Sabtu, 10 September 2016

Here’s a peek inside Fusion’s Center for Innovation & Engagement: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

Here’s a peek inside Fusion’s Center for Innovation & Engagement

In a talk at MIT on Thursday, Sam Ford, who leads the center, explained its goals and gave an overview of some of its projects. By Joseph Lichterman.

How one Washington Post reporter uses pen and paper to make his tracking of Trump get noticed

“I think I knew there was going to be a lot of futility to the process. I was looking for a way to make the futility look interesting and give people something to follow.” By Ricardo Bilton.
What We’re Reading
Recode / Peter Kafka
Facebook changes its mind, and says it’s ok to publish an iconic war photo, after all →
"The value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community."
NYTCO
The New York Times is giving non-subscribers free access through this weekend →
“For the first time ever, The New York Times will be offering all registered users full, unlimited access to NYTimes.com on the web and via its smartphone apps from September 9 through September 11.”
The Information / Jessica Lessin
“News is not a venture-backed business” →
“You could read these announcements as a sign that VCs are bullish about the news business. I see them as a sign that the news industry is still very much on the wrong track…It's why it is so hard to name a startup news company that's consistently profitable and will be two years from now.”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
Vox’s card stacks didn’t revolutionize journalism →
“When I go back to the beginning, the amount of our mind space that were taken up by the card stacks, it's like 75 percent. It was the instantiation of all of our ideas…It was an idea of, we could create one big innovation, and that would change the way the whole thing worked.”
Financial Post / Sean Craig
Journalism.co.uk / Caroline Scott
The BBC is attracting new audiences on social media with “news you can use” →
“Dougal Shaw, video innovation journalist at the BBC, developed CEO Secrets, a weekly video series in which viewers are given business advice from renowned entrepreneurs.”
Current / Dru Sefton
The outlook for public media funding is improving →
“A report from Stateline, which analyzes state policy trends for the Pew Charitable Trusts, found that this year 13 states increased funding for public TV and radio, 10 kept funding steady and seven made cuts; the study did not have figures for remaining states. Sixteen states do not fund public broadcasting.”
Deadspin / Kevin Draper
Jason Pierre-Paul is suing ESPN because its reporting was too accurate →
“The mere existence of the case puts journalists on notice that facts and documents, the basic materials of the job, might be unsafe to use. Forty years of what seemed to be established media law are suddenly being reopened.”
AP / John Daniszewski
The AP has a new policy about the quality of its tweets →
After the blowback from its Clinton meetings tweet, which they’ve deleted. “Prior to this guideline change, whether to delete or update tweets had been left to AP news managers to decide on a case-by-case basis. The new guidance is mandatory, subjecting tweets to the same internal review and response process as other AP content.”
Facebook / Anaid Gomez-Ortigoza
You can now crosspost videos to Facebook pages with different owners →
“Using this feature, publishers can reach new, relevant audiences, avoid sending and re-uploading video, and see aggregated insights for posts across all Pages. The crossposter (the Page that did not originally upload the video) can distribute videos in a customized post and get insights into video performance on their specific Page. This new feature will work with regular video and 360 video, and it will be available soon for videos that were previously live”

Jumat, 09 September 2016

Schibsted is pooling its tech and product resources, with a wary eye towards platforms like Facebook: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

Schibsted is pooling its tech and product resources, with a wary eye towards platforms like Facebook

“That’s what we want to achieve with the embedded teams: Figure out what really works, and then if we nail it, we scale it.” By Shan Wang.

Hot Pod: The podcast industry puts on a too-big blazer and tries to impress the old guy at the party

Podcasting’s biggest players put on a dog and pony show for advertisers. Plus: More details on The New York Times’ audio push, Starbucks gets in the game, and Questlove reads ads. By Nicholas Quah.

