A Boston public radio station is redesigning its site to make audio “a first-class citizen online”: The latest from Nieman Lab

Thursday, February 4, 2016

A Boston public radio station is redesigning its site to make audio “a first-class citizen online” But: “I’ve tried to be really disciplined about not calling this process just a redesign,” WBUR’s executive editor for digital Tiffany Campbell said. “We’ve built a brand new platform.” By Shan Wang.

Sports Illustrated’s new app has video “baked into every channel” “Video is one of the highest priorities we have. We wanted to make it front and center.” By Joseph Lichterman.

New Pew report: Cable news remains a popular way to follow the election, but social media reaches the young

What We’re Reading

The New York Times / Sydney Ember

The New York Times is looking for cost reductions →

Executive editor Dean Baquet and David Leonhardt, who led the Upshot, are going to lead an effort to set the newsroom’s strategy. "We need to develop a strategic plan for what The New York Times should be, and determine how to apply our timeless values to a new age," Baquet wrote in a memo.

Politico / Ken Doctor

Sheldon Adelson tightens his grip on the Las Vegas Review-Journal →

A new publisher has appeared overnight at the paper, a new editor will be installed as soon as Friday, and, sources tell me, stories involving new owner Sheldon Adelson are being reviewed, changed or killed almost daily.

Robert Feder

“The eventual merger of the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times would appear inevitable” →

That’s Robert Feder’s take on Michael Ferro’s investment in Tribune Publishing.

WSJ / Lukas I. Alpert

Tribune Publishing gets cash infusion →

“Merrick Media LLC, which is owned by Chicago-based investor Michael W. Ferro Jr., has acquired 5.2 million newly issued shares of Tribune Publishing for $44.4 million, Tribune Publishing announced Thursday. Merrick is now the largest single shareholder with 16.6% of the company's shares.”

The New York Times / Sydney Ember

The New York Times now has 1.1 million digital subscribers →

The Times brought in $197 million in digital advertising revenue in 2015, an 8 percent increase from 2014. Digital-only subscription revenue was $193 million last year, a 14 percent increase from the prior year.

The Wall Street Journal / Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg

Southern-focused niche magazine Garden & Gun defies industry slump →

Roughly 72 percent of its subscribers live in the Southeast or Southwest, with an average household income of $332,000. Subscriptions and ad pages sold are both up.

The Los Angeles Times / James Rufus Koren

Digital First Media to bid for the Orange County Register →

“That move could set up a three-way bidding war for the Register among Digital First, Freedom Communications insiders and Tribune Publishing, the Chicago-based parent of the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union Tribune.”

From Fuego

Sheldon Adelson tightens grip on Review-Journal —ww​w.capitalnewyork.c​om

NICAR 2016 Lightning Talks —li​ghtningtalks.ire.o​rg

Michael Wolff on Digital Media’s Favorite Analyst: Often Quoted … and Often Wrong —ww​w.hollywoodreporter.c​om

The 2016 Presidential Campaign – a News Event That’s Hard to Miss —ww​w.journalism.o​rg

The time @MartinShkreli ran to the wrong black car after pleading the 5th at a Congressional hearing: —vi​ne.​co

Fuego is our heat-seeking Twitter bot, tracking the stories the future-of-journalism crowd is talking about most. Usually those are about journalism and technology, although sometimes they get distracted by politics, sports, or GIFs. (No humans were involved in this listing, and linking is not endorsing.) Check out Fuego on the web to get up-to-the-minute news.

The New York Times is unearthing unpublished photos from its archives for Black History Month: The latest from Nieman Lab

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

The New York Times is unearthing unpublished photos from its archives for Black History Month The Times is grappling with the past, present, and future of its race coverage, encouraging readers to share their own materials and memories and along the way shedding a little light on the journalistic process. By Shan Wang.

Need to find, keep, and maximize talent today? Look to an old-school example, Gene Roberts “Virtually every hire should be part of a long-range master plan of journalistic excellence.” By Sydney Finkelstein.

Public radio staffers across the U.S. lay out new guidelines for podcast audience measurement

What We’re Reading

Current / Henry Schneider

With focus on local service, PBS Charlotte digs out of $1M hole →

"By 2012, the station was just days or weeks from going dark.”

