But did you know: Responding to Tofel’s post, Rick Edmonds says while print circulation is falling, it’s not all bad news for print. Because some publishers are charging higher prices, print circulation revenues have risen in the last few years, with some attrition from the higher prices. More than 50 percent of print news subscribers only read local news in print. Tofel predicts that the industry may be forced to phase out print in the near future, but Edmonds says: “Given the healthy circulation revenue picture, I think that’s five to 10 years away for most papers.”
Fusion’s 12-person “social stories” team includes writers, animators, graphic designers and producers who create content for Fusion’s Snapchat Discover channel, in addition to other channels such as Instagram and Vine. Laura Feinstein, head of the social stories team, says they create a “mini-magazine” each day through collaboration with editorial, but also with the audience development and social teams for cross-promotion on Fusion’s other channels. Feinstein says: “Essentially, there isn’t a branch of Fusion we aren’t in some ways collaborating with and seeing how we can bring that into the Snapchat family.”
Trinity Mirror’s latest project is a national newspaper targeted to female readers, priced lower than Trinity Mirror’s other titles, The Guardian reports. Trinity Mirror may start testing the new title in the northern parts of England. Mark Sweney writes that the new title may operate similarly to another publication in England: The Independent launched “i” in 2010, and it now sells 268,000 copies each day.
If you work for a government agency that’s on Slack, your Slack messages are public record, The Atlantic’s Kaveh Waddell writes. But, the government doesn’t have any measures in place to deal with this, a problem that MuckRock (a website that helps users send and monitor FOIA requests) developer Allan Lasser is trying to solve. Earlier this month, Lasser sent a request to the FCC, asking the agency to reveal a list of teams that use Slack to communicate. Lasser says his goal is to be able to search for the names of channels the FCC has set up, and then tailor a FOIA request to the messages he wants to see. On its end, Slack is making it easier for organizations to comply by allowing team leaders to export a transcript of all messages sent in public channels and groups.
In the week since speculation started that Michael Bloomberg might run for president, Bloomberg News has been put in a tricky spot, with one of its editors resigning over concerns that the organization couldn’t cover Bloomberg aggressively enough. Poynter’s Kelly McBride says that Bloomberg News “can’t sit this one out,” and Bloomberg News’ leadership needs to take steps to ensure the fairness of its coverage: “A top editor has to state publicly that the news organization has a detailed plan for insuring the independence of their reporters. Then, the political team has to come up with a detailed approach, which they also make public. It would help to have an outside advisor who could weigh in and hold them accountable.”
The Boston Globe may not be part of Instant Articles, but it’s found a way to publish directly to Facebook anyway. The Globe started publishing content directly to Facebook’s Notes feature on Tuesday, starting with content from its newsletter covering the presidential election. Notes do not have a ton of interest from readers yet, but Digiday’s Ricardo Bilton says there’s still reason for publishers to experiment with the format: Like Instant Articles, Notes load faster within Facebook, and Notes offers its own set of metrics for publishers.
But did you know:Print circulation numbers may be falling, but increases in print revenue are a reason to be hopeful (Poynter)
Responding to Tofel’s post, Rick Edmonds says while print circulation is falling, it’s not all bad news for print. Because some publishers are charging higher prices, print circulation revenues have risen in the last few years, with some attrition from the higher prices. More than 50 percent of print news subscribers only read local news in print. Tofel predicts that the industry may be forced to phase out print in the near future, but Edmonds says: “Given the healthy circulation revenue picture, I think that’s five to 10 years away for most papers.”
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The 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 how to get your student loans to disappear, Neil deGrasse Tyson taking on misinformation from a rapper on Twitter, and how to use the Political TV Ad Archive in your reporting.
How Fusion produces stories for its Snapchat Discover channel (Journalism.co.uk)
Fusion’s 12-person “social stories” team includes writers, animators, graphic designers and producers who create content for Fusion’s Snapchat Discover channel, in addition to other channels such as Instagram and Vine. Laura Feinstein, head of the social stories team, says they create a “mini-magazine” each day through collaboration with editorial, but also with the audience development and social teams for cross-promotion on Fusion’s other channels. Feinstein says: “Essentially, there isn’t a branch of Fusion we aren’t in some ways collaborating with and seeing how we can bring that into the Snapchat family.”
