Sabtu, 23 Juni 2018

In Winnipeg, micropayments aren’t generating big money, but they’re serving as a top-of-the-funnel strategy: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

In Winnipeg, micropayments aren’t generating big money, but they’re serving as a top-of-the-funnel strategy

Three years in, the Winnipeg Free Press’ attempt to get readers to pay by the article is still producing less than $100,000 a year — but it also produces data that allows for more targeted upsell efforts. By H.G. Watson.

Democrats see most news outlets as unbiased. Republicans think they’re almost all biased.

Plus: Facebook expands its fact-checking program; for one thing, it now covers photos and video. By Laura Hazard Owen.
What We’re Reading
TechCrunch / Sarah Perez
Reddit starts beta testing a “News” tab →
“To determine what's newsworthy, Reddit says it first figured out which subreddits were engaging with news the most. It did this by looking at the most-clicked posts by domain in the subreddits. The company came up with a list of around 1,000 domains from media publishers focused on news. This list was used to help it surface those communities where news was regularly discussed.”
Vox / Laura McGann
“Twitter makes it worse”: Male political reporters retweet other dudes 3 times more than their female colleagues →
“If journalists are making an assessment about which of their peers is worth paying attention to on Twitter, this huge gender asymmetry in aggregate followers may well have a disproportionate impact in the perceived legitimacy of their peers.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Kelsey Ables
What happens when China's state-run media embraces AI? →
"It's mostly about improving propaganda," says Sarah Cook, East Asia analyst at Freedom House, a civil liberties advocacy group, of the agency's AI initiative. "If they're able to reach more people with more convincing propaganda then that affects how people view the world, how people view China."
City Bureau / Andrea Faye Hart
Want to create your own Public Newsroom? Here's why you should — and how to do it →
“During the past year and a half, we've hosted nearly 70 Public Newsroom workshops featuring incredible local artists, organizers and journalists as hosts and more than 1,200 wonderfully inquisitive attendees. Every Thursday night we at City Bureau are reminded just how hungry folks are for an open, brave space to learn and exchange ideas about the city where they live.”
Digiday / Jessica Davies
NYT's Meredith Kopit Levien: We'll continue cutting vendors post-GDPR →
“I've long believed that a much smaller number of relationships with partners that can integrate with us on a number of platforms is better. A lot more of our ad ecosystem is tied up with Google than it used to be, as it's easier for us to do it that way. It [Google] provides services to us today where maybe three or four companies did before. So you'll see us continue to reduce.”
Center for Cooperative Media / Tara George
How journalists in Oregon are collaborating to tackle a mountain of data about high school concussions →
“Schrag could not easily free up already-strapped reporters from his newsrooms to dedicate to the project, nor did he have the time and know-how to approach potential funders and ask them to finance a freelance reporter and a half for about a year.”
New York Post / Alexandra Steigrad
Ex-Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter is launching his own media company →
“Carter's new company — rumored to be a multi-platform venture centering, at least at first, on wealthy and famous European families, including Britain's royal family — could take flight before the end of the year, sources familiar with the situation said…. The company's digital presence is said to be akin to Axios, the website and digital newsletter founded by Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei and ex-Politico reporter Mike Allen.”
Buzzfeed / Alex Kantrowitz
No more #RIPTwitter: How the blue bird made the tech world’s most unlikely comeback →
"Two years ago, we were doing too many things and not doing any of them as well as we could," Matt Derella, Twitter's head of revenue and content partnerships, told BuzzFeed News. "It's been incredibly clarifying to the organization to really know where we're focused, and that is helping people see what's happening."
CNN / Donie O'Sullivan
American media, please stop falling for Russian trolls →
“Journalists helped propel the account’s remarkable growth, which continued even after Twitter and Facebook vowed to crack down on troll accounts. CNN found more than two dozen instances in which tweets from @wokeluisa appeared in news stories published by the BBC, USA Today, Time, Wired, HuffPo, BET, and others. In August 2016, CNN embedded a tweet from ‘Jenna Abrams,’ an account that Twitter later said had been run by the Internet Research Agency.”
Bloomberg / Lucas Shaw
Cadence13 is creating a podcast network for YouTubers with a Hollywood talent agency →
“UTA has teamed up with Cadence13 to create Ramble, which they say is the first podcast network devoted exclusively to online creators. The first members of the network include Rhett and Link, hosts of the YouTube show ‘Good Mythical Morning,’ and Hannah Hart, host of ‘My Drunk Kitchen.'”

