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Friday, October 12, 2018
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Chasing leads and herding cats: How journalism’s latest job title — partner manager — works in ProPublica’s newsroom“In short, we came to think that the collaboration itself was something that needed editing.” By Rachel Glickhouse. |
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What have tech companies done wrong with fake news? Google (yep) lists the waysPlus: A woman-oriented fact-checking initiative, and possible problems with California’s media literacy bill. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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Trump’s USA Today op-ed demonstrates why it’s time to unbundle news and opinion content“At a time when both the public and algorithms are trying to understand what journalism means and how to distinguish between news and opinion, publishers should make it more clear what makes journalism special.” By Eli Pariser. |
What We’re Reading
Talking Points Memo / Josh Marshall
Talking Points Memo is launching a super-premium tier called TPM Inside →
A level above its current paid product, TPM Prime. “Think of Inside like a running conversation we're going to hold with the most interesting and knowledgable people in the world of politics, public policy and elections, which we're inviting you to be a part of.”
White House Watch / Dan Froomkin
“Good luck separating ‘journalism’ and ‘opinion’ in the age of Trump” →
A response to Eli Pariser’s Nieman Lab piece: “Especially in this day and age, you need a heavy does of context and analysis to make sense of what's being said and done. ‘Straight’ stenography, in contrast, is the opposite of journalism.”
WIRED / Angela Watercutter
Climate scientists are playing Fortnite on Twitch while explaining global warming to educate teens →
“Amid the shoot-outs and loot-grabs, the streamer in the headset is also very patiently explaining methane emissions to a user named Xoiiku. Usually when someone brings up burping and farting during gameplay, it's a prank at best. This time it's definitely not.”
The Economist / Evan Hensleigh
The Economist will publish the numbers behind its data reporting on GitHub →
“While we take care to identify our sources, we have not often published the data behind them. Sometimes, this is for good reason: some data are proprietary or otherwise not ours to publish. Often, we have simply not made the time to do it. This is a shame.”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
How The Washington Post’s User Lab balances advertiser and subscriber demands →
“So far the lab has tested its branded content disclosures (it validated The Post's current use of ‘from’ an advertiser, as opposed to ‘presented by’ or ‘brought to you by’). It's also created four new ad formats. It found that people preferred being served contextually relevant articles over retargeted ads, so it created Showcase, which bundles Post articles that are relevant to the reader into an ad unit.”
TechCrunch / Josh Constine
Instagram is testing replacing scrolling with tapping, making the feed more like Stories →
“Tap to advance, pioneered by Snapchat, eliminates the need for big thumbstrokes on your touch screen that can get tiring after awhile. It also means users always see media full-screen rather than having to fiddle with scrolling the perfect amount to see an entire post.”
The Cut / Ruth Spencer
Stephen Elliott sues Moira Donegan, creator of Shitty Media Men list →
“According to the suit, Elliott also intends to sue other women who contributed to the Google spreadsheet (who he names as "Jane Does"), which briefly circulated last October and contained the names of over of 70 men who were anonymously accused of sexual misconduct, ranging from rape to harassment.” A GoFundMe for Donegan’s legal expenses is here.
The New York Times / Millie Tran
How the New York Times’ first-ever global growth editor operates →
“I'm rarely without my phone or some piece of technology and do believe in making tech work for me and my life, not the other way around.”
ProPublica
Here’s ProPublica Illinois’s first year in review →
“As a team, we set out our goals even before we officially opened our doors. We wanted to tell stories that would otherwise go untold. We wanted to strengthen the journalism ecosystem we had joined. And we wanted to help build a community of journalists and a body of journalistic work representative of the world around us, examining issues of importance to communities that are often overlooked and bringing those stories into the lives of the people most affected by them. Some 150 articles later, we are well on our way. “
Deadline Hollywood / Mike Fleming Jr.
Netflix will finance and release “The Laundromat,” about the Panama Papers scandal →
Steven Soderbergh directs; cast includes Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, David Schwimmer, and Antonio Banderas.
Washington Post / Elizabeth Dwoskin and Tony Romm
Facebook purged over 800 accounts and pages pushing political messages for profit →
Facebook only named five of the hundreds of pages it removed. Two of the page operators said that they were legitimate political activists, not profit-driven operators of clickbait "ad farms," as Facebook claimed in a blog post.
Reynolds Journalism Institute
The Trusting News project is partnering with the University of Georgia →
“Their research is so needed as we try to figure out what the factors are that lead to trust and as we try to understand how news consumers respond to different types of news and different messages.”
Twitter Developers / Andy Piper