The Wall Street Journal / Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg

Time launches Motto, a new site aimed at young women →

“Overseen by the editors who produce Time magazine and Time.com, the new website site will include contributions by celebrities and politicians, plus original reporting from Time magazine staffers. To help contain costs, Time Inc.'s Real Simple, Southern Living and Health will also provide articles.”

Digiday / Lucia Moses

The Wall Street Journal isn’t letting you read for free in Instapaper now, either →

The publisher has also experimented with closing the Google loophole. “A Journal rep confirmed it's been experimenting with a number of different trials to get people to subscribe but wouldn't elaborate.”

Wall Street Journal / Jack Marshall

Patch rebounds after split from AOL →

“The first version of Patch was very much local journalism, whereas the new version is more of a social, mobile and alerts platform,” AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said. (AOL still owns a little less than 50 percent of Patch.)

Mashable / Saba Hamedy

Vanity Fair unveiled its annual Hollywood issue on Snapchat Discover →

“We are confident when people find out what Vanity Fair is and what we do, they are going to stick around and become long term fans. That's the idea behind this partnership.”

Mobile Media Memo / Cory Bergman

There are early signs that the value of a mobile users is greater than a desktop user →

“The most successful mobile experiences connect people, and as they scale, they get better and generate massive amounts of data. That data is enabling unprecedented ad targeting and return on investment.”

From Fuego

Rick Santorum dropping presidential bid – CNNPolitics.com —ww​w.cnn.c​om

The Good and Bad In Twitter’s Ad Business —ww​w.theinformation.c​om

With focus on local service, PBS Charlotte digs out of $1M hole —cu​rrent.o​rg

President Obama Speaks at the Islamic Society of Baltimore —ww​w.whitehouse.g​ov

The Gateway to cease weekly newspaper print production: Official student newspaper and campus media source to prioitize digital and online media consumption, print monthly magazine – The Gateway —th​egatewayonline.​ca

Fuego is our heat-seeking Twitter bot, tracking the stories the future-of-journalism crowd is talking about most. Usually those are about journalism and technology, although sometimes they get distracted by politics, sports, or GIFs. (No humans were involved in this listing, and linking is not endorsing.) Check out Fuego on the web to get up-to-the-minute news.

Nieman Lab / Fuego / Encyclo

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The Boston Globe built an election app with one small twist to keep you glued to your phone: The latest from Nieman Lab

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

The Boston Globe built an election app with one small twist to keep you glued to your phone “We had a lot of people who enjoyed staring at it.” By Laura Hazard Owen.

The Information is offering members a perk: an exclusive trip to “meet the right people” in China The $399-a-year site covering the tech industry expects subscribers to pay their own way, but promises access to “people only the most well-known execs typically meet.” By Laura Hazard Owen.

Hot Pod: Podcasts about podcasts, a new player in sports audio, and a crowded election-podcast space “I worry about big money pouring into podcasting…I really, really hope that all the money pouring into podcasting won't bury tiny, weird independent podcasts.” By Nicholas Quah.

What We’re Reading

SoundCloud / Journalism.co.uk

How CNN and The Washington Post are using voicemail to connect with their audiences →

“CNN and the Washington Post have started experimenting with voicemail to engage with their online communities.”

LinkedIn Pulse / Richard Laven

The top 30 technology writers followed most by other US tech writers →

#1: Kara Swisher. #2: Walt Mossberg. #3: David Pogue.

Columbia Journalism Review / John Stoehr

The nonprofit Connecticut Health I-Team is celebrating its 5th anniversary →

“The Connecticut Health I-Team, or C-HIT, got off the ground in December 2010 with $25,000 in seed money from the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut and a $100,000 grant from the Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundation, based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. More grants followed. The publication's most recent tax filings, from 2014, show total annual revenue of just over $350,000.”

CNNMoney / Tom Kludt

Al Jazeera America staffers start a website to boost their job hunts →

Compiling their best digital work for the soon-to-be-shuttered network.

Journalist's Resource / Denise-Marie Ordway

A study of how journalists build their “brands” today →

“This choice presents a paradox: if journalists choose to present too much of a personal identity, they risk punishment by their employers. If they present only a professional identity, they risk offending their audiences.”

Advertising Age / Jeremy Barr

At Elite Daily, traffic is down but ad revenue is up →

Traffic dropped 42.8 percent between November 2014 and November 2015, according to comScore numbers. But the site experienced a 211 percent year-over-year increase in ad revenue for Q4 2015.

