YULI AHMADA: April 2019

Selasa, 30 April 2019

A doorbell company owned by Amazon wants to start producing “crime news” and it’ll definitely end well

Monday, April 29, 2019

A doorbell company owned by Amazon wants to start producing “crime news” and it’ll definitely end well

Because what good is a panopticon if you can’t generate some clicks? By Joshua Benton.

Product teams have taken national news organizations by storm. What’s happening locally?

“We’re trying to create great experiences for both our friends in the newsroom and our audiences whom we never meet.” By Christine Schmidt.

Here are the social media and democracy research projects Facebook is giving data to

What We’re Reading

Digiday / Jessica Davies

El Pais’s owner built a brand-safety tool to identify articles evoking positive feelings →

“A string of publishers, including the New York Times, ESPN and USA Today, has also rolled out ad products that they claim can match ads to people in certain moods. The BBC has also experimented with tracking emotional reactions to ads for years to prove the value of its branded content.”

Vice News / David Uberti

How Fox News dominates Facebook in the Trump era →

“The Fox page's engagement rate — the average number of engagements per post per follower — was higher than any major news organization over the same period, and some five times that of The New York Times.”

BBC / Alli Shultes

Behind Jane Manchun Wong’s hobby of uncovering app features before launch →

“By reverse-engineering popular apps such as Facebook and Instagram, she is able to preview changes that are still in testing mode. She shares the designs from her Twitter account, which is watched closely by journalists eager for a scoop – and the companies hoping to avoid landing at the center of one.”

Wired / Molly Wood

The rise and fall of Facebook’s memory economy →

“If at some point, when we stop posting anything new, Facebook will inevitably hit Peak Memory, and the site's News Feed will collapse upon itself, a heap of reposted content from the year before, the two years before, the four years before.”

Variety / Todd Spangler

“We don’t plan to cut our way to growth,” Gizmodo sites’ new owner says →

”The more time we spent with the data the more excited we got,’ Spanfeller said. Besides comprising a large audience, it also skews younger to provide better reach among consumers 18-34 than Vice, Vox, BuzzFeed or Group Nine, according to Spanfeller. ‘Then what was really interesting was how engaged they are with their audience — they're not dependent on social media.'”

Los Angeles Times / Wendy Lee

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti on the three months after layoffs →

“I think it's possible to achieve some of the same benefits without M&A. Certainly if it was the right thing, buying another company that could add to what we're doing would make sense.”

Fortune / Danielle Abril

Here’s the plan toward profitability from the CEO of Verizon Media (formerly Oath) →

“My vision, the next five years, is to get a third our revenue each from ads, subscriptions, and transactions…. Let's say you're watching the Dallas Mavs and want to buy a jersey while you're watching. We want to integrate commerce more deeply.”

Columbia Journalism Review / Nicholas Diakopoulos

A 101 on machine learning in the newsroom →

“Sorry, machine learning is probably not going to save the news industry from its financial woes. But there's nonetheless a lot of utility for journalists to discover within it.”

Politico / Tim Alberta

Inside the shrinking newsroom of the paper that shapes the primaries, the Des Moines Register →

“The paper's business reporter is covering Bernie Sanders; its agriculture reporter is responsible for keeping tabs on not-yet-declared Montana Governor Steve Bullock; its metro reporter is assigned to the long-shot Maryland Congressman John Delaney, who has all but lived in Iowa for the past two years.”

Politico / Zack Stanton

Bustle Digital Group’s editor-in-chief on expanding editorially as Bustle’s business grows →

“‘In the early days, we were kind of like, “Is there any news? What's happening?”‘ she said with a laugh. ‘Now, … there's news every five minutes.”

Sabtu, 27 April 2019

“I felt like it was a betrayal, and we had raised funds on false pretense”: The Correspondent’s first U.S. employee speaks out

Friday, April 26, 2019

“I felt like it was a betrayal, and we had raised funds on false pretense”: The Correspondent’s first U.S. employee speaks out

“They’re really good at the PR thing, and it really feels like gaslighting. They were like, ‘Well, we never promised a U.S. newsroom.’ I was like: Wait, did I just imagine all this?” By Laura Hazard Owen.

