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Tuesday, August 7, 2018
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More than 1,000 U.S. news sites are still unavailable in Europe, two months after GDPR took effectWebsites had two years to get ready for the GDPR. But rather than comply, about a third of the 100 largest U.S. newspapers have instead chosen to block European visitors to their sites. By Jeff South. |
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If Facebook makes a safe harbor for journalists and researchers, would it help?“Currently, most tech investigations of Facebook…may have technically violated Facebook's TOS. But without violating those rules, journalists can't investigate our most important platform for public discourse.” By Christine Schmidt. |
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Podcasting’s next frontier: A manifesto for growth (beyond the already converted)“When people say that ‘Podcasts just aren’t for them’ or that there aren’t topics that they are interested in — maybe we should take them at their word? They need a show — just one show — and we either haven’t led them to it yet or maybe…just maybe…we haven’t made it yet.” By Tom Webster. |
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A big shakeup at Audible has left the audiobook giant’s podcast strategy unclearPlus: Alex Jones gets deplatformed, a new alternative to Patreon for producers, and some contradictory data about how people use Alexa. By Nicholas Quah. |
What We’re Reading
The Guardian / Whitney Phillips
How journalists should not cover an online conspiracy theory →
“The resulting coverage can be divided into three basic categories: explainers, which don't just dive into the intricacies of the conspiracy, but often include a glossary of key terms; hair-on-fire warnings about how dangerous and frightening the conspiracy is; and smug declarations that of course Trump supporters believe in something so stupid. As Abby Ohlheiser has noted, the tone and breakneck frequency of this coverage was immediately uproarious to participants, a great victory for what their supporters call the ‘great awakening’, often delivered with a characteristically trollish wink.”
Recode / Kurt Wagner
Has Snapchat already stopped growing? →
“Snapchat added 21 million new users in the [second quarter] two years ago. The app was starting to show the kind of rapid, accelerating growth that investors love to see with consumer companies — especially those with a business model that depends on advertising. It turns out that was Snap's peak growth period.”
Bloomberg / Stefan Nicola
How Axel Springer is trying to become the world’s most successful digital publisher →
“He’ll have to prove that his collection of digital media brands — more than 20 publications including Business Insider, EMarketer, and video clip site NowThis — will not just collect clicks, but deliver long-lasting returns.”
International News Media Association (INMA) / Dr. Merja Myllylahti
Facebook, Google are far from struggling with digital advertising revenue →
“In 2017, the Pew Research Center estimated the advertising revenue of U.S. newspapers was US$16.5 billion. So, in a single quarter, these three platform companies [Facebook, Google, Twitter] made 2.5 times more in advertising revenue than the U.S. newspaper companies in a year.”
Journalism.co.uk / Marcela Kunova
Getty Images launches a new AI tool that helps publishers find the right picture for the story →
“The tool works like a picture editor — it reads the text and tries to understand what the story is about. It then offers the first round of picture suggestions based not only on individual keywords but the meaning of sentences and paragraphs.”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
Shani Hilton is driving BuzzFeed News' video gamble →
“In addition to ‘AM to DM,’ BuzzFeed has launched ‘Future History: 1968,’ a documentary series that recaps major events of that year; ‘Profile,’ a weekly interview show on Facebook Watch hosted by NPR's Audie Cornish; and Netflix's ‘Follow This,’ which follows BuzzFeed News reporters on the job. Several other projects are in the works.”
Cnet / Marrian Zhou
Alex Jones and InfoWars accounts are still live on Twitter and Instagram →
“Earlier four tech giants — Apple, Facebook, Google’s YouTube and Spotify — cracked down on Jones’s notorious conspiracy media empire Infowars. Apple confirmed on Sunday that it had removed five of the six podcasts that Infowars created. Spotify removed podcasts linked to Jones on Monday.”
BuzzFeed News / Steven Perlberg
Jared Kushner used to personally order the deletion of stories at his newspaper, the New York Observer →
“Austin Smith, a software employee who worked on staff for the Observer Media Group and then as an outside consultant, said that he fielded and complied with Kushner's deletion requests. Smith wrote about the incident on a Hacker News forum discussing unethical practices in programming.”