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Friday, January 4, 2019
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2019: A year when fake news gets intimate and everyone disagrees on everythingPredictions and looks back. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
YouTube / The Economist Group
The Economist made its first brand TV ad in more than a decade →
“‘We have made a strategic investment to talk with our target audience in a way that reinforces a more emotional connection to our brand,’ said Mark Cripps, Chief Marketing Officer for The Economist.” (The New York Times also returned to brand TV ads recently.)
Axios / Sara Fischer
The cable channel cull has begun →
“The rise of cord-cutting (people ditching cable packages for cheaper digital options) is beginning to reduce financial margins at cable and satellite providers, and channels that aren’t driving a lot of viewership are paying the price.”
Digiday / Max Willens
Forbes is “testing a tool that writes rough versions of articles that contributors can simply polish up” →
“The tools are not designed to produce something that a contributor or reporter would feel comfortable publishing as is. Instead, [Forbes Media CDO Salah] Zalatimo said, they are more like thought-starters, designed to get contributors' creative juices flowing.”
Grist / Eric Holthaus
Meet the Press spent its last episode of 2018 on climate change — without airtime for deniers →
“If you break down the 60-minute episode, solutions-focused politicians took up most of the time.”
Editor and Publisher / Nu Yang
“Our paper has been sold four times in eight years”: Local news executives on their focuses for 2019 →
“Q: What is on your wish list for 2019? A: No hurricanes, no recession and no major retailers going out of business.”
First Draft / Claire Wardle
How to report in an age of disinformation →
“This might be when a false piece of information or content is embedded in an article or quoted in a story without adequate verification. But it might also be when a newsroom decides to publish a debunk or expose the primary source of a conspiracy. Either way, the agents of disinformation have won.”
BBC News
The internet shut down in key cities in the Democratic Republic of Congo a day after the presidential election →
“President Joseph Kabila is stepping down after 17 years in office. He has promised DR Congo’s first orderly transfer of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960.”
Intelligencer / Max Read
How much of the Internet is fake? “Year after year, less than 60 percent of web traffic is human” →
“Otherwise we'll all end up on the bot internet of fake people, fake clicks, fake sites, and fake computers, where the only real thing is the ads.”
The Verge / T.C. Sottek
AT&T wants to trademark “Verge TV” and The Verge isn’t thrilled about it →
“A few days before filing the trademark, we noted that AT&T plans to bully its way to streaming domination, and a flurry of new streaming services could be part of that plan. We just didn't know that bullying would feel so personal.”
Axios / Kendall Baker
Axios is launching a sports site →
But Be smart:
Business Insider / Lucia Moses
3 top tech and product executives at Axios have left in quick succession →
“While Axios had a product-focused mission, had product execs from the start, and built its own content management system, tensions arose between people on the technical side and the founders over how that mission would get carried out, three former employees said.” Completely unrelated, I’m sure, is this Nieman Lab prediction from Alexis Lloyd and Matt Boggie, two of those three exiting execs: “In 2018, we've seen the acceleration of trends in which older, advertising-centric, scale-driven media models are becoming less and less sustainable, while user-centered, product-focused approaches gain traction…This shift has been challenging for many media companies because they tend to be led by people with backgrounds in editorial and advertising — practices that are inherently reactive, opportunistic, and ephemeral.”
The Washington Post / Lavanya Ramanathan
Women’s magazines are dying. Will we miss them when they’re gone? →
“The magazine industry as a whole has been belt-tightening for years thanks to a print advertising famine, eliminating costly paper copies while trying to establish a beachhead on the Internet. Yet women's publications somehow feel much more endangered than the rest, especially now that even the woke online upstarts that once aimed to replace them — sites such as the Hairpin, Rookie and the Toast — are themselves turning off the lights.”
Fast Company / Marcus Baram
The New York Times’ publisher drafted a letter “all but apologizing” to China for a story on corruption there →
In 2012, right when the Times was launching a Chinese-language edition. (The Times says Jill Abramson’s version of events “isn't accurate.”)