YULI AHMADA

Selasa, 26 Maret 2019

The long, complicated, and extremely frustrating history of Medium, 2012–present

Monday, March 25, 2019

The long, complicated, and extremely frustrating history of Medium, 2012–present

“A beautiful space for reading and writing” and pivoting. By Laura Hazard Owen.

Instead of helping Canadian news startups, a new government subsidy will only prop up failed models

“We don’t need a handout. But a policy that actively disincentivizes new media outlets from launching and growing to serve the information needs of Canadians is bad policy.” By Erin Millar.

Canada’s new journalism subsidies will pick winners and hurt startups

“The program assumes any subject that doesn’t fit its narrow criteria isn’t worthy of support. It speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of all the important roles that journalism fills in our lives.” By David Skok.

A subsidy without a clear purpose doesn’t move the Canadian news industry forward

“It is obviously designed to assist traditional, general interest newspapers, but to do what? Keep them on life support and then what?” By Christopher Waddell.

What We’re Reading

Variety / Janko Roettgers

Here’re the plans for Apple’s news subscription service →

“The service will launch in the U.S. and Canada effective immediately via an update the Apple News app. The company plans to launch it in Australia and the U.K. later this year, and in other European countries in 2021. Subscribers will be able to share their subscriptions via family sharing without any additional charges.”

Digiday / Max Willens and Lucinda Southern

“Bundles always dilute the brand”: Publishers grapple with Apple’s new subscription service →

“Dwell time, Apple's version of time spent, doesn't account for the effort or cost that goes into making content; and the metric puts visual publishers at a disadvantage compared with those that publish long reads or essays. Some see the possibility that dwell time, as a metric, could create perverse incentives that change the kinds of content publishers include in the service.”

The Hindu / Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Social media and messaging apps are at the heart of India’s disinformation crisis →

“With an estimated quarter billion Indians having come online since the last general election, companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter have become central parts of the Indian media environment, including the disinformation problems that it faces.” 52 percent of respondents to the Reuters Institute’s survey say they get news via Facebook, the same amount as from WhatsApp.

Bloomberg / Gerry Smith

Introducing the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez version of the Trump Bump →

“The number of articles about Ocasio-Cortez has surged in recent months, according to Chartbeat, a publishing analytics company. The average article about her gets 1,300 page views, or roughly double what typical political articles generate, the firm found.”

Business Insider / Lucia Moses

Group Nine Media and Refinery29 are said to be in talks to merge →

“Lots of companies are said to have been talking to one another about combining, and any merger would face big hurdles. Investors including Discovery and Turner, which have backed Group Nine and Refinery, respectively, and the boards of both companies would have to agree on the terms.”

Washington Post / Paul Farhi

And now comes the (Mueller) reckoning for mainstream news media →

“Barr's announcement was a thunderclap to mainstream news outlets and the cadre of mostly liberal-leaning commentators who have spent months emphasizing the possible-collusion narrative in opinion columns and cable TV panel discussions.”

Columbia Journalism Review / Mathew Ingram

A dispatch from Facebook’s local news conference →

“Many of the small startups at the conference—which included sites like WhereByUs, Blavity, Spaceship Media, City Bureau, Berkeleyside, and Migratory Notes—seemed glad to have anyone offering help and financing, including Facebook, but one or two admitted they felt a bit like props in a marketing campaign.”

The New York Times / John Herrman

The internet’s endless appetite for death video →

“You realize that these videos aren't circulated by a few maladjusted individuals.”

Journalist's Resource / Chloe Reichel

A tale of two newspapers (metrics) →

“A case study comparing two community newspapers finds that the paper more focused on audience metrics published fewer stories about civic issues, used fewer sources and let reader traffic guide news judgment to a greater degree than the paper that viewed analytics as a secondary consideration.”

Sabtu, 23 Maret 2019

The “backfire effect” is mostly a myth, a broad look at the research suggests

Friday, March 22, 2019

The “backfire effect” is mostly a myth, a broad look at the research suggests

Plus: Instagram is fertile ground for conspiracy theories, Apple gives to media literacy, and a terror attack comes with its own media strategy. By Laura Hazard Owen.

