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Tuesday, August 20, 2019
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Open or closed: Who will control the paid-podcast experience, podcasters or tech companies?PodPass gets some positive early reviews. Also: a new network for kids’ audio, the CBC translates podcasts to TV, and are daily news shows having any real-world impact? By Caroline Crampton. |
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So Youngstown will have a daily named The Vindicator after all. But it’s a brand surviving, not a newspaper.Long after the local newspaper business stops making any sense at all, there’ll be a lot of powerful brand names that will retain value better than what the printing presses pumped out. That’s how we’ll get local news outlets without much local news. By Joshua Benton. |
What We’re Reading
Vox / German Lopez
A Vox Media union doubter became a big supporter →
“…unions are worth it. It's still weird to write that, nearly two years after I tweeted about lazy workers taking advantage of Vox Media's union. But as I dug deeper and deeper into the research, and as I engaged in the actual organizing and bargaining processes, I was repeatedly proven wrong, in large part because I initially focused way too much on the bad examples of unions instead of the good ones.”
Axios / Sara Fischer
Facebook’s “conservative bias” audit didn’t find much in the way of bias →
“The only new policy that’s being announced alongside the audit results will be a small adjustment made to Facebook’s ‘sensational’ advertising policy, which will now allow the display of medical tubes connected to the human body. The medical tube policy makes it easier for pro-life ads focused on survival stories of infants born before full-term to be accepted by Facebook’s ad policy.”
Mission.org / Tyler Denk
How Morning Brew used its referral program to grow to 1.5 million subscribers →
“While the referral program obviously doesn't account for all 1.5 million subscribers we have today (we began pursuing paid acquisition in early 2018), it does account for over 30% of our total subscribers and is the ‘secret sauce’ that makes our growth flywheel spin.”
The Compass Experiment / Mandy Jenkins
Talking Biz News / Chris Roush
Megan Greenwell is now editor of Wired.com after leaving Deadspin →
She left G/O Media last week in the midst of seemingly tumultuous changes by the ownership.
CBC
Quebec’s government is investing $5 million in a bankrupt newspaper chain →
“In announcing the financial aid, the provincial government stressed the important role the newspapers play in Quebec society. ‘It’s impossible to envision the closure of six newspapers,’ said Economy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon…Premier François Legault said on Twitter that the bail-out will buy some time for the newspaper chain to find new owners, and for the government to put in place a general media assistance program.”
The Washington Post / Meagan Flynn
Oregon officials request criminal investigation into newspaper reporters over after-hours phone calls, emails →
“The Malheur Enterprise, a small newspaper in eastern Oregon, spent months investigating a state lawmaker's business deals and contract work in Malheur County. But on Monday, the newspaper reported an unusual development: Now the county wants to investigate the Malheur Enterprise — for harassment. The problem? Reporters made too many phone calls and sent too many emails, at least in the eyes of local government officials.”
International Symposium on Online Journalism
You have three days to get an abstract for an ISOJ paper in →
This year’s theme: “Power, privilege and patriarchy in journalism: Dynamics of media control, resistance and renewal.”
INMA / Wajma Mohseni
The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival is an attempt to build young audience →
“In this sea of change, WSJ created an entirely new suite of products and experiences that gave access to a coveted audience segment and new revenue opportunities. The Future of Everything has shown remarkable growth in a short period of time, proving that even a 130-year old legacy brand can stay fresh and forward thinking if it challenges itself to do so.”
Journalism.co.uk / Marcela Kunova
Poland’s Outriders is running a bootcamp for other news organizations in the region →
“According to The Outriders CEO Jakub Górnicki, most newsrooms in the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are just as innovative and creative as their western counterparts. However, they are part of an ecosystem that makes it hard for media companies to grow…’What they want is having a societal impact, not living off another grant,’ said Górnicki.”
GX Press
Australia’s major newspaper publishers are no longer publicly reporting their circulations →
“‘Having provided robust, independent third-party measurement to hundreds of publishers in need of print title audits since 1932,’ the [Audited Media Association of Australia] says the three publishers are moving to private auditing by the AMAA.” Continuing a trend of newspaper companies and industry groups ending the public airing of depressing numbers.
Twitter
Twitter will stop taking ads from “state-controlled news media entities” →
“This policy will apply to news media entities that are either financially or editorially controlled by the state” — so it shouldn’t apply to public broadcasters like the BBC, NPR, and PBS. But RT…
KAKE
The Wichita Eagle is the latest McClatchy newspaper to stop printing on Saturdays →
“This is not unique to Wichita — it is a widespread trend in journalism, and in fact, many industries.”