Jumat, 22 Juni 2018

The Appeal focuses on an often undercovered aspect of criminal justice: local prosecutors: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

The Appeal focuses on an often undercovered aspect of criminal justice: local prosecutors

The site, recently rebranded from In Justice Today, wants to shine a light on a more mysterious part of the legal system by focusing on local prosecutors and criminal justice policy. By Marlee Baldridge.

These are the three types of bias that explain all the fake news, pseudoscience, and other junk in your News Feed

Indiana University researchers “have found that steep competition for users’ limited attention means that some ideas go viral despite their low quality — even when people prefer to share high-quality content.” By Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia and Filippo Menczer.
What We’re Reading
Wall Street Journal / Benjamin Mullin
WordPress.com parent company buys Atavist, a maker of subscription-focused publishing software →
“The deal encompasses Atavist's proprietary content management system, its customer base and the Atavist Magazine. Atavist's primary product is a publishing software platform with free and paid tiers. The free version allows users to create their own home pages and build multimedia stories; the paid tiers allow users to launch paywalls, collect subscription fees and sell individual stories. The software has more than 200,000 users, but only a ‘small percentage’ pay for premium versions.”
Co.Design / Mark Wilson
The Weather Channel brought a tornado to life with hyper-realistic graphics in the name of “immersive storytelling” →
"We wanted to do something that would bring [weather stories] to our audience in a strong and memorable way," says Michael Potts, VP of design at the Weather Channel. "We want great moments. We want to engage our audience, and we want our content to be shareable."
Solution Set / Joseph Lichterman
Should publishers raise prices on subscribers who use adblockers? →
“AP reporter Ryan Nakashima wanted to know if readers would be willing to pay more for an ad-free news experience, so he partnered with the Bay Area News Group and created a modal that required readers who were using an adblocker to purchase a subscription or turn off their adblocker. Based on the experiment, Nakashima recommended that publishers should charge ad-blocking subscribers an extra $1 or $2 per month.”
The Guardian / Jim Waterson
The Guardian, News UK, and the Telegraph are launching a joint advertising business →
The Ozone Project, launching in the fall, will allow potential advertisers to buy online ad space across news titles the Guardian, the Times, the Sun, and the Telegraph from one single site. The deal involves only digital advertising, and all the newspaper groups will continue to have their own independent sales teams, who will compete against against each other for business. There will be no sharing of editorial content or data.
Digiday / Brian Morrissey
The Financial Times: We stopped advertising on Facebook over political ads policy →
"It is dangerous to describe journalism as political content. Journalism is journalism, and political lobbying is political lobbying. To conflate the two is an extremely dangerous precedent, particularly in this era when there are so many question marks about the veracity of news. We pulled out, and we are yet to be convinced that Facebook is taking this issue seriously."
Facebook / Tess Lyons
An update from Facebook on its fact-checking program →
Its third-party fact-checking program is currently in 14 countries and will expand to more over the course of this year, Facebook says (the option to fact-check video and photo content on the platform will expand to four countries): “These certified, independent fact-checkers rate the accuracy of stories on Facebook, helping us reduce the distribution of stories rated as false by an average of 80 percent.”
Instagram / Kevin Systrom
Instagram launches IGTV, a longform vertical within its app →
“IGTV is different in a few ways. First, it's built for how you actually use your phone, so videos are full screen and vertical…When you follow a creator on Instagram, their IGTV channel will show up for you to watch. Anyone can be a creator — you can upload your own IGTV videos in the app or on the web to start your own channel.”

Kamis, 21 Juni 2018

Newsonomics: GateHouse’s Mike Reed talks about rolling up America’s news industry: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

Newsonomics: GateHouse's Mike Reed talks about rolling up America’s news industry

“Content is our number-one priority,” Reed said. But he’s unwilling to publicly commit to any new level of funding or staffing to meet that goal. By Ken Doctor.

