YULI AHMADA: November 2018

Kamis, 29 November 2018

Canada’s new subsidies for news will warp the market and hurt innovation — unless they’re done right: The latest from Nieman Lab

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Canada’s new subsidies for news will warp the market and hurt innovation — unless they’re done right

“Necessity breeds innovation, and the government’s intervention removes that necessity for Canadian journalism.” By David Skok.

CrossCheck launches in Nigeria, with 16 newsrooms working together to fight misinformation

CrossCheck Nigeria builds on what First Draft and its partners learned about misinformation on WhatsApp from the Comprova project in Brazil. By Laura Hazard Owen.

35 prototypes, one year, and lots learned: The BBC puts its mobile storytelling plan in action

In the BBC's final two experimental rounds, the R&D team focused on 1) tweaking the stories based on each reader's information needs and 2) breaking down the news into more digestible bits. By Christine Schmidt.

What We’re Reading

Willamette Week / Matthew Singer

Uh, that Thrillist review that allegedly wrecked the cutesy burger bar might not have been the real trouble →

A reminder of local reporting’s importance: “[The owner’s] failure to live up to the terms of the divorce settlement he’d signed led to a December 2016 contempt-of-court charge, and he was ordered to pay $25,324. Six months after the contempt charge, [Thrillist’s] Alexander declared Stanich’s burger the best in the country.”

TechCrunch / Josh Constine

Facebook must police Today In, its local news digest launching in 400 cities →

“Facebook is hoping to fill a void after surveys found 50 percent of users wanted more local news through Facebook. It previously tested Today In with New Orleans, La.; Little Rock, Ark.; Billings, Mont.; Peoria, Ill.; Olympia, Wash.; and Binghamton, N.Y. The feature could give local outlets a referral traffic boost that could help offset the fact that Facebook has drained ad dollars from journalism into its own News Feed ads.”

Poynter / Kristen Hare

How the food team at the Times-Picayune transformed itself →

“The food team at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune has its own Instagram account with more than 56,000 followers. It has a Facebook group, too, with more than 42,500 members. What they don't have? Their own dedicated social media editor.”

Twitter / Leon Neyfakh

Leon Neyfakh is leaving Slate and Slow Burn to launch Fiasco, a new podcast →

“The new show will be called Fiasco. It will be about the past — why the history we half-remember played out the way it did, and what marks it left on the world we live in.”

Columbia Journalism Review / Lyndsey Gilpin

What I’ve learned from two years trying to shift narratives about the South →

“Instead of asking Appalachians why they don't just move because of poor water quality, I ask them how they use the attachment to land in the region as a way to get people to care about taking action on these problems. Last year, when a popular story was the renewable energy boom, I wrote for InsideClimate News about conservative mayors leading the way on solar because of the economics.”

Medium / Sarah Schmalbach

HERE is Lenfest’s location-aware app that puts you at the center of local news discovery →

“Our first experimental app explores what's made possible by geotagging local news stories and delivering them when you're nearby.”

Washington Post / Amanda Bennett

Trump's “worldwide network” is a great idea — but it already exists →

“Seventy-six years ago, the world was a dark place. The radio broadcast that eventually became Voice of America was created to give people trapped behind Nazi lines accurate, truthful news about the war, in contrast with Nazi propaganda.”

BuzzFeed News / Craig Silverman

How the FBI and tech industry took down a massive ad fraud scheme →

“At its peak, 3ve involved about 1.7 million PCs infected with malware, an array of servers that could generate mountains of fake traffic with bots, roughly 5,000 counterfeit websites created to impersonate legitimate web publishers, and over 60,000 accounts with digital advertising companies to help fraudsters receive ad placements and get paid. The indictment also alleges the fraudsters created their own advertising networks to help facilitate the fraud.”

The New York Times / Kara Swisher

Pop-Up Magazine Productions, The Atlantic, Gimlet Media: Can Laurene Powell Jobs save storytelling? →

“Ms. Powell Jobs has $20 billion from the stakes in Apple and Disney that she inherited from her husband, Steve Jobs. She also seems to have inherited his understanding that narrative moves people more than anything else.”

The Guardian / Amanda Meade

Judith Neilson, an Australian billionaire philanthropist, will fund a $100M institute for journalism in Sydney →

“Journalism doesn't just need critics, it needs champions – people and institutions with the resources to help educate, encourage and connect journalists and their audience in pursuit of excellence,” Neilson said.