After New Zealand, is it time for Facebook Live to be shut down?

“It's past time for the company to step up and fulfill the promise founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made two years ago: ‘We will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening.'” By Jennifer Grygiel.

Facebook and Google are giving more lip service (and boot camps) to local news

What We’re Reading

What's New in Publishing / Monojoy Bhattacharjee

YouTube makes up 37% of all mobile Internet data usage →

Beating out Facebook (10.9%), Snapchat (8.3%), Instagram (5.7%), all web browsing (4.6%), WhatsApp (3.7%), Netflix (2.4%), and the Apple (2.1%) and Google (1.9%) app stores.

CNN / Oliver Darcy

How Twitter’s algorithm is amplifying extreme political rhetoric →

“Over the last several months, Twitter has begun inserting what it believes to be relevant and popular tweets into the feeds of people who do not subscribe to the accounts that posted them…Some tweets contain extreme political rhetoric and/or advance conspiracy theories…exposing users on the platform to radical content they may otherwise have not encountered.”

The New York Times / Brian X. Chen

“I deleted Facebook last year. Here’s what changed (and what didn’t).” →

“Over the past five months, my online shopping purchases dropped about 43 percent.”

PolitiFact

PolitiFact partners with Noticias Telemundo to bring fact-checking in Spanish for 2020 election →

“PolitiFact reporters and editors will be made available to Telemundo for on-air interviews, and Noticias Telemundo will be able to send statements for PolitiFact to fact-check for Spanish-language audiences. The two organizations also will collaborate to translate PolitiFact fact-checks into Spanish for use both online and on TV, including Noticias Telemundo and the broader NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises.”

Bloomberg / Mark Gurman

Apple signs Vox for news subscription service →

“Vox Media doesn't currently offer subscriptions to its content, but CEO Jim Bankoff said this month at the South by Southwest conference he would add a subscription model later this year with membership tiers.”

J-Source / Angela Long

A millennial buys the local paper →

“After applying for jobs at places like the local car dealership, Bushman's father called, telling him about an ad in the Watrous Manitou. They were looking for a reporter. Bushman drove the 106 kilometres to Watrous for an interview. A few weeks later, he was learning how to transform 30-second radio-style stories — ‘a lede, an audio clip, and then you're out,’ he says — into newspaper-length articles. After five years, owners Robin and Nicole Lay asked if he and his wife Kim wanted to purchase the paper. The Lays wanted to continue the tradition of a ‘family-owned business,’ says Bushman, which began in 1933 with James and Mildred McGowan.”

American Press Institute / Susan Benkelman and Daniel Funke

Fact-checkers gear up for elections in Europe, partnering on FactCheckEU →

“The misinformation ecosystem in Europe has some specificities. For instance, it's much less money-driven than some of the misinformation you have in North America — simply because, if you're looking to maximize profit, you're not going to open a blog of fake stories on Lithuanian or Danish politics. But the fact that the EU has so many languages poses other challenges.”

Reuters / Kenneth Li and Helen Coster

New York Times CEO warns publishers ahead of Apple News launch →

“A monthly digital subscription to the New York Times costs $15, and Thompson said he has no plans to give that up to participate on other platforms such as Apple's.”

Jumat, 22 Maret 2019

Why are digital newsrooms unionizing now? “This generation is tired of hearing that this industry requires martyrdom”

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Why are digital newsrooms unionizing now? “This generation is tired of hearing that this industry requires martyrdom”

“These are professional-class jobs paying working-class wages, and these people have working-class worries about being downsized, laid off, cast aside in a market that is really stripped down.” By Steven Greenhouse.

The New Humanitarian (no longer an acronymed UN agency) wants to move humanitarian crisis journalism beyond its wonky, depressing roots

“It’s one thing to have been an internal information center for an international NGO. It’s another thing to become a full newsroom, and an independent newsroom at that — it’s not a switch you turn on and off.” By Laura Hazard Owen.