Luminary says it’s not copying your podcast files and it’s no longer screwing with your stats — but it is killing all your show-notes links on purpose

Those links to your donate page or Patreon signup are “security concerns.” By Joshua Benton.

What We’re Reading

Financial Times

The Financial Times and LA Times enter a syndication deal where LAT readers get 4 free FT articles a week →

“The move supports the FT's expansion in the US, a key strategic goal as the FT's paying readership grows beyond one million.”

The Daily Beast / Maxwell Tani

Time Magazine’s digital staff demands to join the union →

“In a statement provided to The Daily Beast, Time magazine digital staff said only employees who prove they spend 30% of their time working on print are currently allowed to join the Time magazine union.”

News Co/Lab / Dan Gillmor

McClatchy launches story-level feature to boost journalistic transparency →

“In recent weeks McClatchy has been testing — and has now deployed — what it calls the ‘background card’ feature, which makes it trivially easy for journalists to embed transparency and invite engagement with readers in online stories. Reporters and editors have been explaining who they are, how they do their work, and why they do it.”

Bloomberg / Gerry Smith

Local news in America is dying. Can charity save it? →

“The City is one of about 200 nonprofit newsrooms nationwide whose 2,200 journalists try to make a living by greening so-called news deserts — large swaths of the country that have been left uncovered as one local paper after another dies.”

Medium / Gabe Rivera

Commemorating Lyra McKee, our friend and colleague of 7½ years →

“The lesson here for all of us who work collaboratively online: seize the many daily opportunities to touch colleagues in a positive way. This was second nature to Lyra.”

The Improper Bostonian / Wendy Semonian Eppich

City magazine The Improper Bostonian is shutting down after 27 years →

“While this news might be surprising, the company has had a great run and we're hopefully leaving this incredible city better and brighter since our inception in 1991.”

Jumat, 26 April 2019

Support for Julia Angwin grows as funders investigate the “coup” at The Markup

Thursday, April 25, 2019

Support for Julia Angwin grows as funders investigate the “coup” at The Markup

After her ouster as editor-in-chief, multiple funders say they are taking steps to “reassess” their support. By Laura Hazard Owen.

L’affaire Luminary continues with more podcasts dropping out and allegations of technical bad behavior

The paid podcast app may well be doing nothing wrong in its hosting of podcasts from the open web — but nonetheless, what they’ve been best at thus far is generating pushback. By Joshua Benton.

Collaboration jackpot: How three local journalism projects in Europe are getting more bang for their buck

A case study into local news collaborations in Italy, the U.K., and Finland suggest some methods that any newsroom can use. By Christine Schmidt.

Culture clash or compatibility? Despite some flashy differences, British and German media cultures share a lot of similarities

Agenda-setting tabloids vs. muted restraint: Journalists in the two European countries may seem to have divergent views of their roles, but new data suggests they’re not all that different. By Neil Thurman and Imke Henkel.

What We’re Reading

Columbia Journalism Review / Eric Berger

His father installed printing presses, he dismantles them →

“In some cases, the newspapers hire companies to simply demolish the presses and haul them away. In others, they locate other publications interested in the equipment. For the latter, they hire Birket, who carefully takes the press apart and then transports parts of it.”

BuzzFeed News / Alex Kantrowitz and Ryan Mac

Setting aside $3 billion for an anticipated fine increased Facebook’s market cap by $40 billion →

“The figure may sound massive, but Wall Street is giddy. In after-hours trading on Wednesday, Facebook’s stock price shot up more than 8%, signaling that investors consider the estimated fine to be a slap on the wrist that could’ve been far worse.”

The Guardian / Julia Carrie Wong

How Instagram and YouTube disrupted child labor laws →

“…while today's child stars can achieve incredible fame and fortune without ever setting foot in a Hollywood studio, they may be missing out on one of the less glitzy features of working in the southern California-based entertainment industry: the strongest child labor laws for performers in the country.”

