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Monday, June 17, 2019
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Why do some people avoid news? Because they don’t trust us — or because they don’t think we add value to their lives?What if distrust is a smaller problem than the way news consumption leaves readers stressed, anxious, depressed, afraid, disempowered, and exhausted? By Joshua Benton. |
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News outlets will need public support to battle governments set on chilling investigative journalismRecent police raids against journalists in Australia and the United States seek to instill fear in the minds of journalists and their sources — less to punish the last story than to discourage the next one. By Michael J. Socolow. |
What We’re Reading
The Atlantic / Taylor Lorenz
The Instagram tragedy hustle →
“When reached for comment via Instagram direct message, the administrator of @SudanMealProject could not provide any proof that the account was working with any aid organizations, nor could the administrator back up any of the claims made in the account's posts.”
Bloomberg / Gerry Smith and Josh Eidelson
BuzzFeed News staff are walking out this afternoon in a push to get its union recognized →
“On Thursday, Davey Alba, a BuzzFeed reporter, tweeted to BuzzFeed Chief Executive Officer Jonah Peretti and BuzzFeed News Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith: ‘We're so close — there are only two issues left to resolve in our voluntary recognition agreement.'”
Columbia Journalism Review / Andrew McCormick
Congress now has a Working Group on Saving Local News, and here’s what it’s working on →
“News organizations presently have to prove that they serve an educational benefit in their application to become a 501(c)(3); this revision would define news itself as a sufficient public good to qualify for special status. The bill additionally proposes that outlets that take advantage of this opportunity be allowed to count future advertising revenue as non-taxable income.”
Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt
News app combines FT, Economist, and Bloomberg content under one paywall →
“Mogul News bills itself as offering access to ‘the world's best journalism in one app,’ bringing together newsbrands whose content is behind a paywall under one ‘simple and affordable’ subscription of £9.99 per month.”
Washington Post / Craig Timberg
Sex, drugs, and self-harm: Where 20 years of child online protection law went wrong →
“Right now we are incentivizing companies to not know that children are on their sites…They've literally been rewarded for pretending that there are no children on their sites.”
The Drum / Andrew Blustein
Spotify now lets advertisers target podcast listeners in some countries →
“The new audience tool is available in the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia.”
The New York Times / Valeriya Safronova
Gender stereotypes are banned in British advertising →
“The U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority said in a statement that it will also ban ads that connect physical features with success in the romantic or social spheres; assign stereotypical personality traits to boys and girls, such as bravery for boys and tenderness for girls; suggest that new mothers should prioritize their looks or home cleanliness over their emotional health; and mock men for being bad at stereotypically ‘feminine’ tasks, such as vacuuming, washing clothes or parenting.”
The Ringer / Alyssa Bereznak
How recommendation sites became a central part of the online economy (and are now kind of exhausting themselves) →
“In the past few years, affiliate-powered recommendation verticals have grown so numerous that they've become as hard to parse as the vast shopping expanse they were meant to simplify. Publications that feature a form of this business include, but are not limited to, The New York Times, USA Today, BuzzFeed, Gizmodo Media Group, The Verge, Popular Science, CNN, New York magazine, Business Insider, CNET, Digital Trends, and the conservative news site The Daily Caller. On top of that, a handful of SEO-friendly outposts have materialized: Tom's Guide, BestProducts.com, BestReviews.com, Reviews.com, OutdoorGearLab.com, and TechGearLab.com, to name a few. These sites all have their own set of testing standards and style, meaning that they rarely share a consensus of the superior version of any appliance, gadget, or doohickey.”