Research from Canada suggests journalists’ creed can withstand government support

Social psychologists have demonstrated a significant link between people's behavior, their values, and the norms of their milieu, and that they feel rewarded when they act consistently with their beliefs. By Heather Rollwagen and Ivor Shapiro.

What We’re Reading

The New York Times / Julia Jacobs

The new Gawker will not be “Gawker 2.0” →

New editor Dan Peres: “In the later years they probably took things too far. There was a lot of gratuitous meanness and sort of misguided decision-making…There's an opportunity to draw on the great things that they did and dismiss some of the not-great things that they did.”

TechCrunch / Anthony Ha

Former Recode editor Dan Frommer is launching a $200/year email newsletter →

It works out to about two bucks per email. “Frommer is launching a new publication, The New Consumer — an umbrella term he's using to describe the changing landscape in e-commerce, online advertising and direct-to-consumer brands. The goal, he said, is to become the first thing that industry executives read in the morning.”

Motherboard / Caroline Haskins

Animated videos dominate the kids YouTube space. Humans are trying to compete against YouTube’s algorithm →

“‘It's difficult for channels like mine to compete with them too, because they can do like two three videos a day, or at least a few a week,’ Mike Moore, who runs Brain Candy TV—an animated learning channel with 186,000 subscribers—told Motherboard in a phone call.’ It takes me a month or two to make a video. You don't get as much watch time from that.'”

Recode / Peter Kafka

Apple will unveil a “Netflix for news” Monday (but isn’t going to compete in the actual Netflix space) →

“One thing Apple won't do is unveil a serious competitor to Netflix, Hulu, Disney, or any other entertainment giant trying to sell streaming video subscriptions to consumers. Instead, Apple's main focus — at least for now — will be helping helping other people sell streaming video subscriptions, and taking a cut of the transaction.”

Global Editors Network / Sinead Boucher

How Fairfax Media’s New Zealand division processed covering the Christchurch attacks →

“On Friday, we paused comments sitewide, both to prevent inappropriate material being published and so that our staff could focus fully on reporting the unfolding story.”

The New York Times / Rebecca Corbett and Dean Murphy

How The New York Times decides what to investigate →

“If the premium outcome is like, ‘Oh my gosh, I'm falling off my chair,’ then you start calculating the likelihood you are going to get there, what kind of resources you are going to need and do we have the necessary people?”

Poynter / Rick Edmonds

The American Journalism Project has raised $42 million. Here’s the plan for distributing it →

“Wrinkle No. 1: though the objective is to create much more high-impact ‘mission-driven’ reporting on state and local governance, the grants will be for ‘revenue raising and tech capacity,’ Thornton said.”

Wall Street Journal / Cara Lombardo and Lukas I Alpert

A debt specialist indicates Digital First could raise the funds needed to pay for its attempted Gannett takeover →

“Gannett in a statement called the letter from Oaktree ‘highly conditional’ and said it ‘does not alter the company's assessment of MNG's proposal.'”

The Verge / Vlad Savov

Stadia is about the future of YouTube, not gaming →

“From a gamer's perspective, YouTube is the lever that Google will lean on to stir interest in its nascent game-streaming platform, but from Google's point of view, the new game-streaming platform (hugely ambitious as it may be) is a necessary measure to keep YouTube where it is today.”

The New York Times / Mike Isaac

Apple News’ new paid service reportedly features the Wall Street Journal — while The New York Times and the Washington Post opt out →

“The deal's terms have caused some publishers to recoil, as a 50 percent cut is higher than the 30 percent that Apple usually takes from apps and subscriptions sold through its App Store.”

The Atlantic / Taylor Lorenz

Instagram is the internet’s new home for hate →

“Instagram is teeming with these conspiracy theories, viral misinformation, and extremist memes, all daisy-chained together via a network of accounts with incredible algorithmic reach and millions of collective followers — many of whom, like Alex, are very young. These accounts intersperse TikTok videos and nostalgia memes with anti-vaccination rhetoric, conspiracy theories about George Soros and the Clinton family, and jokes about killing women, Jews, Muslims, and liberals.”