Newsonomics: GateHouse Media thinks services for small local businesses can help replace long-gone advertising

“We’re never going to beat Google and Facebook in advertising. Let’s focus on what we can beat them at, and that’s being local and selling business owners something that they need terribly.” By Ken Doctor.
What We’re Reading
Nieman Reports / Krista Kapralos
Why it’s important for local journalists to be the ones reporting local news →
“It is possible for a piece of information to be accurate, but not true…That's one reason why every reporter at Global Press Journal is from the community on which she reports: When you speak the local language and understand local customs, the information you gather is filtered in a culturally appropriate way.”
ProPublica / David Eads
Teamwork makes the dream work, according to ProPublica →
“Instead of rushing competing stories into publication, they decided to combine their efforts. The result: a Pulitzer Prize.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Karen K. Ho
Testing out a new future for Consumer Reports →
” In 2007, CR had more than 8.5 million subscribers across five titles. By May 31, 2017, CR's subscription numbers had fallen even more to 3.6 million print and 2.9 million online, a three-year decline of more than one million subscriptions and a drop of more than $31.8 million in subscription revenues between June 1, 2014 and May 31, 2017.
TechCrunch / Josh Constine
Facebook tests “subscription groups” that charge for exclusive content →
“Facebook is starting to let Group admins charge $4.99 to $29.99 per month for access to special sub-Groups full of exclusive posts. A hand-picked array of parenting, cooking and ‘organize my home’ Groups will be the first to get the chance to spawn a subscription Group open to their members. During the tests, Facebook won't be taking a cut yet.”
Windows Experience Blog / Rob Bennett
Meet Microsoft News: A new way to stay informed across the web, Windows 10, iOS and Android →
“Microsoft News represents the ways we keep people informed across the web, phone and PC, using our long-tested approach of curating news via publishing partnerships, human editors, and AI. We work with more than a thousand premium publishers and more than 3,000 brands in all major global markets – like USA Today, The New York Times, FOX News, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde, Die Welt, El PaĆ­s, BBC News, Kyodo News, and many more.”
Motherboard / Samantha Cole
The debate about American “concentration camps” is unfolding on Wikipedia →
“In 2018, the normal Wikipedia rules are difficult to apply.”
Recode / Kurt Wagner
Now Facebook will be putting autoplaying video ads inside Messenger →
Messenger first started selling ads inside Messenger 18 months ago, but they were static ads, not video. Stefanos Loukakos, who runs Messenger's ad business, said he's aware of the potential intrusiveness, and the company will monitor user behavior to determine if these ads turn people off.
New York Times / Katie Van Syckle
Meet the woman who “really runs” the New York Times newsroom →
“Ms. Powell-Brunson, 42, has worked at The Times for 18 years, and her responsibilities are vast and varied. She oversees operations for two of the paper's most logistically complicated sections — National and Politics — where reporters crisscross the country to cover primaries, fires, erupting volcanoes and the president. She is also in charge of the national bureaus and manages 11 desk administrative managers and two confidential administrative assistants.”
Medium / Meena Lee
Q&A: Siobhan O’Connor, VP of editorial at Medium →
“Another cool thing we launched recently was Trips Worth Telling. In April, we got a call from Michael Pollan, who wanted to curate a collection of stories about transformative experiences triggered by psychedelics.”
Politico / Jason Schwartz
FoxNews.com is getting low traffic on its family separation stories, so it’s downplaying them →
“When there's a topic like this, which is very uncomfortable for a certain segment of the audience, they just are looking the other way.”
Journalism.co.uk / Thea Matthews
Ofcom research reveals lack of diversity in UK radio →
While there was some problems with incomplete data with assessing industry demographics like disability and age, the dataset for gender was mostly complete: “63 per cent of board or senior management level roles are occupied by men.”
Digiday / Lucinda Southern
How BBC Stories experiments with audio to reach younger audiences →
“How does audio work that isn't radio and isn't a podcast? Can you get people to listen to a six-minute-long piece of audio on social media? Not many people are doing that.”
Goldthread / Victoria Ho and Dolly Li
South China Morning Post launches Goldthread, its third new site this year →
Abacus covers tech in China broadly, and Inkstone is a daily digest on Chinese life and politics, with an eye towards explaining China for people who might just be glancingly interested in the country or newly aware of its influence in global politics. The newly launched Goldthread focuses on food, travel and culture in China with a new theme each month, and is available first through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram (standalone website coming later this year).
Digiday / Max Willens
If selling a t-shirt makes as much money as sharing content on Facebook, why do both? →
“In PSA [ the clothing company], Good Media Group sees the chance to diversify its revenue and grow its brand beyond the internet as Facebook wanes as an audience builder and branded content distribution gets more expensive. … Branded content accounts for 60 percent of its revenue. Its consultancy, which advises clients on how to operate more ethically and sustainably, drives another 25 percent; the rest comes from programmatic and other sources.”
International News Media Association (INMA) / Li L'Estrade
MittMedia Homeowners Bot boosts digital subscriptions with automated articles →
Out of 102 respondents, 68 percent of readers couldn’t tell the article was written by a robot.

