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Tuesday, August 13, 2019
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Who works best in a revenue development role? Here’s what these local news organizations have foundIt's “hard to ask for money if you don't believe in what it's being spent on.” By Christine Schmidt. |
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Tighten up that paywall! (And some other lessons from a study of 500 newspaper publishers)“The publishers that reported more than 6 percent of unique visitors reaching their stop threshold had ‘thriving’ digital subscription businesses.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
Axios / Sara Fischer
The Spectator, the world’s oldest English-language magazine, is launching a U.S. print version →
Print lives — for a certain audience. (How it describes its British print readership: 80% male, £925,000 in average investable assets excluding home, and 22% own wine cellars.)
Vox Media
The Deseret News has relaunched on Vox Media’s Chorus →
It’s the second newspaper to get on the platform, joining the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Washington Post / Margaret Sullivan
Slow news: The Twitter-fed disaster over Jeffrey Epstein’s death demands a solution →
“It's a journalistic truism that the earliest reports of a major news story, whether a mass shooting or natural disaster, are likely to contain errors, sometimes serious ones…when you stir in the toxins of today's politics, the lightning speed of social media and bad-faith amplification by powerful figures, the mixture is disastrous.”
BuzzFeed News / Jane Lytvynenko
Fast news: On the other hand, Epstein’s death was broken on 4chan 38 minutes before in the media →
“‘[D]ont ask me how I know, but Epstein died an hour ago from hanging, cardiac arrest. Screencap this,’ read the post, which was published at 8:16 a.m. alongside an image of Pepe, the green frog that has become a mascot for right-wing internet trolls.”
The New York Times / Edmund Lee
CBS and Viacom are finally to be reunited →
“When they split in 2006, Viacom's cable networks were seen as the faster-growing business and CBS the aging, out-of-step broadcaster. Fortunes reversed in the last decade as CBS became the most-watched television network and Viacom's youth-centered channels were eviscerated by the internet.”
The Verge / Ashley Carman
Spotify’s pitch to podcasters: Valuable listener data →
“The company is taking its Spotify for Podcasters dashboard out of a beta today, giving more podcasters a chance to see data like their listeners' music taste, age, gender, location, and how long they listened to a particular episode. Apart from Apple, which offers some show analytics, this is the most detailed information podcasters likely have about their audience.”
The New York Times / Sameer Yasir and Jeffrey Gettleman
With pens, paper, and motorcycles, journalists chronicle Kashmir crackdown →
“People are desperate to see a newspaper. The other day I sold 500 copies in five minutes."
The Daily Beast / Lachlan Cartwright, Maxwell Tani, and Lloyd Grove
The New York Times is working on a written standard for when the paper should use the word “racist” →
“During a hastily arranged meeting, lasting well over an hour, top Times leadership addressed the paper's staff about public criticism the outlet has faced in recent weeks centering around its coverage of Trump, race, and politics. Among the many topics discussed during the lengthy meeting were two recent embarrassments for the paper: A credulous headline that characterized Trump's post-mass shooting televised speech as a sincere call for national unity; and to a lesser degree, the Twitter behavior of Times deputy Washington editor Jonathan Weisman.”
Canadaland / Sean Craig
The inside story of Postmedia’s conservative turn →
“Many employees fear current plans to double down on what management calls ‘reliable conservative voices’ will eradicate the local perspectives and political independence of some of Canada's oldest and most important newspapers. These include the Citizen, Journal, Montreal Gazette, Vancouver Sun, Windsor Star, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, and Calgary Herald. In some large Canadian cities, Postmedia runs the only local daily newspaper (or in the case of Montreal, the only English-language daily).”
INMA / Natalie Wubbolt
Zeit Online’s festival for young visionaries goes from one-off to frequent events →
“Z2X participants are connected via Facebook, WhatsApp, and Slack groups and there are regular self-organized meetups and mentoring sessions. In 2019, Zeit Online will hold another flagship festival, as well as three smaller Z2X summits focusing on digitization, education, and Europe.”
Axios / Sara Fischer
Facebook is funding two new BuzzFeed News shows →
“The first show — called ‘Did You See This?’ — will launch as a daily news program this September with a rotating cast of BuzzFeed News reporters and pop culture experts…Facebook will also fund ‘That Literally Happened,’ a weekly series that “brings nostalgia and historical curiosity to life through the lens of Gen Y and Gen Next-ers learning about the news, alongside the generations who lived through it.”