Kamis, 21 Maret 2019

With vast records of police misconduct now public, California news outlets are collaborating instead of competing

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

With vast records of police misconduct now public, California news outlets are collaborating instead of competing

“All Californians have the right to this information. By pooling resources, we can expedite the public’s right to access misconduct and deadly use-of-force materials.” By Joshua Benton.

50,000 first-time donors? Here’s how four nonprofit organizations used NewsMatch to the fullest

“The biggest takeaway for us is there is a pool of donors there that was untapped, and now we realize they do exist.” By Christine Schmidt.

The New York Times has released an open-source tool to let you manage all your internal knowledge more easily

What We’re Reading

Variety / Todd Spangler

Almost half of Americans have “subscription fatigue,” at least when it comes to streaming TV →

“Nearly half (47%) of U.S. consumers say they're frustrated by the growing number of subscriptions and services required to watch what they want…An even bigger pet peeve: 57% said they're frustrated when content vanishes because rights to their favorite TV shows or movies have expired.”

Full Fact / Amy Sippitt

Does the “backfire effect” exist — and does it matter for fact-checkers? →

“Our new review, published today, finds that the backfire effect is in fact rare, not the norm — and suggests factchecking does help inform people. It finds that, while backfire may occur in some cases, generally debunking can make people's beliefs in specific claims more accurate.”

Digiday / Emma Sandler

Instagram is testing in-app shopping, will probably make a gazillion dollars →

“During the test, when a user taps on a ‘View the Product’ button, they will see a ‘Checkout on Instagram’ option rather than being taken to an e-commerce site. Once a person enters all of their information within Instagram (which can be saved for future purchases), they can buy directly and manage their orders in the app.”

European Commission

The European Commission has fined Google €1.49 billion for abusive practices in online advertising →

“Google has cemented its dominance in online search adverts and shielded itself from competitive pressure by imposing anti-competitive contractual restrictions on third-party websites. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules. The misconduct lasted over 10 years and denied other companies the possibility to compete on the merits and to innovate – and consumers the benefits of competition.”

Columbia Journalism Review / Emily Bell

Journalism has a panopticon problem →

“Unlike Bentham's penitentiary, in which the knowledge they are being surveilled limits the brazenness of the prisoners, the easy publicness of actions on social media has not served to discourage bad actors. Instead, it has empowered them to shock and radicalize more widely than would have otherwise been the case.”

The New York Times / Mike Isaac

The new social network that isn’t new at all: email newsletters →

“Using this method of private sharing is already affecting the way I post things publicly. Since January, I have consistently tweeted 15 to 30 percent less each week than I did the week before, according to Twitter's summaries of my account activity (some of my followers may be grateful). I'm also using my smartphone less.”

The Guardian / Adrian Chiles

“On the eve of my 52nd birthday, I’m targeted by a site for attractive, 52-year-old singles. Coincidence?” →

“As my daughter kindly told me, I am only one of these things. But I was perturbed by how accurately I'd been microtargeted.”

Sports Media Guy / Brian Moritz

Is the offseason now more important for sports journalists than the season? →

“Think of NBA free agency, the baseball hot-stove league, the NFL combine and all the signings last week. The transaction has become such a focal point of so much pro and college sports journalism that this feels more important to study than game coverage.”

Apple

Apple is backing media literacy programs in the U.S. and Italy →

“The News Literacy Project (NLP) and Common Sense in the US and Osservatorio Permanente Giovani-Editori in Italy will each receive support from Apple to advance their efforts in empowering young people with the critical thinking skills necessary in today's digital age.”

Twitter / Gordon Borrell

Local advertisers are still cutting back on print but say they’re still increasing buys in TV →

Of advertisers surveyed, 13% say they’re increasing buys in print vs 33% who say they’re cutting. For broadcast TV, that’s 27% up, 23% down; for cable TV, it’s 33% up, 25% down.