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Wednesday, February 27, 2019
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A hotline for racists, a gun control app for “a**holes”: The New York Times is taking its opinion video coverage in a new, YouTube direction“We’re trying to be a platform for voices that you wouldn’t ordinarily read in text at the Times.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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A tax on digital ad spend (*cough* Facebook and Google) could bring in $2 billion for journalismFree Press is suggesting an analog to a carbon tax on fossil fuels — but atoning for the attention economy’s perils instead of climate change. By Christine Schmidt. |
What We’re Reading
The Hollywood Reporter / Jeremy Barr
Pressured by its staff’s union, Vox Media won’t enforce any of the mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts →
“An editorial manager at the company said that Vox management’s decision was ‘pre-empting a union petition.'” (The change doesn’t apply to contractors.)
The Washington Post / Margaret Sullivan
Decades of investigative reporting couldn’t touch R. Kelly. It took a Lifetime TV series and a hashtag. →
“All of the systems failed — journalism failed, the police failed, the courts failed, the music industry failed, parents failed.”
Observer / Luke Ottenhof
How media layoffs are shaping — and enforcing — the nature of freelance labor →
“‘The editor gets fired or laid off, and the freelancers suffer. They're all sent scattering around.’ He explained that it's a self-perpetuating cycle: ‘They're never going to replace that editor, so they're going to use more freelancers to fill in that labor—the same freelancers that they're screwing over.'”
Digiday / Max Willens
Publishers are growing frustrated by the lack of revenue from Apple News →
“Today, publishers are still having trouble selling their Apple News inventory directly, sources said. Three cited Apple News's limited user targeting, which doesn't allow the use of third-party data or IP addresses, as reasons for them being unable to sell a meaningful amount of ads on Apple News. A fourth source cited Apple News's incompatibility with the publisher's current sales strategy, which relies heavily on programmatic advertising, which Apple News prohibits, as a reason for seeing minimal ad revenue from the platform.”
BuzzFeed News / Mark Di Stefano
The Guardian is backing a former Vogue editor’s Instagram Stories-based news startup →
“Details of the startup called #ThisMuchIKnow were outlined in an email to 20 journalists and editors sent by Sheffield – a writer and editor who left British Vogue in 2016 and now writes a weekly column in the London Evening Standard… Her startup has been posting from the handle @thismuchiknowglobal for several months, including to Instagram Stories with a daily ‘briefing’ of pictures, polls, and videos.”
USA Today / David Jackson
White House press corps is booted from Kim Jong Un’s hotel →
“Objections by Kim and his security personnel appear to have forced organizers to move the White House press filing center from the hotel where the North Korean leader is staying…. NBC News reporter Peter Alexander reported that he and other journalists were told to leave the lobby just before Kim arrived, and told not to use the elevator because that would require them to step on the red carpet that had been rolled out for Kim.”
Los Angeles Times / Meg James
After detaining Jorge Ramos, Venezuela holds a Telemundo reporter for six hours →
Daniel “Garrido is the Venezuela correspondent for Telemundo, the Spanish-language network owned by media giant NBCUniversal. Telemundo said Tuesday that Garrido was grabbed by unidentified gunmen and driven to an undisclosed location…. Ramos was deported and returned to Miami on Tuesday. His detention made headlines in the U.S., and Garrido was covering that story.”
Twitter / Benjamin Mullin
New York Media is no longer exploring a sale →
“Speaking at a town hall meeting for company employees earlier this month, New York Media Chief Executive Pam Wasserstein said the company wasn’t for sale, according to the people. She said the company had engaged in some discussions with potential partners.”
Digiday / Lucinda Southern
The Economist tightens its paywall from 3 articles/week to 5/month →
“At the end of January, the subscription publisher changed its metered access after six months of testing. Reader research found that on average people either read five articles before subscribing or they sign up right away. And a high content threshold would allow potential subscribers to slip through the net and never hit the paywall.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Tiffany Stevens
One way to improve coverage of the US-Mexico border? Move there →
“Our view was not to really focus on any one place, but to have eyes and ears on the border 24/7, so that we can start seeing the stories that you only get when you live, work, eat and breathe in a place. It's not going to be a full-time thing forever, but for now, at a time when you almost can't pitch me a border story that I don't want, it worked out well for us.”
Variety / Janko Roettgers
Spotify soft-launches in India →
“Earlier on Tuesday, Spotify revealed the pricing for its service in India, which is far below what the company is charging consumers elsewhere. Its premium service will be free for 30 days and then will be 119 rupees (around $1.67) per month.”
TechCrunch / Sarah Perez
The Skimm, a morning newsletter company, launches a (daily) evening podcast →
“The podcasting expansion comes at time when theSkimm's growth for its newsletter business appears to have leveled off. Last May, when the company reported its $12 million Series C funding round with big names like Shonda Rhimes and Tyra Banks attached, it said its daily newsletter reached around 7 million subscribers. That's roughly the same figure it's reporting today.”