Michael Morisy: Making government officials’ emails open to scrutiny is key to accountability

“When you work in government, the people are your boss. And the boss has a right to see your work.” By Michael Morisy.
What We’re Reading
TechCrunch / Sarah Perez
BuzzFeed / Alex Kantrowitz
Twitter adds a button that lets you subscribe to live video notifications →
“Twitter has been investing in live video lately, not only continuing to push Periscope, but also cutting premium live video deals with sports leagues like the NFL, the MLB, and the NHL.”
The Information / Steve Nellis
Push notifications are coming soon to your Amazon Echo →
The use case for news orgs with breaking news alerts is obvious. So is the risk of annoying users — a voice ringing out in your living room is more grating than a buzz on your phone, if executed poorly.
Pew Research Center / Kristine Lu and Katerina Eva Matsa
More than half of smartphone users get news alerts, but few get them often →
“More than half (55%) of U.S. smartphone users get news alerts on their phones' screens, but getting them frequently is still fairly rare. Just 13% of smartphone users say they often receive news alerts, according to new Pew Research Center data. And only about half of those who ever get them click through to the full story or search for more information (47%, or 26% of smartphone users overall).”
The New York Times / Brendan Nyhan
Relatively few people are partisan news consumers, but they’re influential →
“New research shows that the great majority of people learn about political news from mainstream, relatively centrist media sources, not ideological websites or cable channels. However, relatively small numbers of partisans, especially Republicans, are heavy consumers of a highly polarized media diet.”
Digiday / Sahil Patel
Inside Verizon’s struggle to build a digital entertainment business →
A look at how Verizon the phone company has tried to remake itself as Verizon the media company.
Columbia Journalism Review / Deron Lee, CJR
What a Kansas professor learned after interviewing a 'lost generation' of journalists →
“Personnel is the most vital and important aspect of any industry. If you're just going to grind them up, it's not going to end well for anybody.”
Digiday / Yuyu Chen
‘It’s more exciting and upbeat’: Why journalists are moving to ad agencies →
“There's more fear in the newsroom [while] more hope at the agency,” says one former reporter.

Kamis, 08 September 2016

Apple is eliminating the headphone jack on the new iPhone. What does that mean for reporters?: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

Apple is eliminating the headphone jack on the new iPhone. What does that mean for reporters?

Probably a few adapters and a little more hassle for some. By Joseph Lichterman.

With its Maker Week, The New York Times is trying to foster teamwork and, possibly, new products

“Hundreds” of staffers worked on about 85 different projects — including a new Apple TV interface, a restaurant review visualization, and internal tools — at the Times’ annual weeklong event this summer. By Joseph Lichterman.
What We’re Reading
Vanity Fair / William D. Cohan
How Arianna Huffington “lost her newsroom” →
“But by the time of the Verizon deal, in May 2015, she appeared to be losing support from within her own newsroom. Some reporters and editors accused her of sacrificing the site's journalistic standards to accommodate her friends and agenda.”
The New York Times / Liz Spayd
New York Times reporters told to “leave the editorializing” off social media →
“If you are linking to other sources, aim to reflect a diverse collection of viewpoints. Sharing a range of news, opinions or satire from others is usually fine. But consistently linking only to one side of a debate can leave the impression that you, too, are taking sides.”
CNN / Brian Stelter
Donald Trump is ending his press blacklist →
“A campaign spokeswoman confirmed the change on Wednesday. Trump provided a cheeky statement to CNN about the restoration of credentials: ‘I figure they can’t treat me any worse!'”
Medium / John Harris
Politico’s John Harris on why someone would want to go into journalism →
“My head and heart both believe this: People who are exceptionally talented, disciplined, and passionate about the media business can have more fun and more impact than ever before. And, with some good breaks, they can do better financially than ever before.”
Forbes / Lewis DVorkin
35 percent of Forbes’ digital revenues come from native advertising →
Digital ad revenue accounts for 75 percent of Forbes’ total ad revenue
The Wall Street Journal / Lukas I. Alpert
Jim VandeHei’s new news org will sell subscriptions aimed at professionals in tech, healthcare, and more →
“The soon-to-launch company secured about $10 million in financing late last week, according to people familiar with the matter. The investment round was led by Lerer Hippeau Ventures, the venture-capital firm that helped launch the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed.”
Emarketer
Report: Snapchat ad revenue to reach nearly $1 billion next year →
Snapchat will make $366.69 million in ad revenue in 2016, and that will grow to $935.46 million in 2017, according to eMarketer.

