Monday, April 26, 2021 |
| “First and foremost, we respond to an undersupply of quantitative descriptive research in social science. Causal research that asks the question why has largely taken the place of descriptive research that asks the question what.” By Joshua Benton. |
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| “It’s easy for the media and others to dismiss entertainers as just being famous, and whatever they sold was a benefit of their fame — and not necessarily the business insights that came from that.” By Hanaa' Tameez. |
After 50 years, The New York Times is retiring the term “op-ed” What We’re ReadingThe New York Times / Ben Smith
Is an activist’s pricey house news? Facebook will decide for you →“If the article shows your home or apartment, says what city you’re in and you don’t like it, you can complain to Facebook. Facebook will then ensure that nobody can share the article on its giant platform…Facebook alone will balance competing values like newsworthiness against privacy, or the old print belief in transparency against the digital aversion to ‘doxxing’ — that is, publishing people’s identifying information against their will.”UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media
Nikole Hannah-Jones is headed to the University of North Carolina to teach →“My courses will examine the big questions about journalism. But they will also bring the practical experiences and advice of someone who covered daily beats, who had to fight to be in a position to do big projects, who can speak to the rigors of academic and accumulated knowledge, but also the practicalities of how you build a career, navigate the industry and deal with setbacks.”The Wall Street Journal / Benjamin Mullin
NBC’s news chief is pushing streaming →“As contract renewals emerge with top talent such as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid, and CNBC’s Shepard Smith, these people will likely be asked to produce content for streaming services including Peacock…It is part of a plan to have a large and loyal streaming audience as the traditional TV business starts to fade.”The New York Times / Reggie Ugwu
SiriusXM is buying 99% Invisible — and podcasting street cred →“The deal — which will be announced Monday, its terms not disclosed — will bring [Roman] Mars and his 13 employees under the banner of Stitcher, the podcast platform that SiriusXM acquired last year for $325 million. Mars and his team will produce new shows and other projects for the company, which is also home to the popular podcasts Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, Office Ladies and The Sporkful.”CNBC / Alex Sherman
How local TV stations plan to remain relevant as viewers shift to streaming →“Broadcast station groups need to plan for a streaming era world where retransmission fee growth eventually declines. Broadcasters are plotting different paths, with Sinclair Broadcast Group developing its own linear streaming service.”The New York Times / Mike Isaac and Jack Nicas
How Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook became enemies →“One of the secrets of digital advertising is that companies like Facebook follow people’s online habits as they click on other programs, like Spotify and Amazon, on smartphones. That data helps advertisers pinpoint users’ interests and better target finely tuned ads. Now, many people are expected to say no to that tracking, delivering a blow to online advertising — and Facebook’s $70 billion business.”New York Times / Reggie Ugwu
SiriusXM is buying Roman Mars’s “99% Invisible” →“In an interview last week, Mars characterized the sale as an attempt to free himself from administrative duties and to secure greater resources for his staff … ‘What does it mean that Facebook is getting into audio? Or that Apple is changing the ‘subscribe’ button to a ‘follow’ button? I don’t know and I don’t want to figure it out.'”The New York Times / Katie Robertson
Rupert Murdoch’s pick to run the New York Post is betting on celebs and the web →“Keith Poole, a 44-year-old Englishman who remade The Sun’s website in recent years, started as The Post’s newsroom leader on March 22. Since then, most people on the staff have yet to hear from him, two Post employees said…[He] sees The Daily Mail as The Post’s main rival,” not the New York Daily News.The Guardian / Andrew Pulver
A film released by The Guardian just won the Oscar for best documentary short →“Written and directed by Anthony Giacchino, and produced by Alice Doyard, Annie Small and Aaron Matthews, Colette tells the story of 90-year-old former French resistance member Colette Marin-Catherine, who visits the concentration camp where her brother was murdered during the war with a young history student, Lucie Fouble.”The Guardian / Joanne McNeil
How is babby formed? R.I.P. Yahoo Answers, your eccentricity will be missed →“Volunteers have already begun archiving Yahoo Answers, but given the short notice from Yahoo, they might not capture all of the posts. Yahoo’s swift decision to terminate a popular platform — to the surprise of its users — just goes to show how corporate control of social media will only end in frustration for those who participate in it.”Nieman Foundation
The Tampa Bay Times series “Targeted” has won the 2020 Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Journalism →“The reporting by Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi revealed that ten years ago, the Sheriff’s Office in Pasco County, Florida, created a secretive data-driven system ostensibly designed to proactively combat crime. The algorithm instead was used to try to predict which residents might break the law. During the last five years, the sheriff’s department used that information to target nearly 1,000 people and assigned deputies to repeatedly show up at their homes, often without probable cause, a warrant or evidence of a crime.”Financial Times / Javier Espinoza
German media companies (and others) have filed an antitrust complaint against Apple over its privacy changes →“Nine industry associations, representing companies including Facebook and Axel Springer, the owner of Bild, Die Welt and Insider, filed the complaint on Monday with Germany’s competition regulator. Apple is expected to roll out iOS 14.5 later on Monday, an update which will force all apps to ask users if they wish to be tracked for advertising purposes. Most users are expected to decline, dealing a blow to the mobile advertising market.”The Atlantic / Kaitlyn Tiffany
How Yahoo became known as the bumbling villain of internet culture →“You know those 1950s Jell-O molds where it’s clear and there’s a raisin over here and a chicken leg over there? That was kind of what Yahoo was. Embedded in it were these little things with no clear plan or connection.”The Atlantic / Renée DiResta
The anti-vaccine influencers who are merely asking questions →” When we saw a
spike in social-media content within anti-vaccine communities portraying the Johnson & Johnson halt as evidence of terrible problems with Covid-19 vaccines, and vaccination writ large, we were not surprised; anti-vaxxer echo chambers are full of conspiracy theories. Although anti-vaccine activists remain few in number, their propaganda occasionally spreads to Pat Buchanan fans, corgi fanciers, neighborhood-swap groups, and other seemingly unrelated niche communities.”MediaNama / Aroon Deep
At the request of India’s government, Twitter has taken down 52 tweets critical of how it’s handled the pandemic →Including tweets by other government officials, including a member of Parliament. “Actor Vineet Kumar Singh tweeted in Hindi that he was in Varanasi and that it was difficult to get medication, and criticised political rallies being held amid the pandemic. The government ordered Twitter to remove this tweet for Indian users.”KCUR / Dan Margolies
A 24-year-old Kansas City radio reporter was killed by a stray bullet passing through her apartment →Aviva Okeson-Haberman “graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri in 2019. While there, she garnered fistfuls of awards, including the Sigma Delta Chi Award for investigative reporting for her investigation of Missouri’s elder abuse hotline. It was the sort of story that reporters with decades more experience would have admired and envied.”The Wall Street Journal / Liza Lin
China censors “Nomadland” director Chloe Zhao’s Oscar win →“‘Nomadland’ director Chloe Zhao made history on Sunday by becoming the first woman of color and first Chinese woman to win the Oscar for best director. Official media, major search engines and internet censors in her home country are making as if it didn’t happen.”The Washington Post / Jonathan O'Connell
Alden Global Capital mismanaged employees’ pensions, federal investigators found →“Hedge fund Alden Global Capital probably violated federal pension protections by putting $294 million of its newspaper employees’ pension savings into its own funds, according to a Labor Department investigation.”
Nieman Lab / Fuego / Encyclo
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