Ad Age / Jeremy Barr

New York magazine won four National Magazine Awards →

No other publication won more than one.

Bloomberg.com / Joshua Brustein

Why most websites look the other way on adblockers →

“Only 4 percent of large online publishers are taking any visible action to stop visitors from using ad-blocking software, according to research by MediaRadar, which makes software for advertising sales departments.”

Digiday / Sahil Patel

Publishers have eagerly embraced autoplay video, but advertisers have concerns that it’s distracting →

“The line is fuzzy when it comes to what's ‘distracting.'”

Shorenstein Center

Harvard’s Shorenstein Center announces six finalists for 2016 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting →

Finalists include: The Associated Press, The Guardian US, InsideClimate News, The New York Times, Tampa Bay Times, and The Washington Post.

New York Times / Jeremy Merrill

On Wikipedia, Donald Trump reigns and facts are open to debate →

“On any day, Donald J. Trump's entry usually attracts more views than those of his Republican rivals — and on some days, more than all of them combined. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders gets more attention than Hillary Clinton. Even Martin O'Malley outpaces Mrs. Clinton on debate nights.”

TechCrunch / Sarah Perez

Refinery29 debuts a morning news app called “Refinery29 AM” →

“The company tells us that the app will refresh with new stories every day at 6:00 AM ET, Monday through Friday, but the weekend edition will remain the same on both Saturday and Sunday.”

Evan Ratliff / Evan Ratliff

The life and death and life of magazines →

“When longform writing fails — as it did dangerously in widely-discussed incidents in Grantland and Rolling Stone not long ago, it is not because of the names we give it, the hashtags we apply to it, or its word-count ambitions. It fails because an editor declined to say no to facts that weren't checked, or to a piece whose ambition had overstepped its humanity.) “

From Fuego

A Note to Readers from The Intercept’s Editor-in-Chief —th​eintercept.c​om

The top 30 technology writers followed most by other US tech writers —ww​w.linkedin.c​om

Retracted: Dylann Roof’s Cousin Claims Love Interest Chose Black Man Over Him —th​eintercept.c​om

Experimenting With New Business Models for Local News —me​dium.c​om

Bestselling Authors and Rights Organizations Support Authors Guild in Asking Supreme Court to Review Authors Guild v. Google Ruling – The Authors Guild —ww​w.authorsguild.o​rg

Fuego is our heat-seeking Twitter bot, tracking the stories the future-of-journalism crowd is talking about most. Usually those are about journalism and technology, although sometimes they get distracted by politics, sports, or GIFs. (No humans were involved in this listing, and linking is not endorsing.) Check out Fuego on the web to get up-to-the-minute news.

Nieman Lab / Fuego / Encyclo

Twitter / Facebook

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Nieman Journalism Lab

Harvard University

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Cambridge, MA 02138

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The sun never sets on The Times: How and why the British paper built its new weekly international app: The latest from Nieman Lab

Monday, February 1, 2016

The sun never sets on The Times: How and why the British paper built its new weekly international app “We’re pursuing the idea of editions everywhere. An edition is something that can be finished. When you’ve read it, you feel up-to-date; you’ve been told what you need to know for the day or the week.” By Joseph Lichterman.

Jeff Bezos on The Washington Post’s digital strategy, the future of print, and sending Trump to space The Post and Amazon owner met with the paper's staffers in a town hall meeting this morning. By Joseph Lichterman.

News is a product: A new report outlines best practices for news product managers

What We’re Reading

TechCrunch / Sarah Perez

Refinery29 debuts a morning news app called “Refinery29 AM” →

“The company tells us that the app will refresh with new stories every day at 6:00 AM ET, Monday through Friday, but the weekend edition will remain the same on both Saturday and Sunday.”

Evan Ratliff / Evan Ratliff

The life and death and life of magazines →

“When longform writing fails — as it did dangerously in widely-discussed incidents in Grantland and Rolling Stone not long ago, it is not because of the names we give it, the hashtags we apply to it, or its word-count ambitions. It fails because an editor declined to say no to facts that weren't checked, or to a piece whose ambition had overstepped its humanity.) “

NPR Training / Leila Day

How to report on communities that aren’t your own →

A useful explainer from NPR.

