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Friday, November 16, 2018
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Notifications every 2 minutes: This in-depth look at how people really use WhatsApp shows why fighting fake news there is so hard“In India, citizens actively seem to be privileging breadth of information over depth…Indians at this moment are not themselves articulating any kind of anxiety about dealing with the flood of information in their phones.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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Facebook probably didn’t want to be denying it paid people to create fake news this week, but here we arePlus: WhatsApp pays for misinformation research and a look at fake midterm-related accounts (“heavy on memes, light on language”). By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
Talking Biz News / Chris Roush
Q&A: New WSJ editor Matt Murray focused on great journalism, diversity, younger readers →
“When we revamped the leadership team last year, we took into account having greater gender and ethnic diversity. We were criticized internally a few years ago for not having women in leadership roles where they oversaw coverage. Now, in our six key coverage drivers, half of the leaders in the U.S. are women. And half of our bureau chiefs are women”
Columbia Journalism Review / Kyle Pope
What we learned from the CJR newsstand in midtown →
“It was notable how many people slowed down, read the ridiculous headlines, and kept walking, assuming they were real. That was an unexpected, but telling, commentary on the news environment we live in.”
J-Source / Peter Goffin
Are community reporters earning reader confidence? Canadians aren’t sure. →
“Rightly or wrongly, the media can be treated as a monolith, especially when it comes to the belief that we're not doing our jobs correctly. There is an onus on the journalists who have the most contact with our audiences to put the industry's best foot forward.”
Engadget / Mariella Moon
Twitter’s Explore tab starts sorting stories into sections →
“Now, when you visit the tab from an iPhone or an iPad, you’ll see sections such as News, Sports, Fun and Entertainment at the top.”
Hapgood / Mike Caulfield
Is media literacy more about knowing to doubt bad information — or to trust good information? →
“How the students do this is not rocket science of course. They become more trusting because rather than relying on the surface features and innate plausibility of the prompts, they check what others say — Snopes, Wikipedia, Google News. If they find overwhelming consensus there, or reams of linked evidence on the reliability of the source, they make the call.”
Bloomberg / Gerry Smith
BuzzFeed will tell you what millennials want, for a fee →
“[Ben] Kaufman's 65-person team has generated about $50 million in sales this year from deals combining commerce and advertising, according to a person familiar with the matter…Typically, brands pay BuzzFeed to help develop a product and then agree to spend money advertising on its site. BuzzFeed may also take a cut of the sales.”
Pew Research Center / Aaron Smith
The public isn’t cool with a lot of the things algorithms handle →
“58% of Americans feel that computer programs will always reflect some level of human bias — although 40% think these programs can be designed in a way that is bias-free…the public worries that these tools might violate privacy, fail to capture the nuance of complex situations, or simply put the people they are evaluating in an unfair situation.”
NAJA
Native American Journalists Association urges the Muscogee (Creek) Nation to reinstate press freedom →
“…the repeal of the free press act is a direct attack on a fundamental Indigenous right…From holding the powerful accountable to disseminating stories of cultural significance, a free and independent Indigenous press supports the goals of tribal nations by providing an open public forum for community voices.”