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Friday, October 26, 2018
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Yes, Facebook referral traffic crashed and burned — but not for these nonprofit publishers“Bottom line: The decline in referrals to publishers from Facebook is not universal, and in the face of those declines, other sources of traffic are more important than ever.” By Andrew Gruen. |
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What to know about WhatsApp in Brazil ahead of Sunday’s election“I don’t know where they found my phone number.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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Snapchat is doing badly, and publishers are getting outMeanwhile, Apple News keeps doing its (sometimes inscrutable) thing. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
Twitter / Trushar Barot
Facebook hires the BBC’s Trushar Barot to lead its Integrity Initiatives in India →
“This will mean leading their work on combating fake news and digital misinformation, developing digital literacy training programmes, working with startups and most importantly, coming up with big ideas that will bring significant positive impact in the digital development of a country with over a billion people.”
Miami Herald / Scott Berson
McClatchy’s VP of news, Tim Grieve, is leaving for a “new venture in the media space” →
“Grieve oversaw the company's ‘Reinvention’ initiative, which tasked newsrooms with rethinking which stories should be covered and how they would make the most impact.”
Recorded Future / Insikt Group
North Korean elites’ preferred Western social media platform is LinkedIn →
“While the majority of U.S. services continued to experience decreased North Korean leadership use, since April 2018, we observed an increase in the use of LinkedIn.”
Reuters Institute for the Study of JOurnalism / Emma-Leena Ovaskainen
Nine types of visual storytelling on mobile →
For one, “longform scrollytelling.”
Recode / Shirin Ghaffary
As big tech struggles to curb hate speech, civil rights groups have some recommendations →
“This is the first time we've formally put pen to paper, saying this is the kind of world we'd like to see.”
Wall Street Journal / Ben Mullin
Tony Haile’s Scroll expands ahead of 2019 launch →
“Scroll has raised $7 million in new funding for its planned hiring, which includes engineers, marketers, customer-service representatives and executives, said Tony Haile, the company's founder and chief executive. By the end of 2019, Scroll plans to employ roughly 40 staffers, up from its current 10.”
The Outline / Josh Topolsky
The virtual reality dream is dying →
“The media (yes, me included, at least early on) has gone through several cycles of fawning, optimistic prognostication, and… wishful thinking? — but for all the hype we have very little consumer interest to show for it.”
Poynter / Daniel Funke
Facebook is now downranking stories with false headlines →
“As of this week, fact-checking outlets working with Facebook can debunk and slow the spread of headlines that are false even if the whole story isn't — a change that adds nuance to the types of misinformation the platform is asking fact-checkers to flag.”
Digiday / Max Willens
Facebook and Google’s subscription tools offer publishers modest improvements →
“Publishers contacted for this story praised the platforms for being communicative and committed to these products but also groused that the tools were cumbersome to implement and had limited returns.”
Local News Initiative / Mark Jacob
Local news is the “biggest crisis” in journalism, but a sustainability campaign is underway →
“This is the first in a series of articles on America’s local news crisis and the work of the newly launched Local News Initiative at Northwestern University’s Medill School.”