Facebook Newsroom

Facebook’s News Feed tweaks reflect the fact that important stories don’t always get the most clicks →

“Pages might see some declines in referral traffic if the rate at which their stories are clicked on does not match how much people report wanting to see those stories near the top of their News Feed.” Or, in other words…

Public Radio International / Tamar Charney

A reporter considers what to do with her 19-year-old Rolodex →

“Did we really drive to the library to use out-of-town phone books? And how did we ever find someone across the country or overseas if they weren’t already a contact of ours? It’s hard to fathom. But it really wasn’t all that long ago.”

The Wall Street Journal / Greg Bensinger

Amazon hints at getting into the shipping and delivery business →

Could be an interesting area of Amazon/Washington Post synergy — newspapers are still very much in the home delivery logistics business, as The Boston Globe has been reminded recently. In a few years, could an Amazon Delivery Services be to outsourcing print delivery what Amazon Web Services has been to outsourcing web servers?

National Post / Matt Gurney

An old-fashioned newspaper war of words in Canada →

Postmedia and Torstar trading barbs over which is the worse newspaper owner.

New York Daily News / Christina Carrega-Woodby, Reuven Blau, and Leonard Greene

Former New York Daily News reporter Michael Feeney dead at 32 →

He was president of the New York chapter of NABJ and was named its “emerging journalist of the year” in 2010.

TechCrunch / Sarah Perez

Following Apple’s move, Samsung rolls out adblocking to Android devices →

But only on its proprietary Samsung Internet Browser, not Chrome.

AP / Raf Casert

International Federation of Journalists: 2,300 journalists have been killed in the past 25 years →

“The IFJ estimates that only one of ten killings is investigated.”

The New York Times / Ravi Somaiya

Condé Nast adapts to new forces →

“Condé Nast took in over $1 billion in revenue in 2015. The company said that while its print business, spread across nearly 20 magazines, remained profitable, revenue there had been flat since 2012. Its digital business is up nearly 70 percent over the same period but that component, as with virtually every other legacy media company, represents a much smaller percentage of overall revenue, which has declined in recent years.”

Current.org / Dru Sefton

“NewsHour” archives to be digitized and available online →

“More than three decades of NewsHour are heading to an online home, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.”

Washington Post / Paul Farhi

Why the marriage at the top of Politico couldn’t be saved →

“This wasn't about strategy or money or whether to grow — it was philosophical.”

Medium / Frank Meehan

DailyMail Online quarterly results show how difficult it is to monetize online news →

The MailOnline reported advertising revenues of £23m on 220 million unique monthly active users — just 10c of revenue per user.

Business Insider / Jillian D'Onfro

Facebook says it’s worried about adblockers →

“For the first time, the social network highlighted ad blocking technologies as a significant risk factor in its annual 10-K filing, noting that they have impacted its ad revenue ‘from time to time.'”

Digiday / Lucia Moses

The Wall Street Journal tests closing Google search loophole to its paywall →

To get around the Journal’s paywall, readers could paste the story headline into Google and access it from the search results. But now the publisher is running a test to see if blocking access via that route would entice would-be subscribers to pay up.

Bloomberg.com / Lucas Shaw and Spencer Soper

Amazon is investing in podcasts on Audible →

“Audible has recruited well-known comedians, along with radio and podcast producers for the initiative, and job postings suggest a significant global push.”

From Fuego

With a bet on a platform strategy, BuzzFeed faces business challenges – Digiday —di​giday.c​om

Best practices for product management in news organizations —ww​w.americanpressinstitute.o​rg

Twitter May Have A New Suitor —fo​rtune.c​om

News Feed FYI: Using Qualitative Feedback to Show Relevant Stories —ne​wsroom.fb.c​om

CBS Press Express | NFL EXPANDS “THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL” —ww​w.cbspressexpress.c​om

Fuego is our heat-seeking Twitter bot, tracking the stories the future-of-journalism crowd is talking about most. Usually those are about journalism and technology, although sometimes they get distracted by politics, sports, or GIFs. (No humans were involved in this listing, and linking is not endorsing.) Check out Fuego on the web to get up-to-the-minute news.

A new storytelling platform hopes to move crisis reporting beyond isolated events in the news cycle: The latest from Nieman Lab

Friday, January 29, 2016

A new storytelling platform hopes to move crisis reporting beyond isolated events in the news cycle The idea of Coda Story “is to watch things unfurl at the pace of evolving trends rather than daily developments.” By Shan Wang.