Jumat, 02 September 2016

How Boston’s WBUR is trying to build new structures for continuous innovation in public radio: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

How Boston’s WBUR is trying to build new structures for continuous innovation in public radio

With its BizLab project, the radio station has launched experiments in product management, station analytics, and blockchained music — all tying together today in a email-based podcast about exercise. By Joseph Lichterman.

Hot Pod: Your favorite podcasts, coming to a TV screen near you?

Plus: The Washington Post start an audio game show, Vox Media is staffing up for podcast growth, and why celebrities are so compelling to advertisers as show hosts (even if their shows are only so-so). By Nicholas Quah.
What We’re Reading
Variety / Todd Spangler
MTV’s VMAs reached 3 times more people on Snapchat than on TV →
“MTV's Live Story feed on Snapchat for the VMAs reached nearly 21 million unduplicated global unique viewers, versus 12 million in 2015…on linear television, the 2016 VMAs were down a whopping 34% from last year, drawing 6.5 million total viewers across the 11-network live simulcast.”
Pew Research Center / Andrew Perrin
Pew study: Print books are still more popular than e-books or audio books →
“Fully 65% of Americans have read a print book in the last year, more than double the share that has read an e-book (28%) and more than four times the share that has consumed book content via audio book (14%).”
Business Insider / Rafi Letzter
That SpaceX explosion destroyed Facebook’s $200 million satellite →
“AMOS-6 would have provided internet coverage to sub-Saharan Africa.”
The Huffington Post / Arianna Huffington
The Huffington Post launches in Mexico →
The Spanish-language site is launching in partnership with Grupo Imagen Multimedia, and will be a place “where we'll be using all the tools at our disposal to tell the most important stories across Mexico — and just as important, using the power of the HuffPost platform to help the people of Mexico tell their stories themselves,” wrote Arianna Huffington, on her last day as editor-in-chief.
Medium / Jennifer Brandel
What we mean when we talk about “engagement” →
“Engagement happens when members of the public are responsive to newsrooms, and newsrooms are in turn responsive to members of the public.”
reported.ly / Andy Carvin
These are some of Reported.ly’s favorite social media reporting tools →
“After covering global news stories via social media for nearly two years, we've accumulated quite the list of tools and tricks. As we take a break and determine what's next for reported.ly, we thought we'd share some of them with you, in case you're interested in doing a little reported.ly-style reporting on your own.”
The Financial Times / Madhumita Murgia
YouTube live video views grow by 80 percent →
“The video website also increased the number of livestreams posted online by 130 per cent, according to Neal Mohan, head of product at YouTube, reflecting its renewed focus on real-time content as upstart challengers invest heavily in mobile video broadcasting.”
First Draft News / Aviv Ovadya Meedan
That debunk of a viral fake news story might help the hoaxers: Here’s how to stop it →
“Use ‘nofollow’ links when reporting on fake news or risk boosting the hoaxers and damaging your own site”
Deadline Hollywood / Jeremy Gerard
The New York Times kills regional theater, restaurant, and arts coverage →
In a memo sent last month, Metro editor Wendell Jamieson told more than two dozen freelance writers that the Times was ending its suburban culture reviews. “Dean Baquet and I have decided that the resources and energy currently devoted to these local pages could be better directed elsewhere. Therefore, we will publish our final reviews and features in the New Jersey, Westchester, Long Island and Connecticut editions on August 28,” he wrote.
SABC / Neo Makwiting
South Africa’s government is threatening to create a news media regulatory body →
“The Minister of Communications, Faith Muthambi, especially wants the print media to be transformed.”
Ad Week / Chris O'Shea
Vox Media plans to expand internationally, names Jonathan Hunt VP of international →
"We will be sharing more details—such as where, when, and how we'll expand into new markets—over time," CEO Jim Bankoff wrote in a memo. "Jonathan's first order of business will be working closely with stakeholders throughout the company to determine our international priorities, opportunities and strategies moving forward."

