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Tuesday, February 12, 2019
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A major British government review proposes some light regulation of Google and Facebook (and perhaps new limits on the BBC)“For a society to have ready access to high-quality news is essential not just for the moment, but for the long-term sustainability of democracy.” By Joshua Benton. |
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In Liverpool, a football podcast has grown into a real media company — based mostly on listener payment, not advertisingPlus: Slow Burn heads to TV, MeUndies prove podcast advertising works, and Morning Edition changes its tune. By Nicholas Quah. |
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With Supporting Cast, Slate wants to build the paid-membership layer of podcastingAs Spotify tries to ramp up a podcasting-as-closed-garden model, Slate wants to offer some of that approach’s benefits while remaining open. By Nicholas Quah. |
What We’re Reading
Wall Street Journal / Ben Mullin, Lukas Alpert, and Tripp Mickle
Publishers chafe at Apple’s terms for subscription news service →
“In its pitch to some news organizations, [Apple] has said it would keep about half of the subscription revenue from the service,” according to unidentified sources.
TechCrunch
TechCrunch launches “Extra Crunch,” a membership program for $15/month or $150/year →
“Extra Crunch membership offers exclusive access to analysis of successful startups, resources on company building, lists of verified experts in key services, enhanced reader tools, conference calls and more.”
Thinknum / Joshua Fruhlinger
BuzzFeed and Vice layoffs show ugly trend in employee count data →
“In the past month, BuzzFeed dropped from 2,330 employees to 2,200. Since July, Vice Media shrunk from 3,450 to 3,356 employees, this all according to employee count data tracked via LinkedIn.”
NPR / Avie Schneider
Another Tribune Publishing newsroom, Hartford Courant, petitions to unionize →
“The move at the Courant follows similar successful efforts at the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the combined newsrooms of The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., and the Daily Press in Newport News, Va. (The parent company, previously named Tronc, subsequently sold the LA Times to a billionaire investor.) The union would cover about 60 reporters, editors and photographers at the Courant.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Elizabeth Hansen and Elizabeth Watkins
News media needs to convince readers to open their wallets. Consolidation has not helped →
“Our data suggest that publishers whose corporate structures house product and analytics functions in centralized parts of the organization, even while their newsrooms are decentralized, have difficulty fostering the kind of on-the-ground, close-to-the-reader collaboration between disciplines needed to make a reader revenue strategy really work.”
Washington Post / Jonathan O'Connell and Emma Brown
A hedge fund’s “mercenary” strategy: Buy newspapers, slash jobs, sell the buildings →
“While Gannett is resistant to Alden's hostile bid for the company's newspapers, Gannett has already sold at least six of its buildings — at least five of them within the past year — to Twenty Lake Holdings or an affiliate, according to property records. In some instances, Twenty Lake has already extracted higher prices for Gannett's real estate than Gannett did.” Twenty Lake Holdings is, surprise, part of Alden.
BuzzFeed News / Ryan Broderick
A secret Facebook group of male French journalists has been coordinating harassment against women →
“The LOL League started as a Facebook group in 2009 by journalist Vincent Glad, who now works at one of France’s largest newspapers, Libération. The group operated as a shitposting space for people in French journalism and advertising who were popular on Twitter. The current controversy started when Slate France journalist Thomas Messias tweeted cryptically last week about a ‘model reporter’ who ‘used to have fun in a pack of feminist stalkers.'”
Digiday / Aditi Sangal
The Washington Post’s director of ad tech: You can’t solve transparency by adding more technology →
“There's a point at which you have to say you're ready to give up a level of potential earnings in order to make our systems transparent and clear and to make sure you're not ending up as vectors for stuff that's to the detriment of users from a publisher's level or an advertiser's level,” Aram Zucker-Scharff said.
Slate / Matthew Dessem
Slate’s Slow Burn podcast is becoming a TV show →
“Since it launched in November of 2017, Slow Burn has become one of Slate's most popular podcasts, most recently winning Best Podcast at the first iHeartRadio Podcast Awards. Neyfakh and Parsons have since left Slate to start independent podcast studio Prologue Projects, where Neyfakh is developing Fiasco, a podcast whose first season will focus on the 2000 presidential election.”
WIRED / Antonio García Martínez
Journalism isn’t dying — it’s returning to its non-objective roots →
“A resurrected Franklin wouldn't have a news job inside The Washington Post; he'd have an anonymous Twitter account with a huge following that he'd use to routinely troll political opponents, or a partisan vehicle built around himself like Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire, or an occasional columnist gig at a less partisan outlet like Politico, or a popular podcast where he'd shoot the political breeze with other Sons of Liberty, à la Chapo Trap House or Pod Save America.”
Poynter / Al Tompkins
Local TV viewers “fairly consistently chose depth over efficiency” in describing their ideal newscast →
“The viewers said they want stories that matter. They said they do not just want stories about something that didn't happen near them or does not affect their life. People told us that they view local TV cynically because they think that we are just going to throw video on TV because it is ‘good video.'”