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You might have heard: Vox Media was valued at nearly $400 million in December and has raised nearly $100 million from investors, which include Comcast Ventures
But did you know: Comcast held acquisition talks with Vox Media (Fortune)
As news broke that Comcast is ending its Time Warner Cable acquisition, it was also revealed that Comcast held acquisition talks with Vox Media. The potential deal between Comcast and Vox Media fizzled out within the last month. With Comcast withdrawing its bid for Time Warner Cable, Comcast is now in a good position go on an “acquisition spree” for smaller companies.
+ Noted: Mobile advertising spend in the U.S. jumped by 76 percent in 2014, overtaking display ads to become the second-largest online ad format, behind search (Financial Times); Facebook has lined up seven partners for branded video content, including Vice Media and Vox Media (Variety); Associated Press posted its first revenue gain in six years in 2014 (Associated Press); Center for Investigative Reporting will launch CIR Impact Tracker, an open-source software platform for media organizations to track the outcomes and impact of their work (Center for Investigative Reporting)
API UPDATE
This week in fact-checking
As part of our fact-checking journalism project, Jane Elizabeth highlights stories worth noting related to truth in politics and on the internet. This week’s round-up includes new technology from LinkedIn for fact-checking, what’s fueling the growth in fact-checking in the U.S. and around the world, and new research from API on the impact of fact-checking in politics.
5 ideas from ProPublica for connecting with your community in local journalism (Local News Lab)
Regardless of the size of your newsroom or your budget, these lessons from ProPublica can help your local journalism have more impact. Have a clear-cut mission, and be transparent with your community about the goals you’re trying to achieve and let them know about your successes. Invite as much participation from your community as possible, and develop partnerships within that community to distribute your stories more widely.
+ More on community engagement: To better involve your audience throughout the reporting process, designate someone who should always be looking for engagement opportunities (International Journalists’ Network)
How U.K.’s Channel 4 News is telling stories with GIFs (Guardian)
U.K.’s Channel 4 News’ “4NewsWall” is a standalone site hosted by Tumblr that displays news stories with animated GIFs. 4NewsWall is targeted to an audience of 16- to 34-year-olds and was created by Channel 4’s in-house creative team 4Creative. The leaders of the project from 4Creative said: “Creating a GIF for a serious news story has been a very tricky learning curve – the tone of voice is crucial. … We try to work in unison to create a news GIF that represents the feisty spirit of Channel 4 News and that will appeal to a younger, more distracted audience.”
+ Earlier: Sky News tries to reach a younger audience with Biffed, a satirical election news site (Guardian)
Amazon’s advice to new startups: Ban slideshows in meetings (CNBC)
At Amazon, slideshow presentations are banned in meetings because they make people “passive.” Instead, meetings start off with everyone reading a six-page document on a new idea or product in silence for half an hour. Amazon’s chief technology officer Werner Vogels says this practice allows the group to have an informed discussion about the new idea while keeping people engaged in the meeting’s topic.
+ Our collection of insights on how to hold better meetings
What kind of ‘exclusive arrangement’ do some news organizations have on a Hillary Clinton book? (New York Times)
A New York Times article from earlier this week included a sentence that said the NYT, Washington Post and Fox News, among other major news organizations, have “exclusive arrangements” to pursue story lines found in a new book on Hillary Clinton written by Peter Schweizer. After hearing from readers concerned about the connection to the book and the background and reputation of the author, NYT public editor Margaret Sullivan investigated what exactly this agreement was. Sullivan says there was no financial arrangement between the Times and Schweizer, nor was there any agreement about what stories would contain or when they would be published.
+ Mathew Ingram’s response to Margaret Sullivan’s conversation with Clay Shirky on “the end of print”: “His argument should be required reading for newspaper executives who still believe that the decline of print advertising revenue and readership will be a gradual sailing-off-into-the-sunset kind of affair. It could be anything but.” (Medium)
Why the PR industry is snapping up Pulitzer winners: There are fewer jobs for regional journalists (Washington Post)
Two of this week’s Pulitzer Prize winners left their careers in journalism for public relations, with one leaving because he was struggling to make ends meet on a reporter’s salary and the other leaving for a job more conducive to starting a family. Jim Tankersley investigates the job-market trend. In 2014, 1 out of every 5 reporting jobs was in Washington, D.C., New York City or Los Angeles; in 2004, that number was 1 out of every 8. For journalists in any other part of the country, job options are dwindling, and even for those with jobs, compensation likely isn’t keeping up with inflation. However, the public relations industry is growing, and it’s growing in areas outside of Washington, New York and L.A. In the rest of the country, there was a 13 percent increase in public relations jobs in the last decade, or 20,000 new jobs.
+ The Apple Watch officially arrives today: A first look at many of the first apps available for the Apple Watch, including Breaking News and AP Mobile (9to5Mac) and the challenges that the Apple Watch poses for publishers and why finding the right content for wearables will take some time (Digiday)
FOR THE WEEKEND
+ Ken Doctor on CEO Mark Thompson’s approach at The New York Times with the recent hires of Meredith Kopit Levien as chief revenue officer and Kinsey Wilson as executive vice president for product and technology: “The Times is coming to the conclusion that lots of news organizations are coming to: There may be no new magic-bullet solution to the no-growth spiral they’ve been caught in for years. If there’s no likely magic bullet, then, the search for a magician to put it in place is likely to be fruitless.” (Capital New York)
+ Monica Guzman on hearing about the Rolling Stone story and thinking, “That could’ve been me”: “To be a journalist, you have to be afraid. Fear makes you triple-check your work. It makes you sharper, faster, more focused.” (Columbia Journalism Review)
+ John Robinson writes about the day he laid off 17 full-time and a dozen part-time journalists at the News & Record in 2007: “I’m still optimistic for the future of journalism and new ways of telling stories and nourishing democracy. There are so many smart, innovative people working on solutions based on people and community and service — rather than on protecting the way we do things — that journalism will flourish.” (Media, disrupted)
+ Felix Salmon questions whether there is such a thing as a lasting career in digital journalism because of its demand for young journalists over more seasoned ones (Fusion), and David Cohn’s response: Focus on developing your skills, which will be valuable in your career even if you leave journalism (Digidave)
+ How D.C. political communications staffers and reporters handle the onslaught of email: “There are zero-inbox people, and everyone else.” (National Journal)
The post Need to Know: April 24, 2015 appeared first on American Press Institute.
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