Monday, August 31, 2020 |
| “We feel like we have to create the future of media, as we advocate for the people who work in it.” By Luke Winkie. |
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| Our research found that Democrats and Republicans held genuine but different beliefs, not just about values or policies, but about basic facts. By Andrea Robbett and Peter Hans Matthews. |
What We’re ReadingCenter for Civic Media / Ethan Zuckerman
MIT’s Center for Civic Media shuts down today →“Over the past thirteen years, hundreds of students, researchers, visiting scholars, faculty members and members of communities in the Boston area and worldwide have contributed to the work that’s unfolded here…While the Center for Civic Media at MIT is closing, its work continues, changing shape as it spreads with the alumni of the program.”MacRumors / Hartley Charlton
The podcasts app on Apple Watches has been artificially inflating download numbers →“Currently, when a podcast is automatically downloaded by an Apple Watch user, it is counted as two listeners; one from the Apple Watch, and one from its paired iPhone. Since the Apple Watch and iPhone download the same podcast episode by default, and they both report different device user agents, the podcast appears to be downloaded by two different people.”The Big Hack / Holly Tuke
The 5 most annoying website features I face as a blind person →“For blind and visually impaired people like me, accessibility is the difference between us being able to use a website and clicking off it.”Digiday / Max Willens
The pandemic has made publishers whip up quicker and cheaper offerings for advertisers →“These packages still typically command lower amounts of money…But they can be turned around a lot faster…Many publishers said they think that the bumpiest parts of the year are behind them, and they are glad they’ve identified new products they can sell to partners.”Brown Institute for Media Innovation / Michael Krisch
A new tool from Stanford lets you analyze cable TV news at massive scale →It “uses modern AI techniques to automatically measure who is on the news and what they talk about. The tool leverages computer vision to detect faces, identify public figures, and estimate characteristics such as gender to examine news coverage patterns. To facilitate topic analysis the transcripts are time-aligned with video content and compared across dates, times of day, and programs.”Washingtonian / Andrew Beaujon
The White House says it’s assembling “dossiers” on reporters who write critical stories →“‘The Washington Post is blatantly interfering with the business relationships of the Trump Organization, and it must stop,’ [White House spokesman Judd] Deere told the Post in a statement that continued with a sentence likely to make grammar cops’ heads explode. ‘Please be advised that we are building up a very large ‘dossier’ on the many false David Fahrenthold and others stories as they are a disgrace to journalism and the American people.'”The Guardian / Jim Waterson
Two groups are planning Fox News-style opinionated TV networks in the U.K. →The leader of one group says the BBC is “possibly the most biased propaganda machine in the world,” is “bad for Britain on so many levels,” and “needs to be broken up.” Behind the other group? The Murdochs.What's New in Publishing / Faisal Kalim
The pandemic should encourage publishers to lean more into e-commerce →“The percentage of retail done on digital channels has gone up 1% each year. And as of 2020, it was at 18% — and then in eight weeks, it went to 28%! We had a decade in eight weeks.”Medium / Jacqui Park
Suddenly, news media events work at scale, and other lockdown upsides →“Pandemics wait for none of us and it’s been fascinating to watch the industry just knuckle down and get on with it. The result? We’re seeing a new medium — a new distribution channel — for a new type of journalism emerge before our eyes.”The Washington Post / Margaret Sullivan
Kellyanne Conway undermined the truth like no other Trump official, and journalists enabled her →“Leaking and lying. Lying and leaking. It’s been the Kellyanne way, and the news media has largely gone along for the ride: Giving her airtime on news shows, failing to forcefully call her out for her continued violations of the Hatch Act, and offering kid-glove treatment in exchange for her inside information.”American Journalism Project / Jason Alcorn
The urgency of growth for nonprofit news →“…our baseline assumption is that commercial newspapers will disappear or become ghost newspapers, with no meaningful civic reporting. They won’t, not everywhere. And we certainly will cheer those who persevere. But in many places, in fact in most places, we believe they will not.”The Guardian / Eleanor Ainge Roy
New Zealand media put the Christchurch gunman in his place with a focus on his victims →“In some coverage, it’s easy to forget he’s even there. It follows an unprecedented agreement reached in May last year to limit reporting of the trial of the gunman in an attempt to contain the dissemination of his white supremacist beliefs. Just as the reporting has been muted…so has the response of New Zealanders, echoing the approach of prime minister Jacinda Ardern when she said: ‘You won’t hear me speak his name.'”Digiday / Kayleigh Barber
Publishers see value in newsletter-based courses →“‘News organizations have historically not really invested in these because they require some upfront work and it’s a little bit different than the day-to-day format,’ said Dan Oshinsky, founder of email strategy consultancy Inbox Collective. ‘It’s not the first thing you tackle. This is the second wave of newsletters.'”Skift / Rafat Ali
The events industry is being confronted by its Napster moment →“Everything about the underlying economics of this sprawling, diverse, chaotic and highly profitable sector is being undercut by the move to virtual, and 2019 may be the year where the industry’s revenues peaked. This year could be the event industry’s 2000 moment à la what happened to the music industry.”CNBC / Salvador Rodriguez
Facebook says Apple’s privacy changes in iOS 14 could kill more than half its Audience Network revenue →“The Facebook Audience Network allows mobile software developers to provide in-app advertisements targeted to users based on Facebook’s data. Today, advertisers can use a unique device ID number called the IDFA to better target ads and estimate their effectiveness. In iOS 14, each app that wants to use these identifiers will ask users to opt in to tracking when the app is first launched.”The New York Times / Hannah Beech and Sun Narin
Threatened by Facebook disinformation, a monk flees Cambodia →“The monk, Luon Sovath, was the victim of a smear campaign this summer that relied on fake claims and hastily assembled social media accounts designed to discredit an outspoken critic of the country’s authoritarian policies…Facebook can be a powerful tool for autocrats to bolster their grip on the state, even as it provides a rare space for free expression and activism.”The Walrus / Pacinthe Mattar
Objectivity is a privilege afforded to white journalists →“Our professionalism is questioned when we report on the communities we’re from, and the spectre of advocacy follows us in a way that it does not follow many of our white colleagues.”The Wall Street Journal / Lukas I. Alpert
The National Enquirer now belongs to a “Georgia-based logistics and distribution business” →“Accelerate 360 is a unit of American News Company LLC, a magazine wholesale and distribution company. Both American News Company and American Media are portfolio companies of Chatham Asset Management LLC, a New Jersey-based hedge fund” — and the new owner of McClatchy.The Grade / Alexander Russo
How to avoid writing needlessly alarmist school reopening stories →“Don’t just give readers a raw number without telling them the larger context. Don’t just give them a percentage increase without telling them the raw numbers, either. Without numerical context, readers may make mistaken assumptions about the situation. Polls and other forms of data can also tell us more than anecdotes, which should be the color around real data.”Nieman Reports / Tina Vasquez
Is this the time for movement journalism? →“…movement journalism has several lofty goals; chief among them are prioritizing stories that amplify the power of people, producing news that is based on the experiences and identities of oppressed people, and developing shared political analysis between journalists and communities.”
Nieman Lab / Fuego / Encyclo
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