Rabu, 20 Juni 2018

Could Google’s new podcast app change the way we understand the Average Podcast Listener?: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

Could Google’s new podcast app change the way we understand the Average Podcast Listener?

“It’s pretty damn hard to listen to a podcast, so the kinds of folks who listen to them regularly must really love the thing enough to walk on coals. Google’s new AI-assisted features are designed to cut down the necessity of that intensity.” By Nicholas Quah.

How to end misogyny in the news industry: An open letter to the international journalism community

“We are done pandering to the egos of change-resistant influential men in the hope that our gentle lead will eventually encourage them to join us on a meander toward gender equality in the news business.” By An Open Letter.
What We’re Reading
CNBC / Michelle Castillo
Facebook plans to introduce more types of content to Watch, adding polls, quizzes — and maybe more YouTubers →
“The company announced at an event for Facebook video creators on Tuesday it would allow more content to be eligible for its Watch program. By doing so, it opens up the doors for both the company and social media stars to earn more advertising revenue. Facebook also announced Brand Collabs Manager, a platform that will connect video creators with sponsorship opportunities.”
HuffPost / Sara Boboltz
The New York Times agreed not to use on-the-record audio for The Daily after the White House objected →
“Michael Barbaro, who hosts ‘The Daily’ podcast for the Times, said in Tuesday's episode that he intended to play the audio for a segment on the immigration crisis until Davis heard that the White House was ‘not at all comfortable’ with Miller's voice being featured on the podcast.”
Axios / Sara Fischer
Vox Media is folding Racked from a standalone site into a Vox vertical →
“Sources say Vox Media has struggled to find a considerable voice or growth model for Racked — which was a part of Vox Media’s acquisition of Curbed Network in 2013. On the other hand, two other sites that came with the Curbed acquisition — Eater, a food guide site and Curbed, a real-estate site — have been able to develop as sustainable standalone brands.”
Democracy Fund / Lea Trusty
How does philanthropic support impact newsroom diversity initiatives? →
“From 2009 to 2015, there were 1,105 grants totaling $105.6 million from 274 funders to 294 recipients pertaining to either racial and ethnic groups, women and girls, or LGBTQI populations. There has been significantly less investment in gender-related news and staffing compared to racial and ethnic groups. Funding serving LGBTQI populations in journalism remains extremely limited.”
Digiday / Lucinda Southern
How Swiss news publisher NZZ built a flexible paywall with machine learning →
“For instance, heavy users who have registered but not yet subscribed tend to convert higher when they see an offer for an annual rather than a monthly subscription. NZZ has also linked article metadata with user journeys, so someone who has read a high number of articles on banks in Zurich, for instance, will receive a payment message on the next relevant article they read. Adding personalized greetings to landing pages increased conversion by 25 percent.”
Business Insider / Rob Price
The Onion is on a crusade against Mark Zuckerberg because it says Facebook is choking its traffic →
“‘I know I screwed up, and I understand why you’re all upset, but if you were a morally corrupt megalomaniac hell-bent on manipulating society to your twisted whims, you would have done the exact same thing,’ said Zuckerberg, suggesting that people should put themselves in the shoes of a self-absorbed asshole with a warped perception of humanity who justified the exploitation of personal connections as a means of amassing unfettered influence and profits to truly comprehend why he made every completely fucked-up decision.”
American Press Institute / Jane Elizabeth
What journalists can learn from their local TV weather forecast (yes, really) →
“We believe that if stories are built differently — using forms that follow a philosophy of ‘show me’ rather than "tell me" with their audiences — journalists could build news consumers' confidence in media and media savvy at the same time. There have been examples of this for a while: Meteorologists and weather reporters have understood for years, decades even, how to engage their audiences with a topic that can be full of science jargon and fraught with uncertainty.”
ProPublica / Jeremy B. Merrill, Ariana Tobin
Follow-up: Facebook actually isn’t even that good at screening for political ads →
“The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news outlet, [was]promoting one of its articles about financial aid for college students. … For the ad to run, The Hechinger Report would have to undergo the multi-step authorization and authentication process of submitting Social Security numbers and identification that Facebook now requires for anyone running "electoral ads" or "issue ads." “