Trinity Mirror is planning to launch a new national newspaper targeted to female readers (Guardian)
Trinity Mirror’s latest project is a national newspaper targeted to female readers, priced lower than Trinity Mirror’s other titles, The Guardian reports. Trinity Mirror may start testing the new title in the northern parts of England. Mark Sweney writes that the new title may operate similarly to another publication in England: The Independent launched “i” in 2010, and it now sells 268,000 copies each day.
How Slack is trying to make it easier for organizations to comply with FOIA requests (The Atlantic)
If you work for a government agency that’s on Slack, your Slack messages are public record, The Atlantic’s Kaveh Waddell writes. But, the government doesn’t have any measures in place to deal with this, a problem that MuckRock (a website that helps users send and monitor FOIA requests) developer Allan Lasser is trying to solve. Earlier this month, Lasser sent a request to the FCC, asking the agency to reveal a list of teams that use Slack to communicate. Lasser says his goal is to be able to search for the names of channels the FCC has set up, and then tailor a FOIA request to the messages he wants to see. On its end, Slack is making it easier for organizations to comply by allowing team leaders to export a transcript of all messages sent in public channels and groups.
The Boston Globe isn’t part of Instant Articles, but it’s using Notes to publish directly to Facebook (Digiday)
The Boston Globe may not be part of Instant Articles, but it’s found a way to publish directly to Facebook anyway. The Globe started publishing content directly to Facebook’s Notes feature on Tuesday, starting with content from its newsletter covering the presidential election. Notes do not have a ton of interest from readers yet, but Digiday’s Ricardo Bilton says there’s still reason for publishers to experiment with the format: Like Instant Articles, Notes load faster within Facebook, and Notes offers its own set of metrics for publishers.
The American Press Institute presents a roundup from the world of fact-checking, debunking and truth-telling — just in case you haven’t been paying as much attention as we do.
Quote of the week
“You know, honey, truth is a prism that shattered at the top of the world. Nobody ever finds the prism; all anybody ever finds is a shard.” — Herald-Times editor Bob Zaltsberg, quoting Indiana reader
Fact check of the week
When presidential candidates say they’re “going to end this program” if elected, it’s a good idea to see if that’s even possible, you know, constitutionally speaking. Emma Brown, the Washington Post’s national education reporter, takes apart some attacks on Common Core. Read it.
Tips for better fact-checking
Who, exactly, are “the American people”? And what, precisely, are “conservative” values? Columnist Jennifer Rubin implores journalists to fact-check the meaning behind those words and other incantations — like “amnesty” and “Ronald Reagan”— when they’re uttered by politicians. Read it.
Fact-checking the 2016 elections
Journalists (and voters) have a new fact-checking tool for 2016: The Political TV Ad Archive. Well-known for its Wayback Machine, the organization is archiving thousands of campaign ads along with deep data and fact-checks. See an example here. The ads and data can be shared with your social media friends and embedded in your blogs. Read more about the project.*
The technology of fact-checking
And help is on the way for the 2020 elections: automated fact-checking, an idea that’s quickly moving from science fiction to real life. The International Fact-Checking Network and Duke University will hold a “Tech and Check” conference in March “to explore the promise and challenges of automated fact-checking.” Read it.
Fact-checking science
If you missed the flat-earth debates five centuries ago, you can relive them through scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Twitter-schooling of rapper B.o.B., who was instructing his Twitter followers to “grow up” and realize the earth is not a big ball. (The American Press Institute’s research shows that misinformation on Twitter far outweighs anyone’s attempts to correct it, so we hope the physicist’s tweets closed that gap a fraction.)
Fact-checking Hollywood
It’s always good to have the occasional reminder that flesh-eating sea cows are not real and, in general, that television dramas have a casual relationship with facts. The Observer checks the X-Files and Entertainment Weekly takes on The People vs. O.J. Simpson.
Some fact-checking fun
“Fake college facts” were trending on Twitter this week, including: “You can get student loan forgiveness if you sincerely apologize.” Read more.
*The American Press Institute will help conduct training for journalists, college students and faculty in Virginia and North Carolina who want to know more about using the Political TV Ad Archive. Contact us for more information.
