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Friday, March 22, 2019
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The “backfire effect” is mostly a myth, a broad look at the research suggestsPlus: Instagram is fertile ground for conspiracy theories, Apple gives to media literacy, and a terror attack comes with its own media strategy. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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After New Zealand, is it time for Facebook Live to be shut down?“It's past time for the company to step up and fulfill the promise founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made two years ago: ‘We will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening.'” By Jennifer Grygiel. |
What We’re Reading
What's New in Publishing / Monojoy Bhattacharjee
YouTube makes up 37% of all mobile Internet data usage →
Beating out Facebook (10.9%), Snapchat (8.3%), Instagram (5.7%), all web browsing (4.6%), WhatsApp (3.7%), Netflix (2.4%), and the Apple (2.1%) and Google (1.9%) app stores.
CNN / Oliver Darcy
How Twitter’s algorithm is amplifying extreme political rhetoric →
“Over the last several months, Twitter has begun inserting what it believes to be relevant and popular tweets into the feeds of people who do not subscribe to the accounts that posted them…Some tweets contain extreme political rhetoric and/or advance conspiracy theories…exposing users on the platform to radical content they may otherwise have not encountered.”
The New York Times / Brian X. Chen
“I deleted Facebook last year. Here’s what changed (and what didn’t).” →
“Over the past five months, my online shopping purchases dropped about 43 percent.”
PolitiFact
PolitiFact partners with Noticias Telemundo to bring fact-checking in Spanish for 2020 election →
“PolitiFact reporters and editors will be made available to Telemundo for on-air interviews, and Noticias Telemundo will be able to send statements for PolitiFact to fact-check for Spanish-language audiences. The two organizations also will collaborate to translate PolitiFact fact-checks into Spanish for use both online and on TV, including Noticias Telemundo and the broader NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises.”
Bloomberg / Mark Gurman
Apple signs Vox for news subscription service →
“Vox Media doesn't currently offer subscriptions to its content, but CEO Jim Bankoff said this month at the South by Southwest conference he would add a subscription model later this year with membership tiers.”
J-Source / Angela Long
A millennial buys the local paper →
“After applying for jobs at places like the local car dealership, Bushman's father called, telling him about an ad in the Watrous Manitou. They were looking for a reporter. Bushman drove the 106 kilometres to Watrous for an interview. A few weeks later, he was learning how to transform 30-second radio-style stories — ‘a lede, an audio clip, and then you're out,’ he says — into newspaper-length articles. After five years, owners Robin and Nicole Lay asked if he and his wife Kim wanted to purchase the paper. The Lays wanted to continue the tradition of a ‘family-owned business,’ says Bushman, which began in 1933 with James and Mildred McGowan.”
American Press Institute / Susan Benkelman and Daniel Funke
Fact-checkers gear up for elections in Europe, partnering on FactCheckEU →
“The misinformation ecosystem in Europe has some specificities. For instance, it's much less money-driven than some of the misinformation you have in North America — simply because, if you're looking to maximize profit, you're not going to open a blog of fake stories on Lithuanian or Danish politics. But the fact that the EU has so many languages poses other challenges.”
Reuters / Kenneth Li and Helen Coster
New York Times CEO warns publishers ahead of Apple News launch →
“A monthly digital subscription to the New York Times costs $15, and Thompson said he has no plans to give that up to participate on other platforms such as Apple's.”