Rabu, 28 November 2018

“I had to borrow money to pay my rent”: Civil’s tokenomics has left some of its journalists wondering where their salary is: The latest from Nie

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

“I had to borrow money to pay my rent”: Civil’s tokenomics has left some of its journalists wondering where their salary is

Because Civil’s token sale flopped last month, a lot of its journalists haven’t been given the compensation they were led to expect. But even if it does eventually arrive, will it be worth…anything? By Joshua Benton.

Wild Thing, I think I love you (but the ultimate sustainability of your particular advertising model remains unclear)

Bigfoot gets a podcast. Plus: the high rise of Guy Raz, The Washington Post readies its daily show, and does podcasting really have a low barrier to entry any more? By Nicholas Quah.

The red couch experiments: Early lessons in pop-up fact-checking

“People have long mused about live fact-checking on television, but this marked the first in-depth study. It revealed our product could have tremendous appeal — but we need to explain it better to our users.” By Bill Adair.

What We’re Reading

Talking Biz News / Chris Roush

New York Times tech columnist Farhad Manjoo moves to opinion section →

“He'll help our readers think through how societies at large, and each of us as individuals, can harness technology's benefits while mitigating its harms.”

NPR.org / Tom Goldman

Digging deep into local news, a small newspaper in rural Oregon is thriving →

“‘Boomed’ is a relative term when it comes to a rural weekly. Paid subscriptions are at about 2,000. But during a recent week, more than a third of Malheur County’s roughly 30,000 residents read the paper’s online edition. And advertising dollars, the lifeblood of a small newspaper, are way up.”

International News Media Association / Siri Holstad Johannessen and Madeleine Reuterdahl

How Schibsted marketed a “low-interest product” (corporate subscriptions) for Aftenposten →

“Schibsted saw over time that more companies cancelled or reduced the number of subscriptions of the print newspaper edition without realizing they could switch to a digital subscription.”

Better News / Mindy Marquez and Rick Hirsch

How recasting the “online producer” job helped the Miami Herald focus on audience and mission →

“The Miami Herald rewrote job descriptions for online producers — turning their role into ‘growth editors’ — and empowered them to work with editors and reporters to focus on audience in assigning, reporting and producing stories.”

Digiday / Lucinda Southern

The Economist CEO is leaving in latest executive depature →

“Stibbs' exit follows that of around 15 people across the media and circulation teams in the U.S. and U.K., while total staff across the media and circulation teams is roughly 400 people. Globally The Economist has closer to 1,300, according to sources at the publisher.”

The New York Times / Azam Ahmed

A journalist was killed in Mexico — then the Mexican government allegedly tried to hack his colleagues →

“A new government comes into office in the next week, arriving on a wave of popular support. But whether the status of journalists will change in the country, and whether their targeting and abuse, and state overreach will subside, is an open question.”

Recode / Maria Ressa and Kara Swisher

Memo from a “Facebook nation” to Mark Zuckerberg: You moved fast and broke our country. →

"I said, 'Mark, 97 percent of Filipinos on the internet are on Facebook,'" Ressa recalled. "I invited him to come to the Philippines because he had to see the impact of this. You have to understand the impact … He was frowning while I was saying that. I said, 'Why, why?' He said, 'Oh well. What are the other 3 percent doing, Maria?'"

Columbia Journalism Review / Jon Allsop

Under the skin of ICIJ’s Implant Files →

“When ICIJ published the Panama Papers in 2016, its collaborative model seemed like a bold departure from the old logic of fierce competition. Two years later, pooling resources across organizations no longer feels so novel.”

The Conversation / Damian Radcliffe

How local journalism can upend the “fake news” narrative →

“Research shows, however, that audiences don't just want local news outlets to be watchdogs. They want them to be a ‘good neighbor’ too. Local journalists are often the only journalists that most people will ever meet. So they play a significant role in how the wider profession is perceived.”

Selasa, 27 November 2018

To improve local TV news, ABC’s stations are betting on a Localish brand and community-level hires: The latest from Nieman Lab

Monday, November 26, 2018

To improve local TV news, ABC’s stations are betting on a Localish brand and community-level hires

“The reality is we do not have folks who are embedded in the communities they serve who actually are responsible for telling these stories.” ABC is making local hires as one step to try to fix that. By Christine Schmidt.