But did you know: Asking if NYT should have done more to cover Flint’s water crisis, Margaret Sullivan hears that stories in the Midwest are going largely uncovered by national news outlets. NYT deputy executive editor Matt Purdy says: “The Midwest is one of the busiest regions of the country in terms of news, from Ferguson to police shootings to political unrest in Chicago. … The resources of regional and national outlets are stretched increasingly thin. We are fortunate to have a robust and talented national staff, but we certainly can’t get to every important story and we can’t go deep on every one we get to. Perhaps most disturbing is that there are likely hundreds of troubling events unfolding around the country at any time that are getting very little if any attention from the media.”
In a new survey from analytics firm Localytics, more than half of survey respondents said push notifications are an “annoying distraction,” and receiving between 2 and 5 messages per week would cause 45 percent of respondents to disable push notifications. But there’s a better way for publishers to do push notifications, Chialun Huang writes: “Personalization is the way forward if push notifications are to survive.” Among the most popular push notifications in the Localytics survey were personalized sales offers, location-based notifications, and personalized content.
The Economist has added another social channel to its distribution strategy, Lucinda Southern writes. The Economist is now publishing to Japanese messaging app Line, where it will “prioritize more visually compelling and evergreen content” than it does on Facebook or Twitter. Line has 212 million monthly users who are mostly located in Asia, and publishers including the BBC and Wall Street Journal have also started publishing on the app. The Economist’s deputy community editor Denise Law says: “Line offers an interesting audience that we don’t have access to. There’s a universe of younger readers particularly in Asia and the U.S. that wouldn’t know to go to Economist.com, so we go to them.”
In its quarterly earnings report, Facebook put a number on how big video on the social network really is. Facebook says that 500 million people watch more than 100 million hours of video on Facebook each day. While Facebook’s focus on video isn’t new, that time spent metric is a new one: Facebook previously reported “total video views.”
In response to a Pew report that found 21 states do not have a local news reporter dedicated to covering Congress, George Washington University’s Nikki Usher writes: “Most observers of journalism — and journalists too — would like to think that the work they do in Washington is making a difference. But there is little actual data that quantifies their impact. Not only do we need to know more about the work journalists are doing in DC if we are to justify their being there, we also need to ask hard questions about whether they are doing their jobs well rather than assuming that their sheer existence is some kind of normative good.”
On the anniversary of Snapchat Discover’s launch, Kerry Flynn writes that many of Snapchat’s media partners are cheering on the feature. Flynn says those partners see Discover as one of the best ways to reach a Millennial audience, and their Snapchat strategies are moving from experimental to a core offering. National Geographic’s VP of social media Rajiv Mody says: “We started talking with Snapchat about [Discover] in the late part of 2014. Back then it was just an experiment. I don’t think it’s cannibalizing anything else. Snapchat is a new growth opportunity for us. … I say it’s a very high priority.”
But did you know:The New York Times’ sparse coverage of the Flint water crisis shows that there’s likely many stories in the Midwest going uncovered by national news outlets (New York Times)
Asking if NYT should have done more to cover Flint’s water crisis, Margaret Sullivan hears that stories in the Midwest are going largely uncovered by national news outlets. NYT deputy executive editor Matt Purdy says: “The Midwest is one of the busiest regions of the country in terms of news, from Ferguson to police shootings to political unrest in Chicago. … The resources of regional and national outlets are stretched increasingly thin. We are fortunate to have a robust and talented national staff, but we certainly can’t get to every important story and we can’t go deep on every one we get to. Perhaps most disturbing is that there are likely hundreds of troubling events unfolding around the country at any time that are getting very little if any attention from the media.”
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Why it’s time for publishers to embrace personalized push notifications (WAN-IFRA)
In a new survey from analytics firm Localytics, more than half of survey respondents said push notifications are an “annoying distraction,” and receiving between 2 and 5 messages per week would cause 45 percent of respondents to disable push notifications. But there’s a better way for publishers to do push notifications, Chialun Huang writes: “Personalization is the way forward if push notifications are to survive.” Among the most popular push notifications in the Localytics survey were personalized sales offers, location-based notifications, and personalized content.
Why The Economist is publishing on a messaging app called Line (Digiday)
The Economist has added another social channel to its distribution strategy, Lucinda Southern writes. The Economist is now publishing to Japanese messaging app Line, where it will “prioritize more visually compelling and evergreen content” than it does on Facebook or Twitter. Line has 212 million monthly users who are mostly located in Asia, and publishers including the BBC and Wall Street Journal have also started publishing on the app. The Economist’s deputy community editor Denise Law says: “Line offers an interesting audience that we don’t have access to. There’s a universe of younger readers particularly in Asia and the U.S. that wouldn’t know to go to Economist.com, so we go to them.”
