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Thursday, February 28, 2019
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Your favorite way to get around The New York Times paywall might be about to go awayPublishers are increasingly blocking those who use incognito mode to sneak around their paywalls. But browser makers may have the last laugh. By Joshua Benton. |
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“Local leads to trust”: The examples shared and pledges made at the Knight Media Forum“The shorter the distance between our neighbors and our news, the stronger our community.” By Christine Schmidt. |
What We’re Reading
Digiday / Kerry Flynn
The NBA has 3.8 million fans on TikTok →
“The NBA has a team of several employees (the league wouldn't specify how many) dedicated to the app and posts five to six videos per day…During All-Star Weekend, the NBA garnered more than 44 million views on its TikTok videos, according to the league.” (This Steph Curry dunk got 83,000 likes and 700 comments.)
The Information / Jessica Toonkel and Tom Dotan
Spotify has hired a TV veteran to help expand its podcast business →
Liz Gateley, a longtime Viacom executive, will “help expand its podcast offerings in comedy, music, sports, news and documentaries.”
The New York Times / Nathaniel Popper and Mike Isaac
All the big messaging apps are trying to start cryptocurrencies →
Facebook (for WhatsApp), Signal, Telegram, Kakao, Line: “The messaging companies have a reach that dwarfs the backers of earlier cryptocurrencies. Facebook and Telegram can make the digital wallets used for cryptocurrencies available, in an instant, to hundreds of millions of users.”
Axios / Mike Allen
Weekly Standard and National Review staffers are starting a new “reporting-driven, Trump-skeptical” conservative news company →
And like all good 2019 news startups, they’re starting with email newsletters.
The Information
Here are the people with power at Apple (including over Apple News) →
According to this massive org chart published by The Information, authority in Apple News flows up from Lauren Kern (editor-in-chief) to Peter Stern (VP for services, which includes News, Books, Video, and Advertising Services) to Eddy Cue (SVP for Internet and Software Services) to Tim Cook.
The Guardian / Jim Waterson
The viral Momo challenge is a “moral panic created by adults” — and spread by the media →
“The NSPCC said there is no confirmed evidence that the phenomenon is actually posing a threat to British children and said they have received more phone calls about it from members of the media than concerned parents.”
Variety / Janko Roettgers
You can now view CNN on the Magic Leap AR headset, but the world’s greatest philosophers still cannot say why you’d want to →
Get this: It lets you see, in AR, a good-sized rectangular image that shows you live CNN news. If only there was some other good-sized rectangle in people’s homes that showed live CNN news! (Also, be prepared for “There goes CNN, augmenting reality again” jibes.)
The Atlantic / John Temple
The editor of the Rocky Mountain News ten years after its demise: Experiment, local media, or else →
“In the months, weeks, and even days leading up to the closure of the Rocky, I felt that its leaders needed to think much more radically about the stark financial situation before us. Taking steps to survive might be painful, but at least we'd be taking our best shot at success…. Fast-forward 10 years, and I still worry that journalists are not being radical enough about how to create vibrant local news organizations, without which the health of our communities will be at risk.”
European Journalism Centre / Stella Volkenand
Six tips on how to crowdfund successfully as a small-scale journalism project →
“Be painfully transparent. What is the money for? What will you do with it? Why can't you pay it yourself? Why does it have to be that much?”
Washington Post / Erik Martin
We need a PBS for the Internet age →
From a former policy advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy: “How can public media navigate the tricky matter of serving the public interest when their access to the public is through an algorithmic black box someone else owns entirely?”
Columbia Journalism Review / Betsy Morais
Remembering the media’s role in Michael Cohen’s testimony →
“Cohen's defense, pathetic as it sounds, seems a lot like ours. ‘Mr. Trump is an enigma," he said. "He is complicated, as am I. He has both good and bad, as do we all.’ The charges against him are different, to be sure, and significantly so. But to the extent that the press legitimized and fostered Trump, the reckoning is not over. The toxicity of Trump in the media will not, by the changing of seasons, be washed underground.”
TechCrunch / Taylor Hatmaker
Medium lowers its paywall for Twitter users →
Ev Williams: “‘As it stands, Twitter is a relatively small (but important) part of our traffic, and we expect this to have a positive effect.’ Part of that logic is likely the idea that bringing more people into Medium through Twitter will convert more paid readers.”
TechCrunch / Sarah Perez
Netflix may be losing $192M per month from account-sharing, this cord cutting study claims →
“Millennials, not surprisingly, account for much of the freeloading. They're the largest demographic pirating Netflix (18 percent) and Hulu's service (20 percent). But oddly, it was Baby Boomers who were more likely to borrow someone else's account to access Amazon Prime Video.”