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Friday, May 3, 2019
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“This world is just falling apart”: How actual news consumers grapple with fake news and (sometimes) tune out“Even facts are opinions.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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Journalists know they need to get better with data and statistics, but they have a long way to goOnly 25 percent of journalists surveyed said they were “very” well equipped to interpret statistics from sources, and only 11 percent said the same about doing statistical analysis themselves. By John Wihbey. |
What We’re Reading
TechCrunch / Sarah Perez
Spotify launches voice-enabled ads on mobile devices in a limited US test →
“When the ad runs, it will encourage users to check out the content by saying ‘Play Now’ and give the listener time to respond. If the user says anything else except ‘Play Now,’ a tone will sound and the mic is turned off. The ad break then continues as usual.”
Wall Street Journal / Benjamin Mullin and Sarah Krouse
Verizon, trying to steady its media group, looks to unload Tumblr →
“It is unclear how much Verizon might get for Tumblr, a free service with more than 400 million blogs. Yahoo paid about $1.1 billion for the New York-based site in 2013.”
Press Gazette / Freddy Mayhew
An all-party parliamentary group on U.K. press freedom will launch this year →
“Former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale MP will chair the APPG, which has been set up by press freedom campaign group Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres). The APPG aims to involve MPs from all political parties and will ‘focus on promoting and defending press freedom both in the UK and globally,’ RSF said.”
Business Insider / Rob Price
Facebook tried to turn a ban of far-right figures into a PR opportunity, but it backfired →
“The company also briefed a handful of news outlets under embargo in advance of the announcements, including The Washington Post and The Atlantic. But when the articles were published, many of the accounts were still up — giving some of the targeted figures the opportunity to warn their followers of their impending ban, and to direct them to follow them on other platforms.”
Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas / Teresa Mioli
World Press Freedom Day (today!) focuses on “journalism and elections in times of disinformation” →
“This is the 26th year that WPFD is celebrated around the globe since it was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993.”
Digiday / Jessica Davies
Publishers, ad tech vendors are (finally) content with GDPR standards version 2.0 →
“One of the biggest areas of contention has been around how data processors like Google and other ad tech vendors, can use publisher user information. The current version of the framework has five definitions for how vendors can use that publisher information, which publishers criticized for being too vague and at risk of being too broadly interpreted by vendors.”
NBC News / Dylan Byers
The Athletic is getting into original video →
“The Athletic will launch original video on May 8 and release videos every week in various formats, including multi-part series. The videos will come from more than a dozen independent producers with experience at places like NBC Sports, CBS Sports and ESPN. The videos will be exclusive to subscribers and live behind the paywall, like the vast majority of The Athletic’s written content.”
Twitter / Cecilia D'Anastasio
Gizmodo’s new owners have dissolved its Special Projects investigative desk →
A private equity firm bought Gizmodo Media Group from Univision last month.
Media Matters / Matt Gertz and Rob Savillo
Study: Major media outlets’ Twitter accounts amplify false Trump claims on average 19 times a day →
“The Hill was the worst actor and sent more than 40% of the tweets that pushed Trump's misinformation without disputing it during our entire study.”
Nieman Foundation
Here are the 2020 Nieman Fellows →
Meet the 27 Nieman fellows in the class of 2020.
The Advocate / Advocate Staff
New Orleans Advocate buys Times-Picayune and nola.com and will merge them into one newspaper and one website →
Many Times-Picayune and nola.com employees will be laid off.