Facebook says its users watch 100 million hours of video per day (Re/code)
In its quarterly earnings report, Facebook put a number on how big video on the social network really is. Facebook says that 500 million people watch more than 100 million hours of video on Facebook each day. While Facebook’s focus on video isn’t new, that time spent metric is a new one: Facebook previously reported “total video views.”
One year into Snapchat Discover, some publishers are building new mobile audiences and finding new revenue sources (International Business Times)
On the anniversary of Snapchat Discover’s launch, Kerry Flynn writes that many of Snapchat’s media partners are cheering on the feature. Flynn says those partners see Discover as one of the best ways to reach a Millennial audience, and their Snapchat strategies are moving from experimental to a core offering. National Geographic’s VP of social media Rajiv Mody says: “We started talking with Snapchat about [Discover] in the late part of 2014. Back then it was just an experiment. I don’t think it’s cannibalizing anything else. Snapchat is a new growth opportunity for us. … I say it’s a very high priority.”
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But did you know: Microsoft’s newest iOS app looks a lot like Apple’s own News app, Sarah Perez writes. Called “News Pro,” Microsoft’s new app offers users a customized news experience by showing them articles they may be interested in based on their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles. Unlike Apple’s News, News Pro is powered by Bing and is available on desktop as well as mobile. But, as Perez writes, this app isn’t a slam-dunk for Microsoft: “Unfortunately for Microsoft, nothing about this new app comes across as truly unique, and in some cases, it looks like it’s trying to directly clone its competitors. … There are so many opportunities to deliver re-imagined and compelling takes on mobile news reading today, but Microsoft’s News Pro is simply rehashing what others have already done.”
During this weekend’s snowstorm on the East Coast, The Washington Post and Baltimore Sun lowered their paywalls. That decision opened up important information to as many readers as possible, Baltimore Sun’s director of audience engagement and development Matt Bracken says. The storm also prevented many subscribers from receiving their print newspapers, which Bracken says added another upside to lowering the paywall. Bracken says: “I think the ultimate mission for us is to inform the public in times of crisis, and this weekend’s weather certainly qualified in our opinion.”
The Guardian is cutting its budget by 20 percent and expanding its membership program in an effort to break even within three years, but The Times of London is already breaking even, Dominic Ponsford says. The Times added a paywall in June 2010, and nearly six years later, the paper is turning a profit. While Ponsford acknowledges that the paywall is likely not the only reason for the Times’ financial success, he writes: “Does this signal the failure of the open journalism model as practiced by The Guardian? It does seem to suggest that it is impossible at this stage to support a staff of more than 900 journalists mainly on revenue from a free website.”
After four VPs announced their departures earlier this week, Twitter has now found its new chief marketing officer, Leslie Berland. Berland was most recently VP of global advertising, marketing and digital partnerships at American Express. As Berland is tasked with building Twitter’s brand, some challenges she will face include its struggle to attract new users and convincing users who have abandoned Twitter to give it another chance.
The Guardian announced this week that it’s making changes to how it labels native ads, and will now label content that’s supported by sponsors with “paid content” or “paid for by.” The Guardian previously labeled native ads with “brought to you by.” The company told Digiday the changes are “a part of our ongoing commitment to transparency and clarity for our readers and commercial partners.”
As many publishers are jumping into distributed strategies, they’re finding that measuring their audiences across different platforms isn’t simple, Lucia Moses writes. CNN’s Meredith Artley says they are somewhat at the mercy of the platform, which may choose to provide data once a day or even once a week: “All these platforms are a little bit different because all these audiences are a little bit different and the measurement metrics are a little bit different. Apple News is going to measure differently because it’s a different audience and use case than Snapchat and Instagram and messaging apps and watches.”
But did you know:Microsoft launched an iOS app called News Pro, which personalizes news for its users (TechCrunch)
Microsoft’s newest iOS app looks a lot like Apple’s own News app, Sarah Perez writes. Called “News Pro,” Microsoft’s new app offers users a customized news experience by showing them articles they may be interested in based on their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles. Unlike Apple’s News, News Pro is powered by Bing and is available on desktop as well as mobile. But, as Perez writes, this app isn’t a slam-dunk for Microsoft: “Unfortunately for Microsoft, nothing about this new app comes across as truly unique, and in some cases, it looks like it’s trying to directly clone its competitors. … There are so many opportunities to deliver re-imagined and compelling takes on mobile news reading today, but Microsoft’s News Pro is simply rehashing what others have already done.”
