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Thursday, October 4, 2018
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Newsonomics: With an expanding Wirecutter, The New York Times is doubling down on diversificationIts new Wirecutter Money vertical is the Times’ latest attempt to broaden its revenue base beyond its core news product. By Ken Doctor. |
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How news organizations can guide through the “information jungle”“Participants said they had too much information and news on their screens and that they had to opt out, sort through and hunt for information that they were actually interested in.” By Christine Schmidt. |
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More research suggests that Twitter’s fake news “strategy” is either ineffective or nonexistent“The persistence of so many easily identified abusive accounts is difficult to square with any effective crackdown.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
West Virginia Gazette-Mail
West Virginia environmental reporter Ken Ward, Jr. earns a MacArthur “genuis grant” →
"What is it that these people saw in me that they think I can somehow go and do to make life better for people in West Virginia? I gotta figure out what that is and go do it." We interviewed Ken about his participation in the ProPublica Local Reporting Network this year.
Civil / Matt Coolidge
Civil is still adding newsrooms as the token sale ….. is a work in progress →
GroundTruth, The Blackness, Dromómanos, and 14ymedio are joining the herd. Civil’s token sale has sold 5.51 percent of its target and has 10 days left in this ICO.
Poynter / Alanna Dvorak
Who will be the youth temporarily invading your newsroom next year? Here are more than 80 journalism internships and fellowships →
The New York Times is transitioning its internship to a year-long fellowship. Will other news organizations follow suit? If your organization’s internship is not on the list, you can email advorak@poynter.org to add it.
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists / Amy Wilson-Chapman and Will Fitzgibbon
The Paradise Papers investigation is nearly a year old — what else should the team report on? →
“Almost a year ago, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and 95 other media organizations from across the world published an expose of shadowy dealings from the offshore world. The Paradise Papers looked at the elite law firm Appleby and its clients, including multinationals such as Apple and people such as the Queen of England and Lionel Messi.” What’s your lingering question?
The Guardian / Jim Waterson
Unilad, Facebook’s fourth-biggest viral publisher, is expected to go into administration in the U.K. →
(Administration is a U.K. procedure similar to bankruptcy.) “The website's parent company, Bentley Harrington, has debts of more than £6m, including £1.5m owed to HM Revenue and Customs, a court heard on Thursday morning. Unilad's co-founder Alex Partridge, who is owed £5m by the company after successfully arguing he was cut out of the business, also called for it to be put into administration.”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
Goodbye CNNMoney, hello CNN Business →
“CNN is ditching the CNNMoney brand, which was part of a joint venture with then-Time Inc.'s Money and Fortune magazines going back to 2001. ‘The driving force behind this change is, we felt the CNNMoney brand wasn't quite up to telling the generational story of business news at this moment,’ said Jason Farkas, who's running the new site as vp and gm of CNN Business.”
Axios / Marisa Fernandez
This poll says Trump’s tweets don’t change minds — most people tune them out →
“Nearly 60 percent of Americans rarely or never read Trump's tweets through Twitter or news media, and only 15 percent read his tweets ‘very often.’ Those who do read them are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans.”
Associated Press / Jon Gambrell and Ayse Wieting
A Saudi contributor to the Washington Post is missing in Turkey →
“Jamal Khashoggi, 59, is a longtime Saudi journalist, foreign correspondent, editor and columnist whose work has been controversial in the past in the ultraconservative Sunni kingdom. He went into a self-imposed exile in the United States following the ascension of Prince Mohammed, now next in line to the throne to his father, the 82-year-old King Salman.”
Washington Post / Eli Rosenberg
Facebook blocked many gay-themed ads as part of its new advertising policy →
“The rejections, the majority of which Facebook told The Post were in error, underscore the company's challenges in regulating the massive amount of information flowing through its service, an issue that burst into the fore after the disclosure that Russian-state actors used advertisements on Facebook to sow discord during the 2016 U.S. election.”
Reuters / Stephen Nellis
SoundCloud is shifting its U.S. advertising reins to Pandora →
“The deal illustrates how Pandora, best known for its streaming music service, is gaining a revenue stream by selling its back-end advertising technology to others. Under the deal, Pandora becomes the exclusive operator of SoundCloud's advertising business.”
Mission Local / Joe Eskenazi
San Francisco Magazine is shifting from news focus while laying off staffers →
“I knew the writing was on the wall in the first part of 2018 when I had to slash our editorial budget by one-third — and that included laying off our executive editor, Gary,” the former editor said.