New data suggests African audiences see significantly more misinformation than Americans do

More than a quarter of Kenyans and Nigerians surveyed said they had shared stories that they knew were made up. By Herman Wasserman and Dani Madrid-Morales.

Canada introduces a $595 million package in support of journalism

What We’re Reading

Nieman Foundation

December 1 is the (rapidly approaching!) deadline for non-U.S. citizens to apply for a Nieman Fellowship →

Still time for a hustling journalist to get that application done. (U.S. citizens have until January 31.)

CNN Business / Jill Disis

How NYT Cooking amassed 120,000 subscriptions in a year and a half →

“In addition to the 120,000 paid subscriptions, the Times says about three million people now subscribe to its main Cooking newsletter, which doesn’t require a subscription. It has also grown its recipe library to about 19,000.”

Digiday / Max Willens

The Washington Post’s new 20-minute daily news podcast (launching Dec. 3) will wrap in late afternoon →

“While the Post said that the producers will not be held to download targets, the Post's sales team has big plans for Post Reports. It is estimating 1 million downloads per episode, according to an advertising rate card shared with Digiday.”

CNN Business / Zahraa Alkhalisi

Fox launches TV streaming service with Saudi media group →

“Fox’s streaming service, which is already available in southeast Asia and parts of Latin America, will be offered in 24 countries on MBC’s Shahid Plus platform.” ESPN and Disney lost subscribers this year, according to a Disney filing.

BuzzFeed News / Pranav Dixit

WhatsApp finally hires a head for India, the company’s largest market, responsible for monetizing and misinformation-fighting →

“WhatsApp has been under fire in India for its role in spreading misinformation and hoaxes that caused violent mobs to kill at least 29 people this year, and has been criticized repeatedly by India's government for not doing enough to find a solution to the problem.”

Recode / Kara Swisher and Jameel Jaffer

Should the First Amendment apply to Facebook? It’s complicated. →

“The First Amendment is concerned principally with government power, but we resisted the centralization of control over the public square in the government because we didn't like the idea of centralization of that kind of power. Maybe we should resist the idea of centralizing power in the social media companies for the same reason.”

Digiday / Max Willens

How BuzzFeed and The New York Times used Black Friday to drive commerce revenue →

“The start of the shopping season is an all-hands-on-deck situation for Wirecutter, when staffers across the organization comb through tens of thousands of deals to figure out which ones are worth sharing with readers. Last year, it had 65 people across editorial, product and other departments pitching in; this year, it will have ‘around 100,’ Wirecutter deals editor Adam Burakowski said.”

Monday Note / Frederic Filloux

By pushing the "link tax" on Google, publishers are shooting themselves in the foot three times over →

“Until today, Google had maintained a tough ‘we-will-never-pay-for-snippets’ stance. Except that now, the obligation is carved in European law, reigniting the fantasy of European publishers of a looming windfall.”

Washington Post / Margaret Sullivan

Sean Hannity, Chris Wallace and why Trump wants to control follow-up questions →

“— the very definition of lame —”

the Guardian / Carole Cadwalladr

The U.K. seized a cache of Facebook internal papers, still frustrated over Cambridge Analytica →

“The documents seized were obtained during a legal discovery process by Six4Three. It took action against the social media giant after investing $250,000 in an app. Six4Three alleges the cache shows Facebook was not only aware of the implications of its privacy policy, but actively exploited them, intentionally creating and effectively flagging up the loophole that Cambridge Analytica used to collect data. That raised the interest of Collins and his committee.”

The New york Times / Patrick Kingsley and Benjamin Novak

Four years after reminding Hungary it still had a free press, this news site was forced into a media booster →

“Origo's editors were never imprisoned and its reporters were never beaten up. But in secret meetings — including a pivotal one in Vienna — the website's original owner, a German-owned telecommunications company, relented. The company, Magyar Telekom, first tried self-censorship. Then it sought a nonpartisan buyer. But, ultimately, Origo went to the family of Mr. Orban's former finance minister.”

