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Wednesday, June 19, 2019
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Twitter is turning off location data on tweets — a small win for privacy but a small loss for journalists and researchersFor the past decade, location-tagged tweets have been a useful (if imperfect) tool for anyone trying to connect time, place, and information in ways that told us something about the world. By Joshua Benton. |
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“News unfolds like a saga”: The French news site Les Jours wants to marry narrative, depth, and investigative reporting“Serial” isn’t just a podcast: It’s also the format hook Les Jours uses to bring some of the lessons of drama to long-form investigative reporting. It’s a fascinating mish-mash of ideas you’ll recognize from short-run nonfiction audio, Quartz, Epic Magazine, and more. By Olivier Holmey. |
What We’re Reading
Nieman Reports / Eryn Carlson
How librarians are teaming up with journalists to promote media literacy →
“Journalism and librarianship both exist to support strong, well-informed communities. We're all working to provide reliable information in a context that makes it as useful as possible.”
CNET / Jason Hiner
Apple is promising big improvements for the Mac version of Apple News →
“Unfortunately, the first version of Apple News on the Mac that launched in 2018 didn’t live up to the usability of its iOS counterpart.”
Open News / Anika Anand
How Whereby.Us’s grew its local subscribers (step by step) →
“Once we created our taxonomy and tagging system, we had a ton of data to look at and learn from. The clearest takeaway was how effective partnerships overall are for our local brands—hundreds of new subscribers sign up from our partnership efforts every month.”
New York Times / Michael Grynbaum
Five NY1 anchorwomen sue cable channel for age and gender discrimination →
“Ms. Torre, 61, and her co-plaintiffs — Amanda Farinacci, Vivian Lee, Jeanine Ramirez and Kristen Shaughnessy — said the leadership team installed by Charter Communications, the cable giant that acquired NY1 in 2016, reduced their airtime and anchoring slots, excluded them from promotional campaigns and consistently ignored their concerns.”
Quartz / Alison Griswold
Freelance gig startup Fiverr is now public — and here’s how hiring Fiverr workers to write about its IPO went →
“In its filing for a public offering, Fiverr wrote "Professionals are increasingly willing to spend money to save time." But it took me far more time to find sellers on Fiverr, instruct them in what I wanted, wait for the delivery, and then check their work for plagiarism and other errors than it would have for me to simply write about the Fiverr IPO myself.”
Wall Street Journal / Rob Copeland
YouTube is reportedly considering turning off auto-play for kids →
“Executives at the Google unit are debating moving all children's content into a separate product, the stand-alone YouTube Kids app, to better protect young viewers from objectionable videos, say people briefed on the discussions. That would be a seismic and risky switch, as children's videos are among the most popular on the platform and carry millions of dollars in advertising.”
The Verge / Casey Newton
Inside Facebook’s worst-performing content moderation site in North America →
It’s grosser than you think: A deskside death from a heart attack, …unclean bathrooms, sexual harassment, and more.
Membership Puzzle Project / P. Kim Bui
How newsrooms could share power via involved journalism →
“I wanted to run a site that really built relationships and was less transactional. I wanted the community to understand that this was their site: we were just hosting it. I'm not sure I ever met the council representative, but I did meet business owners, librarians, mothers, and advocates.”
The Morning Call / Jon Harris
The sale of the Reading Eagle to Digital First Media will result in 81 job cuts →
“The filing comes nearly a month after U.S. Bankruptcy Court signed off on the sale of the bankrupt Reading Eagle to MediaNews Group, better known as Digital First Media. MediaNews, which owns about 200 publications and counts hedge fund Alden Global Capital as its largest shareholder, offered the minimum bid of $5 million to buy the company's assets.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Justin Ray
Meteorologists discuss how to warn the public about extreme weather →
“One of the difficulties is, as a weather forecaster you're typically focused on what's going to happen today, or what's going to happen in five days. It's very difficult, scientifically, to draw a one-to-one link between what's happening today and climate change.”
EU-Startups / Mary Loritz
Swedish magazine subscription app Readly raises €15 million →
“With a presence in eight European countries and the US, Readly generates more than two-thirds of its revenues outside its Swedish headquarters.” The round brings Readly’s total funding to €46 million.