The New York Times wants to tell you which TV shows are worth binging on with a new product It sees service journalism as a way to build digital revenue and reach an audience interested in advice and recommendations as much as the Times’ criticism and culture coverage. By Shan Wang.

Top departures at Politico come with hints of a new venture

What We’re Reading

Google AMP / Rudy Galfi

Some details about how analytics will work in Google’s AMP →

“No matter how many analytics providers are configured, the AMP runtime will only ever do a single measurement to come up with a value. This improves performance by reducing duplication of effort, batching network requests, and streamlining code paths.”

Financial Times / Tim Bradshaw

Apple is building a secret team to kickstart its virtual reality efforts →

Could be significant in getting headsets (or whatever other device they’re planning) into more consumers’ hands.

Adweek / Mark Joyella

Fusion is getting into serious investigative reporting with a new TV series →

The Naked Truth is aimed at younger, multicultural viewers who grew up watching The Daily Show, not 60 Minutes–and don't always "watch TV" on TV.

Ad Age / Jeanine Poggi

How Vice is trying to reinvent the TV ad model →

“The network will have a maximum of eight minutes of commercial per hour…significantly below the norm on cable. And in certain shows or dayparts there might not even be commercials, with the potential for programming to be sponsored in different ways…”

The New York Times / Patrick Healy

The latest New York Times VR film is about the presidential race →

“Campaign events are a perfect fit for virtual reality because they can seem so unreal themselves.”

USA Today / Jefferson Graham

Live on TV & Facebook, your favorite local newscaster →

“The advantages of Facebook Live for journalists is that Facebook promotes it big time, so it's more than likely that you’ll see these folks in your news feeds. Also, the video sticks around for replays, unlike Periscope, where live broadcasts go away after 24 hours.”

Digiday / Ricardo Bilton

The Boston Globe is using Notes to publish directly to Facebook →

“On Tuesday the newspaper started to use Notes with Ground Game, is newsletter covering the presidential elections, which the Globe posted to the newsletter's Facebook page. The Globe followed that up a day later by using Notes to create a post listing the top stores on Boston.com. It plans to continue experimenting with the feature on its other properties.”

USAToday / Jefferson Graham

Local journalists are finding an audience broadcasting via Facebook live →

One consumer reporter in Dallas, sharing a video of an odd pillow he’d found, got a Facebook audience of 33 million by the end of the week, or far more more than the size of his typical Dallas TV audience.

CNNMoney / Dylan Byers

Massive Politico shakeup: Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and others departing →

“Jim VandeHei, the co-founder and CEO of Politico; Mike Allen, author of the influential Politico Playbook; Kim Kingsley, the chief operating officer; Roy Schwartz, the chief revenue officer; and Danielle Jones, an executive vice president, will all leave the company later this year.” The memo is here.

New Yorker / Nicholas Lemann

A code of ethics for nonprofit journalism →

If nonprofit journalism is now becoming a sector, rather than a few cases, then it should organize itself and work up its own version of the traditional advertising-based editorial protections.

WSJ / Steven Perlberg

Snapchat debuted a political campaign show →

Hosted by Peter Hamby, the show, “Good Luck America,” is located in Snapchat Discover.

Politico / Joseph J. Schatz

MTV News hires Ana Marie Cox, Jaime Fuller in effort to boost politics coverage →

“The appointments prolong an aggressive hiring push from MTV News, which is filling its ranks with well-known news and pop culture writers and personalities.”

From Fuego

Apple builds secret team to kick-start virtual reality effort – FT.com —ww​w.ft.c​om

The End of Twitter – The New Yorker —ww​w.newyorker.c​om

Who won the ratings race, Fox News or Donald Trump? —mo​ney.cnn.c​om

Editor David Granger departing Esquire —mo​ney.cnn.c​om

IBM Closes Weather Co. Purchase, Names David Kenny New Head Of Watson Platform —te​chcrunch.c​om

Fuego is our heat-seeking Twitter bot, tracking the stories the future-of-journalism crowd is talking about most. Usually those are about journalism and technology, although sometimes they get distracted by politics, sports, or GIFs. (No humans were involved in this listing, and linking is not endorsing.) Check out Fuego on the web to get up-to-the-minute news.