The Washington Post / Margaret Sullivan

Trump has made the White House Correspondents’ dinner “as dull as it should be” →

“By refusing to attend the dinner himself and by making the government-press relationship truly adversarial — ‘enemy of the people,’ etc. — he's sandblasted the high gloss off the party. What's left is a high-minded journalism awards dinner, which is what the organizers, all along, defended it as.”

Poynter / Ren LaForme

Gannett launches its own image licensing and wire service →

“Imagn makes photos available for licensing at a per photo basis or via a subscription service with three options: only sports; only news and entertainment; or combined sports, news, and entertainment.”

Associated Press

Religion News Service, AP, and The Conversation launch global religion journalism initiative with $4.9M grant →

“Staffed by journalists from RNS, a subsidiary of RNF, and AP and editors from The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit publisher of commentary and analysis sourced from academic experts, the desk will produce multiformat religion journalism intended to improve general understanding and analyze the significance of developments in the world of faith.”

The Ken / Rohin Dharmakumar

India’s The Ken introduces patron-funded subscriptions for readers who can’t afford them →

“The Ken's Patron subscriptions enable business leaders, investors, senior executives and companies to directly fund annual subscriptions in bulk for readers who may not yet be able to afford them. Each Patron subscriber funds a certain number of annual subscriptions (ranging from 50 to 250), which we double by matching an equal number of subscriptions from our side.”

Vanity Fair / Evgenia Peretz

Vanity Fair profiles The New York Times’ Bari Weiss →

Jennifer Senior: “I always marvel at the huge gulf between the Bari who's this Twitter bogeyman and Bari the actual person. She is the subject of more unexamined hatred in our profession than almost anyone I can think of. She's the target of so much snark. The irony, and what almost breaks my heart, is that she has almost no snark in her. She's super-generous and loving.”

Facebook

Facebook’s EU fact-checking initiative now includes 21 partners in 14 European languages →

“Our program now includes 21 partners fact-checking content in 14 European languages: Croatian, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. “

Kamis, 25 April 2019

Andrew Yang, the most meme-able 2020 candidate, also wants to save journalism

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Andrew Yang, the most meme-able 2020 candidate, also wants to save journalism

Yang's core idea — that local journalism, increasingly unable to pay for itself, should be subsidized by the federal government — would broaden the range of policy proposals up for mainstream political debate. By Josh Wood.

Luminary’s rough launch continues as another high-profile podcast asks to be removed from its app

The Joe Rogan Experience is the latest show to opt out of populating the top of the paid podcast app’s conversion funnel. By Nicholas Quah.

What We’re Reading

Medium / Amie Stepanovich

A public statement of support for Julia Angwin →

“The Markup is set to launch in July and should not do so without Julia at the helm. We encourage all her original funders to investigate this situation and to take steps to ensure that the Markup stays true to its founding principles.”

Axios / Sara Fischer

The Skimm makes its first acquisition: Texting platform Purple →

The Skimm used Purple to host its texting service to help subscribers make decisions last year.

Arizona Republic / Bill Goodykoontz

A longtime newspaper mysteriously closes while a new publication suddenly appears →

“We are very excited with the launching of this totally new and different publication in the Spanish market,” the general manager said in a statement. The old outlet’s social media accounts posted “One day we will publish the details of its closure.”

Washington Post / Tony Romm

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey met with Trump at the White House →

A significant portion of the meeting focused on Trump's concerns that Twitter quietly, and deliberately, has limited or removed some of his followers…. But Twitter long has explained that follower figures fluctuate as the company takes action to remove fraudulent spam accounts. In the meeting, Dorsey stressed that point, noting even he had lost followers as part of Twitter's work to enforce its policies, according to the source, who described the meeting as cordial.”

BuzzFeed News / Pranav Dixit

Twitter will let users report tweets that mislead voters →

“The new tool will first be rolled out in India, where general elections are already underway, on Thursday, and in the European Union, which holds elections in the last week of May, on April 29.” It’s unclear what Twitter will do with the reported tweets.