Kamis, 01 September 2016

“But it’s…cartoons?”: Comics and cartoons are coming to life well beyond the printed page: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

“But it’s…cartoons?”: Comics and cartoons are coming to life well beyond the printed page

In the U.S., the number of full-time editorial cartoonists who hold staff positions might be dwindling, but the narrative of decline excludes a whole host of people stretching the form online in ways that weren’t possible just a few years ago. By Shan Wang.
What We’re Reading
CNN / Dylan Byers
Campaign reporters aren’t happy about being left behind for Trump’s Mexico trip →
“News organizations have been scrambling to get reporters and crews on the ground through private travel or by relying on teams they have in Mexico City.”
The Verge / Sean O'Kane
Instagram now lets you pinch to zoom on photos and videos in iOS →
“The new feature will be available across the entire app, according to Instagram — pinch-to-zoom will work on the media that shows up in your standard feed as well as on people's profiles and in the Explore tab.”
Fast Company / Meg Miller
An MIT student built an interface for annotating livestreamed news →
“Tools like Facebook Live have been instrumental for breaking news—but until now, there’s been no way to contextualize them.”
Tidbits / Glenn Fleishman
Your private Slack messages might not be as private as you think →
“Slack doesn't let users delete their accounts. Instead the company deactivates them, which isn't the same thing. That would be fine if the member were the only person who could reactivate the account. But there is a gap through which access can slip. While I don't believe this design is intentional, it undermines some of Slack's statements about user privacy.”
Washington Post / Caitlin Dewey
Facebook is tracking ‘trends,’ so The Washington Post is tracking Facebook →
“Every hour, on the hour, we're logging the stories that trend on Facebook, Google and Twitter and compiling it into a daily email news digest. Among other things, we plan to track the priorities and timing of trends on each site, as well as the news that never makes it to them.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Yardena Schwartz
Vice shows how not to treat freelancers →
“Journalists who have worked for Vice tell CJR that the company published their work without paying them for it, promised them assignments which were later rescinded, and asked reporters for their help with documentaries that covered issues they had written about without any plans to pay them for their work. There's also the usual freelance complaint: late payments. As a freelance journalist, I've been through some of this with Vice myself.”
The Washington Post / Erik Wemple
Claim: It was time for Arianna Huffington to leave the Huffington Post →
“No longer will Huffington have to evangelize a bunch of reluctant journalists on the merits of meditation and relaxation.”
The New York Times / Steven Davidoff Solomon
The gamble of Tronc’s “just say no” defense to a Gannett takeover →
“Luckily for Tronc shareholders, Gannett has stuck around. Whether inadvertently or not, Tronc's obstreperousness has resulted in a higher bid, which would mean more money for shareholders, money that would not have come if the board had first listened to them.”
Chicago Tribune / Robert Channick
Tribune Media inks a deal to sell Chicago’s Tribune Tower to a developer →
Sale price: $240 million. Current market cap of Tronc, the renamed newspaper half of Tribune: $620 million.
Poynter / Amanda Zamora
Comments are changing, but our commitment to audiences shouldn’t →
“By abandoning comments, news organizations are not only giving up an important role in shaping public discourse — they’re giving up a key avenue toward having direct, sustainable relationships with their audiences,” says Amanda Zamora, the Texas Tribune’s chief audience officer.
Media Nation / Dan Kennedy
GateHouse New England is shrinking and reorganizing →
“GateHouse papers have shrunk so much that concerns have been raised over whether they are going to have to pursue a fundamentally different way of doing things that would involve covering less and less community news.”