washington next week.”
The Verge / Shannon Liao
Twitter is funding college professors to audit its platform for toxicity →
"Twitter says it received over 230 proposals after a callout in March. Of those, winners include two professors from Syracuse University, one from Italy's Bocconi University, a professor from Delft University, and others. The team of researchers will be led by Dr. Rebekah Tromble, an assistant professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands. They will investigate how toxic speech is created on Twitter."
The Guardian / Amanda Meade
Guardian Australia is now on a sustainable business footing, five years after launch →
“The membership program was launched in July 2016 and now accounts for 36% of the local website's revenue, and is up 145% year-on-year. Advertising revenue, including sponsored content produced by Guardian Labs, accounts for the remaining 64%.”
Digiday / Lucinda Southern
Reuters is taking a less-is-more approach to its new app, focusing on total time spent →
"If we're doing our job well — which is to inform people to make better business decisions — then they don't need to read five pieces of content to do that," said Isaac Showman, managing director of Reuters Consumer. "This will impact our pageview numbers but ultimately it will drive better engagement."