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Thursday, September 20, 2018
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Public or closed? How much activity really exists? See how other news organizations’ Facebook Groups are faringWe analyzed the data of groups as large as 40,000 members and as small as 300, from international organizations to local publishers. How does yours fit in? By Christine Schmidt. |
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Here’s what the Financial Times is doing to get bossy man voice out of (okay, less prominent in) its opinion section“She wrote a fabulous piece that did incredibly well and I think there’s no way on earth that (a) she would have submitted or (b) it would have run, before we started this stuff. It got more than double the usual number of pageviews for an opinion piece.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
American Society of News Editors
Only 234 out of 1,700 newspapers and digital media outlets have filled out the ASNE diversity survey (aka DO IT NOW) →
The Ford Foundation, News Integrity Initiative, Lenfest Institute, Democracy Fund, Logan Family Foundation, Knight Foundation, and McCormick Foundation released a joint statement urging newsroom leaders to complete the survey. If your newsroom needs a link to the survey, then contact lead researcher Dr. Meredith Clark, assistant professor of the University of Virginia’s Department of Media Studies, at mdc6j@virginia.edu, or ASNE Executive Director Teri Hayt at thayt@asne.org.
Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt
The Times of London is putting its free politics email newsletter behind the paywall →
“I'm glad you're still enjoying Red Box, but you are not getting the most out of it without a full subscription to read the stories, columns, interviews, reviews, obituaries and letters which I link to every day. So from next week Red Box will only be available to Times subscribers.” (We wrote about the email’s underlying tech back in 2015.)
The Washington Post / Noah Smith
The L.A. Times’ Patrick Soon-Shiong sees esports as part of his strategy to combat fake news →
“Adding that his ‘great fear’ is fake news and disinformation, and that the current generation of social networks has facilitated an increased degree of tribalism, Soon-Shiong hopes to create ‘information of joy’ that can bring about a new kind of ‘interactivity’ with news stories.”
BuzzFeed News / Alex Wickham
The U.K. government is preparing to set up a regulator for the internet →
“Under legislation being drafted by the Home Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) due to be announced this winter, a new regulatory framework for online ‘social harms’ would be created.”
Lenfest Institute / Joseph Lichterman
This library is using backpacks to help communities record their histories →
“‘We're trying to invert the classic archival paradigm where you go out into communities, extract things researchers are interested in, funnel them into a building, and then maybe the community sees them again in an exhibit if they come to the archive,’ Southern Historical Collection director Bryan Giemza told me.”
Columbia Journalism Review / D. Victoria Baranetsky
The way we tell stories has changed, thanks to FOIA and data journalism. The law is changing, too. →
“In many ways, journalists' access to critical information is being restricted, either by the passive or explicit threat of criminal penalties, de-prioritization in favor of corporate secrecy, or an inadequate legal understanding of technological advances.”
Associated Press / David Bauder
The politics of hurricane coverage →
“The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel similarly became a meme victim during Florence for video that depicted him struggling to stay vertical in the storm's winds, while men walked behind him seemingly unbothered; his network said Seidel had a hard time keeping his footing because he was on wet grass.”
Etherscan
78% of all Civil tokens sold so far came in one $500K buy →
As of 9:45 a.m. today, 338 successful transactions of CVL have been made totaling about $639,000.
Digiday / Jessica Davies
Publishers say Google Ad Manager has been down for several weeks →
“Systems glitches are nothing new, and especially when a system is going through transition, as with Ad Manager. But the length of the outage, plus the difficulty in getting a complete answer from Google as to why things had gone down, has made for a nail-biting few weeks for some publishers, according to sources.”
The New York Times / Sheera Frenkel and Mike Isaac
U.S. midterm elections are in seven weeks. Here’s how Facebook is preparing →
“‘We see this as probably the biggest companywide reorientation since our shift from desktops to mobile phones,’ said Samidh Chakrabarti, who leads Facebook's elections and civic engagement team.”
TechCrunch / Eric Peckham
From marketplaces to VR, media giants seek relevance through startup investing →
“Of the traditional media companies that have committed to corporate venturing, there are two distinct strategies: those whose investing seems to be about replacing the historic classifieds section of newspapers and diversifying into a range of consumer-facing marketplaces, and those whose investing is concentrated on capturing an early glimpse (and early equity stake) in startups reshaping media.”
The Guardian / Anne Davis
A very Australian coup: Murdoch, an exiting prime minister, and the power of News Corp →
“Rudd, equally, believes the cacophony of negativity from News Corp undermined his first prime ministership, then that of successor Julia Gillard. He has called for a ‘full-throated inquiry’ into News Corp and branded the company ‘a cancer on democracy’. But the details that have emerged over the past 48 hours of the role the US-based Murdoch played during last month's visit to his Australian assets raise serious questions about how Australian politics can be swayed by a concentrated media industry where News Corp dominates.”
MediaPost / Alex Weprin
“Post-cable” news network Cheddar’s next stop is at 18,000 gas station pumps →
“Cheddar has grown its audience in part by trying to make itself as ubiquitous as possible. Cheddar and its general-interest news network Cheddar Big News are available on most streaming video bundles, such as Sling TV and YouTube TV, and even a number of traditional cable packages.”
The New York Times / Jaclyn Peiser
How Civil’s podcast partner reports on itself and blockchain’s implications for journalism →
“If I, as a tech journalist, roll my eyes when I hear about blockchain, somebody is not doing a good job explaining this stuff. That's where the opportunity is — for two women, two moms, who are going out on their own, who have to understand blockchain. There's your entryway to a podcast.”