The Ken / ROHIN DHARMAKUMAR

Keeping its paywall, India’s The Ken introduces the option to sponsor someone else’s subscription →

“Each Patron subscriber funds a certain number of annual subscriptions (ranging from 50 to 250), which we double by matching an equal number of subscriptions from our side. Patrons can then decide who these subscriptions should go to.”

Recode / Theodore Schleifer

Digital media lifestyle brand Brit + Co is laying off most of its employees →

“CEO Brit Morin told staff on Monday that the company is dealing with financial issues after the acquisition talks crumbled and was until recently working to secure a last-minute investment.”

Digiday / Aditi Sangal

After launching another podcast on Civil, Manoush Zomorodi is relaunching Note to Self with Luminary →

“I have two fantasies: One is that people will pay a premium to be on a small and intimate community-based and ethically oriented shows like ours. People are not just listening; they are making changes to their lives based on our shows. The second fantasy is a curated ad network.”

Rabu, 24 April 2019

Months from launch, The Markup abruptly fired cofounder Julia Angwin, setting off an editorial exodus

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Months from launch, The Markup abruptly fired cofounder Julia Angwin, setting off an editorial exodus

The majority of the site’s editorial staff resigned this morning, and the future of a much-anticipated watchdog for technology companies is very much in doubt. By Laura Hazard Owen.

Game of Phones: Podcasts and podcast apps are now treating each other like wary rivals, protecting their turf

Luminary gets pushback from Spotify and The New York Times: temporary glitch or the real start of the platform wars? Plus: Gimlet gets a union, a new podcast incubator, and Mueller Mueller everywhere. By Nicholas Quah.

Pete Buttigieg is on every podcast, and 2020’s retail politics is increasingly happening in earbuds

The podcast audience is proving to be catnip for Democratic politicians, especially those hoping to keep it 1600 come January 2021. By Nicholas Quah.

Three editions of the Mueller Report are Amazon bestsellers. How do they stack up?

News organizations, book publishers, and even self-publishers with quick trigger fingers are all competing to squeeze the most value out of a PDF anyone can download for free. By Laura Hazard Owen.

What We’re Reading

New York / Christopher Barnard

The best cocktail party icebreakers are vintage magazines →

“The magazines are ideal icebreakers, conjuring just enough excitement to get people talking at the start of an evening, something I've rarely seen coffee-table books do. Plus putting them out lets me show off a bit — which, let's be honest, is part of the pleasure of having people over. “

A collection of David Carr’s writings coming in 2020 →

“Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced Monday that ‘Final Draft: The Selected Work of David Carr’ was scheduled for the spring of 2020 and will be edited by his widow, Jill Rooney Carr.” Ta-Nehisi Coates is writing the introduction.

Digiday / Kerry Flynn

How publishers are using TikTok →

“According to TikTok's pitch deck to U.S. agencies, about 60% of its monthly active users in the U.S. are between 16 and 24 years old. Also like Snapchat, users are heavily engaged with the app, spending 46 minutes per day on TikTok, on average. While TikTok doesn't have a way for publishers to directly monetize on the app, such as through sharing ad revenue, some publishers are still choosing to experiment.”

INMA / Emmanuel Naert

European media initiative fights polarization with a widget called “My Country Talks” →

“In the near future, the profiles will be matched with each other. An algorithm will detect ‘good matches,’ meaning participants who disagree on four out of seven statements will be matched.”

Columbia Journalism Review / Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope

The media are complacent while the world burns →

“This article is being jointly published with The Nation, CJR's partner in a April 30 conference aimed at reframing the way journalists cover climate change.”

The Irish News / Connla Young

Paramilitary group the New IRA admits responsibility for the murder of journalist Lyra McKee; a 57-year-old woman is arrested →

“In a statement to The Irish News, using a recognized codeword, the group admitted it was responsible for the attack. ‘In the course of attacking the enemy Lyra McKee was tragically killed while standing beside enemy forces,’ the statement said.” A 57-year-old woman was arrested for the murder.