How to decide when to lower a paywall for big news (Poynter)
During this weekend’s snowstorm on the East Coast, The Washington Post and Baltimore Sun lowered their paywalls. That decision opened up important information to as many readers as possible, Baltimore Sun’s director of audience engagement and development Matt Bracken says. The storm also prevented many subscribers from receiving their print newspapers, which Bracken says added another upside to lowering the paywall. Bracken says: “I think the ultimate mission for us is to inform the public in times of crisis, and this weekend’s weather certainly qualified in our opinion.”
While The Guardian is taking steps to break even, why The Times of London is already doing so (PressGazette) The Guardian is cutting its budget by 20 percent and expanding its membership program in an effort to break even within three years, but The Times of London is already breaking even, Dominic Ponsford says. The Times added a paywall in June 2010, and nearly six years later, the paper is turning a profit. While Ponsford acknowledges that the paywall is likely not the only reason for the Times’ financial success, he writes: “Does this signal the failure of the open journalism model as practiced by The Guardian? It does seem to suggest that it is impossible at this stage to support a staff of more than 900 journalists mainly on revenue from a free website.”
Following a mass exodus of executives, Twitter names Leslie Berland as CMO (Re/code)
After four VPs announced their departures earlier this week, Twitter has now found its new chief marketing officer, Leslie Berland. Berland was most recently VP of global advertising, marketing and digital partnerships at American Express. As Berland is tasked with building Twitter’s brand, some challenges she will face include its struggle to attract new users and convincing users who have abandoned Twitter to give it another chance.
Guardian changes how it labels native ads, now referring to them as ‘paid content’ (Digiday)
The Guardian announced this week that it’s making changes to how it labels native ads, and will now label content that’s supported by sponsors with “paid content” or “paid for by.” The Guardian previously labeled native ads with “brought to you by.” The company told Digiday the changes are “a part of our ongoing commitment to transparency and clarity for our readers and commercial partners.”
Measuring audience across different platforms is proving to be difficult for publishers (Digiday)
As many publishers are jumping into distributed strategies, they’re finding that measuring their audiences across different platforms isn’t simple, Lucia Moses writes. CNN’s Meredith Artley says they are somewhat at the mercy of the platform, which may choose to provide data once a day or even once a week: “All these platforms are a little bit different because all these audiences are a little bit different and the measurement metrics are a little bit different. Apple News is going to measure differently because it’s a different audience and use case than Snapchat and Instagram and messaging apps and watches.”
But did you know: With the creation of its new platform One, AOL wants to show the publishers in its network that “it has solutions not only for advertisers … but specifically for the publisher community.” One includes seven of AOL’s products, including display ad platform Marketplace, ad-serving provider AdTech, video monetization tool One Video, and monetization platform Millennial Media. Ken Yeung writes: “This complete package may seem like a lot for the average publisher, but this wholesale approach means lower overall costs for site owners, who would otherwise pay quite a bit more for individual services.” In addition to the entire suite of tools, AOL is also offering a la carte options.
While there’s a big focus in journalism on new tools for storytelling, Elite Truong writes that some journalism schools have been slow to start teaching students to tell stories in new ways. To that end, Truong offers her favorite, easy-to-use storytelling tools for new journalists. The tools include Storify for breaking news on social, Autotune for data visualizations, Google News Lab to follow and discover trends, and Gifs to make creating GIFs simple.
Guardian News & Media plans to cut its costs by 20 percent, with the goal of breaking even within three years, and a key part of that plan is to expand its membership program. The revamped membership program is being called “Project 2021,” and its goal is to “double reader revenues from £30 million to £60 million.” The Guardian’s content has never been behind a paywall, but CEO David Pemsel says that idea isn’t out of the question now: “We have put membership at the heart of what we’re doing, the heart of editorial.”
In Poynter’s leadership programs, Butch Ward says he’s seen a troubling trend: Staff says they aren’t getting feedback from the managers, because the managers are too busy. If those managers are too busy to provide feedback, Ward asks, what else are they too busy to do, and what effect does that have on the newsroom’s performance? For managers to figure out the best use of their time, Ward recommends they start by asking themselves 3 questions: What work can I do alone? Is the work I’m doing having any impact on our future? Who else could be doing this?