TechCrunch / Josh Constine

LinkedIn launches its own Snapchat Stories. Here’s why it shouldn’t have →

“LinkedIn confirms to TechCrunch that it plans to build Stories for more sets of users, but first it's launching ‘Student Voices’ just for university students in the U.S. The feature appears atop the LinkedIn home screen and lets students post short videos to their Campus Playlist. The videos (no photos allowed) disappear from the playlist after a week while staying permanently visible on a user's own profile in the Recent Activity section.”

Rabu, 21 November 2018

Is it finally time for media companies to adopt a common publishing platform?: The latest from Nieman Lab

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Is it finally time for media companies to adopt a common publishing platform?

Media companies are each independently trying to solve the same technical problems, rather than focusing on competing with Facebook. Is the usual answer to “buy or build?” changing? By Jesse Knight.

New limited-run podcasts are fun to listen to, but hard to sell. Can that change?

Plus: How the BBC is decentralizing political podcasting, and the battle of the Thanksgiving afternoon podcasts. By Nicholas Quah.

Polarizing the network: The most interesting new digital and social media research

Journalist's Resource sifts through the academic journals so you don't have to. Here's their latest roundup, including research into how Twitter impacts reporters’ news judgment, how often we remember where we read something, and why Facebook makes you feel bad. By Denise-Marie Ordway.

Artisanal vs. industrial: A look at approaches to content moderation

What We’re Reading

Washington Post / Margaret Sullivan

Embattled and in over his head, Mark Zuckerberg should — at least — step down as Facebook chairman →

“If Zuckerberg really wants to be ‘responsible for what happened here,’ he'll step aside as chairman and encourage some stringent internal oversight. And, as part of that, true transparency to the public and the press.”

Pacific Standard / Sophie Yeo

Why the decline of newspapers is bad for the environment →

“New research suggests that corporations pollute more when there aren’t local papers to hold them accountable.”

Washington Post / Philip Bump

Cable news networks spend far more time talking about hurricanes than wildfires →

“The Camp Fire is the deadliest fire in the history of California. On Fox News and MSNBC, the peak density of coverage through Sunday has never matched the lowest density of coverage on those networks in the first two weeks after the formation of Hurricane Irma in 2017.”

New York Times / Jaclyn Peiser

Glamour magazine to cease regular print publication →

“Although the number of Glamour's paid subscribers has remained stable over the last three years, at around 2.2 million, [Samantha] Barry said it was time for the publication to break away from the printed page.”

CNN / Kaya Yurieff

Instagram tries to crack down on fake likes, follows, and comments →

“Instagram said it built machine learning tools to help detect and remove fake popularity boosting. Users can sign up for such services by providing their username and password in exchange for more likes and followers. These services use bots that leave comments and like posts on real Instagram accounts, often for a fee.”

New York Times / Jolie Kerr

How to talk to people, according to Terry Gross →

“The beauty in opening with ‘tell me about yourself’ is that it allows you to start a conversation without the fear that you're going to inadvertently make someone uncomfortable or self-conscious. Posing a broad question lets people lead you to who they are.”

Business Insider / Bryan Logan

How Blavity is redefining the media world by helping African-American millennials “tell their own story” →

Blavity “closed a $6.5 million Series A round with Google Ventures in July, bringing its total venture investment so far to $8.5 million. That’s an almost of unheard-of amount of money for an early-stage, black-owned startup, much less a new digital publication — especially one with a young, black, female CEO, Morgan DeBaun, Samuels’ cofounder.”

Vox / Ezra Klein

The case for slowing everything down a bit →

“Our digital lives dispense with friction. We get the answers we seek instantly, we keep up with friends without speaking to them, we get the news as it happens, we watch loops of videos an algorithm chose for us, we click once and get any product in the world delivered to our doorsteps in less than two days.”

Digiday / Tim Peterson

Quartz forms Quartz AI Studio with $250k grant from Knight Foundation →

“Quartz will use the $249,000 grant from the Knight Foundation to hire a developer and a producer to join the Quartz AI Studio alongside John Keefe, technical architect for bots and machine learning at Quartz. Quartz expects to make those hires in time to begin working on stories in January, said Keefe.”

Poynter / Rick Edmonds

ASNE diversity survey: meager participation but progress among those reporting →

“Some told me that they have been barely able to hire the last five years and were… embarrassed to show their numbers.” Among 1,700 organizations surveyed, 293 responded, far below the 661 organizations that returned surveys last year.