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Wednesday, April 17, 2019
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With corgis, chickens, and kitchen reveals, the NYT Cooking Community Facebook group is a “happy corner of the internet”“It’s useful to us to see what people keep on their counters. Do they have their pots and pans hanging or tucked away? It’s a neat window into their lives.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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Is it okay for a journalist to block a critic — not a troll, just a critic — on Twitter?The latest round in the eternal fight over social media boundaries. By Joshua Benton. |
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A cognitive scientist explains why humans are so susceptible to fake news and misinformation“We might like to think of our memory as an archivist that carefully preserves events, but sometimes it’s more like a storyteller.” By Julian Matthews. |
What We’re Reading
The New York Times / Daisuke Wakabayashi
YouTube is a cesspool of chaos, with a CEO who has faced much less scrutiny than other platforms →
“Last year, when other social media executives were summoned to Congress for a scolding, [Susan Wojcicki] was not invited. She stayed home and campaigned against a new European Union law that could hold services like YouTube liable if their users upload copyrighted content…. For every minute Ms. Wojcicki spent discussing [taking down a viral challenge video], users uploaded to the site an additional 500 hours of footage.”
Washington Post / Jonathan O'Connell
Alden Global Capital faces a federal probe after investing $250M of newspaper workers’ pensions in its own funds →
“Thousands of former newspaper reporters, editors, photographers and printing press workers — some of whom lost their jobs because of staff cuts at Alden papers — became again beholden to the hedge fund because it controlled their retirement savings.”
The Conversation / Anjana Susarla
The new digital divide is between people who opt out of algorithms and people who don’t →
“The savvier users are navigating away from devices and becoming aware of how algorithms affect their lives. Meanwhile, consumers who have less information are relying even more on algorithms to guide their decisions.”
Common Dreams / Michael Winship
Former commissioner Michael Copps thinks Trump is trying to put the FCC “out of business” →
“They're trying to get rid of every rule and regulation they ever had that had to do with broadcast…I think we're in danger and a lot of that goes back to the federal policy of encouraging all of these mergers, the big media giants, half a dozen of them, coming in and buying up community stations, closing the newsroom, shuttering it, throwing reporters out on the streets.”
Vox / Sarah Kliff
After Vox’s ER bill stories, Zuckerberg Hospital is overhauling its aggressive billing tactics →
“The hospital has for years made the rare decision to be out of network with all private health insurance plans. This created an acute problem for patients like like Nina Dang, 24, who made an unexpected trip to the hospital's emergency room, the largest in San Francisco. An ambulance took Dang to the trauma center after a bike accident last April. She is insured by a Blue Cross plan, but she didn't know that the ER does not accept insurance. She received a bill for $20,243. After the Vox story ran, the hospital reduced Dang's bill to $200, the copay listed on her insurance card.”
Medill Local News Initative / Mark Jacobs
Why the Chicago Tribune made a quiz for readers on which mayoral candidate they aligned most with →
“The feature was a major winner in converting readers into subscribers, and was also popular among our existing subscribers.”
Business Insider / Lucia Moses
The Information may introduce ads, on top of its high-priced subscriptions, this year →
Founder Jessica Lessin “said she sees an opportunity to match The Information’s readers with advertisements in its newsletters for things like jobs and events, information that the audience is interested in, just not ‘flashing banner ads.'”
Reuters / Aditya Kalra and Sudarshan Varadhan
Chinese app TikTok (megapopular in many markets, including the U.S.) is removed from Google and Apple app stores in India →
“A court in southern Tamil Nadu state asked the federal government on April 3 to ban TikTok, saying it encouraged pornography and warning that sexual predators could target child users.”
Thinknum Media / Joshua Fruhlinger
Hiring is up 208% at BuzzFeed since its layoffs →
“It’s the first sign that BuzzFeed has its new move-forward strategy in place after having shucked the employees that were no longer part of its future…. Of the 77 openings, 12 are tagged as ‘Editorial’, behind only ‘Sales’ with 16 open headcounts.” Three are at BuzzFeed News.