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Friday, June 21, 2019
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“First-generation fact-checking” is no longer good enough. Here’s what comes nextPlus: Updates from GlobalFact 6 and The Verge’s Facebook content moderation expose No. 2. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
The Atlantic / David G. Bradley
The Atlantic’s president is leaving after 11 years for a Harvard fellowship →
“In Bob's tenure as president, we’ve grown from 180 staff to 440, from 15 million readers to 30+ million, from halting revenue growth to 60% growth over five years.”
The New York Times / Aidan Gardiner
Jessica Grose answers questions about The New York Times’ new parenting section →
“We're still figuring out the mix of service, policy and news. Right now, I'd say it's about 65 percent service with the other 35 percent made up of policy, news and essays. That may change as the site evolves.”
WAN-IFRA / Corinne Podger
Ideas to improve science and health journalism in an age of misinformation →
“At breakout sessions in Glasgow, the participants who represented more senior roles in newsrooms pointed out additional challenges, including the need to translate research from languages other than English, particularly Chinese and Russian, and to improve and broaden the use of reliable statistics to boost the credibility of reportage.”
Reveal
Reveal introduces a network for local outlets to use more of their investigations →
As explained in Byard Duncan’s tweet thread: “As a result, important stories go untold. Important communities get neglected. Important voices are never heard. An analogy I like to use for this problem: It’s like we take one bite out of a watermelon slice then throw the rest away. STOP WASTING WATERMELON!!!!”
Free Press / Timothy Karr
Oh, politics: New Jersey is getting close (again) to funding a local news consortium →
“It's imperative that Governor Murphy approve $2 million in funding for the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, especially because $5 million in funding was approved last year before the governor subsequently removed it.”
Reynolds Journalism Institute / Kat Duncan
Civil newsroom Colorado Sun on its first year: “Don't be afraid to ask for help” →
“We were surprised to see some of our Civil property colleagues last fall when their grants were running out saying ‘what do we do now?’ and that was kind of scary. They had great ideas but it's possible they'll shut down because they didn't do their business planning up front.” But also: “Q: Looking to the future, as you grow, what is the next thing you want to add to your newsroom? A: A business person.”
Poynter / Ron Reason
“We don't know of another small-town, ‘for-profit’ paper that has tried this” →
“In August 2017, they realized they weren't going to make it on subscription and ad revenue alone, and put out a call to the community: ‘Either the paper retires when we do (and soon), or, you've got to help us out.'”
Vox / Peter Kafka
Washington’s first attempt at regulating Big Tech is a joke →
“New legislation proposed by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) [is] supposed to rid Facebook, Google, and Twitter of supposed political bias. The idea is that the federal government will strip away protections that shield those companies from being held accountable for the content their users upload and they distribute — and will only restore those protections once the companies can prove they aren't favoring one end of the political spectrum.”
NBC News / David Ingram
Facebook’s new rapid response team has a crucial task: Avoid fueling another genocide →
“The anti-violence team's members have unusual backgrounds for a tech company. They include or work closely with recent hires who are former diplomats, human rights researchers, a former military intelligence officer and one person who advised oil giant BP on geopolitical risk.”
Vanity Fair / Joe Pompeo
Why New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger took on Trump in The Wall Street Journal →
“I thought there was value to reaching a different audience with this message. Folks who are maybe more conservative, folks who are influential in the business community. One of the concerns I have right now is, if you look at who's responding to the attacks on journalists, it tends to be journalists. Folks like Marty Baron, folks like me. And I worry that it's easy for the public to regard that as institutions looking after their own self-interest. I don't view it that way. I really hope that other leaders will raise their voices as well. It shouldn't just be journalists defending journalism. I think any successful business leader will tell you how valuable the free and trustworthy flow of information is for their ability to be successful.”
TechCrunch / Natasha Lomas
Behavioral advertising is out of control, warns UK watchdog →
“In what sounds like a knock-out blow for highly invasive data-driven ads, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) concludes that systematic profiling of web users via invasive tracking technologies such as cookies is in breach of U.K. and pan-EU privacy laws.”