Selasa, 19 Juni 2018

Newsonomics: McCormick Media’s back in the Tronc game, as eyes turn to the TRNC ticker: The latest from Nieman Lab

Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

Newsonomics: McCormick Media’s back in the Tronc game, as eyes turn to the TRNC ticker

What will happen to the price of Tronc shares as investors, a good number of speculators among them, assess the post-L.A. Times value of a major daily newspaper chain effectively halved in the deal? By Ken Doctor.
What We’re Reading
Columbia Journalism Review / Marie C. Baca
Facebook’s local push is becoming a shove with its public relation efforts →
“During the two weeks he was writing his article, Daniel Kolitz estimates he received an average of three calls, texts, or emails a day from a Facebook spokesman asking if he ‘needed anything.’ At the launch event, he was followed by up to five Facebook employees at all times.”
Pew Research Center / Amy Mitchell, Jeffrey Gottfried, Michael Barthel, and Nami Sumida
How are Americans doing at distinguishing between factual and opinion statements in the news? →
“The politically aware, digitally savvy and those more trusting of the news media fare better; Republicans and Democrats both influenced by political appeal of statements.”
Wall Street Journal / Keach Hagey
Katie Couric is joining forces with The Skimm for a video series as its first guest correspondent →
“The inaugural project of the expanded Katie Couric Media will be a short-form online video series for digital-media outfit theSkimm that will be sponsored by consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, according to the companies. The series, titled ‘Getting There,’ will feature profiles of accomplished women.”
The Guardian / Jim Waterson
Fears mount over WhatsApp’s role in spreading misinformation →
“In Brazil, WhatsApp has been blamed for a yellow fever outbreak after being used to spread anti-vaccine videos and audio messages. In Kenya, WhatsApp group admins have been described as a major source of politically motivated fake news during recent elections. And there are signs that the messaging service is being used as a conduit for misinformation in the UK.”
New York Times / Jaclyn Peiser
Goodbye, Denver Post — hello, blockchain? →
Editors from the Denver Post are teaming up with Civil to create The Colorado Sun, another newsroom on the blockchain platform.
Los Angeles Times / Meg James
The L.A. Times is officially in Patrick Soon-Shiong’s hands (and it has its next executive editor) →
“‘The last three months has been an amazing experience for me to really learn — I mean on a steep learning curve — about all the elements that are affecting this industry,’ Soon-Shiong said Friday in an interview at the soon-to-be headquarters in El Segundo, just after signing paperwork to finalize the purchase. On Monday, he will wire the money — and then the historic sale will be complete.” Former Time Inc. executive Norman Pearlstine has been named as the executive editor.
Recode / Kara Swisher
Michael Barbaro explains why The Daily podcast doesn't cover Donald Trump's tweets →
And why “the show does not get made without Google Docs.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Mathew Ingram
Advocates are becoming journalists. Is that a good thing? →
"I came to work at Human Rights Watch because I was interested in figuring out what it looked like to have a different financial model and a different trust model for achieving the good that accountability journalism achieves," says communications director Nic Dawes, the former editor-in-chief of South Africa's Mail & Guardian, who joined HRW in 2016.