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Monday, June 24, 2019
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Publishers will soon no longer be able to detect when you're in Chrome's incognito mode, weakening paywalls everywhereA growing number of news sites block incognito readers, figuring they’re probably trying to get around a paywall. But a change from Google will again let people reset their meter with a keystroke. By Christine Schmidt. |
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R.I.P. Quartz Brief, the innovative mobile news app. Maybe "chatting with the news" isn’t something most people really want to do?Just because people like to chat on their phones doesn’t mean they want to chat with you, news organizations. By Joshua Benton. |
What We’re Reading
BuzzFeed News / Ryan Broderick
How a network of young women is fighting back against TikTok’s predator problem →
“‘I run this account where I would just post creepy TikToks to Instagram and I just posted a random video [from the account of a man who had become viral]. One of my followers DM’d me and was like, ‘Hey, I’m 14, do you want me to find out if he is [a predator] or not.'”
The Coral Project / Andrew Losowsky
The first myth of community design: “Everyone should be able to be reached by everyone” →
“In our study of gender nonbinary people of color, women of color, and online commentary, participants talked about having to constantly run a cost-benefit analysis on participation in any online conversations, based on the likelihood that they would be attacked, merely for participation.”
The Guardian / Amanda Meade
News Corp tabloid Herald Sun is offering journalists $10 to $50 for driving digital subs →
“The new three-tier system at the Herald Sun will reward reporters who reach a certain number of subscriptions via their bylines. They will earn more cash each week if the number of paying customers goes beyond a targeted number and if those subscribers reach a certain number of page views.”
New York Post / Keith J. Kelly
Another journalist has left Gawker →
Ben Barna is replaced by Nate Hopper, recently the ideas editor at Time magazine. “Gawker's only two full-time writers quit in January in protest of an executive who they said used anti-gay slurs and made derogatory comments about Asians and celebrities deemed to be overweight. The site is now slated for a relaunch in ‘fall 2019.'”
The Business of Content / Simon Owens
Why algorithm-governed Techmeme launched a daily podcast →
“It's news aggregation and it is TLDR as a service.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Gus Bova
Catholic talk radio replaced public radio in the Rio Grande valley — but residents are working to bring it back →
Brenda Riojas, a spokesperson for the diocese, says running the stations was a "service to the community," but other needs grew more pressing. The Catholic programming that now runs on the same frequencies, she adds, "is more in line with the mission of the church."
Digiday / Max Willens
Why podcasts grew into a top source of IP for NBCUniversal’s production outfit →
“In total, UCP has development rights to ‘about 12’ podcasts, all of which have been acquired over the past 18 months, UCP President Dawn Olmstead said. Though books remain the top source of intellectual property for UCP's 13-person development team, podcasts have turned into a top-three source, Olmstead said. Four years ago, UCP had zero podcast-derived projects on its development slate.”
New York / Allison Davis
The wild ride at Babe.net →
“what was always unclear was how much the site's writers — often with little or no journalistic experience or training — understood the traditions they were turning inside out or ignoring. Nor was it clear whether staff recognized the parallels between the gray-area #MeToo themes of its Ansari piece and the complicated sexual-power dynamics of their own office, the ones that would partly lead to the collapse of the site.”
Medium / Evan Peck, Sofia Ayuso, and Omar El-Etr
How rural Americans rated different kinds of data visualizations →
“As we analyzed and coded our interviews, we were reminded of something that we often forget — data can be intimate and personal. If someone found a personal connection to any graph, it didn't matter the color, the style or the technique. For the people we talked to, charts with personal connections superseded all other design dimensions.”