At the convention that AdBlock Plus was uninvited from earlier this month, the leader of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Randall Rothenberg, didn’t hesitate to fire back about why the ticket was returned: “They are stealing from publishers, subverting freedom of the press, operating a business model predicated on censorship of content, and ultimately forcing consumers to pay more money for less — and less diverse — information. AdBlock Plus claims it wants to engage in dialogue. But its form of dialogue is an incessant monologue.” Rothenberg says AdBlock Plus was not invited to the convention, and their registration was canceled when IAB learned of it.
“With the rise of social and search, the publisher homepage was left for dead,” Ricardo Bilton writes, but the homepage is starting to slow return to relevance. More publishers are seeing the homepage as a way to make a statement for their brand, instead of just a “front door” for traffic to articles. Co-founder of design firm Charming Robot Dan Maccarone says the homepage can also be a “playground” for publishers: “If anything, the homepage is the best place to experiment with new ideas.”
But did you know:AOL’s One will provide publishers tools for audience engagement, analytics, content distribution, and revenue management in a single place (VentureBeat)
With the creation of its new platform One, AOL wants to show the publishers in its network that “it has solutions not only for advertisers … but specifically for the publisher community.” One includes seven of AOL’s products, including display ad platform Marketplace, ad-serving provider AdTech, video monetization tool One Video, and monetization platform Millennial Media. Ken Yeung writes: “This complete package may seem like a lot for the average publisher, but this wholesale approach means lower overall costs for site owners, who would otherwise pay quite a bit more for individual services.” In addition to the entire suite of tools, AOL is also offering a la carte options.
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4 easy-to-use storytelling tools for new journalists (Poynter)
While there’s a big focus in journalism on new tools for storytelling, Elite Truong writes that some journalism schools have been slow to start teaching students to tell stories in new ways. To that end, Truong offers her favorite, easy-to-use storytelling tools for new journalists. The tools include Storify for breaking news on social, Autotune for data visualizations, Google News Lab to follow and discover trends, and Gifs to make creating GIFs simple.
While The Guardian cuts costs, it will also expand its membership program (Nieman Lab) Guardian News & Media plans to cut its costs by 20 percent, with the goal of breaking even within three years, and a key part of that plan is to expand its membership program. The revamped membership program is being called “Project 2021,” and its goal is to “double reader revenues from £30 million to £60 million.” The Guardian’s content has never been behind a paywall, but CEO David Pemsel says that idea isn’t out of the question now: “We have put membership at the heart of what we’re doing, the heart of editorial.”
3 questions for managers to ask themselves to figure out the most effective use of their time (Poynter)
In Poynter’s leadership programs, Butch Ward says he’s seen a troubling trend: Staff says they aren’t getting feedback from the managers, because the managers are too busy. If those managers are too busy to provide feedback, Ward asks, what else are they too busy to do, and what effect does that have on the newsroom’s performance? For managers to figure out the best use of their time, Ward recommends they start by asking themselves 3 questions: What work can I do alone? Is the work I’m doing having any impact on our future? Who else could be doing this?
IAB chief: AdBlock Plus is an ‘extortion racket’ that is ‘subverting freedom of the press’ (Adweek)
At the convention that AdBlock Plus was uninvited from earlier this month, the leader of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Randall Rothenberg, didn’t hesitate to fire back about why the ticket was returned: “They are stealing from publishers, subverting freedom of the press, operating a business model predicated on censorship of content, and ultimately forcing consumers to pay more money for less — and less diverse — information. AdBlock Plus claims it wants to engage in dialogue. But its form of dialogue is an incessant monologue.” Rothenberg says AdBlock Plus was not invited to the convention, and their registration was canceled when IAB learned of it.
Why the publisher’s homepage is making a comeback (Digiday)
“With the rise of social and search, the publisher homepage was left for dead,” Ricardo Bilton writes, but the homepage is starting to slow return to relevance. More publishers are seeing the homepage as a way to make a statement for their brand, instead of just a “front door” for traffic to articles. Co-founder of design firm Charming Robot Dan Maccarone says the homepage can also be a “playground” for publishers: “If anything, the homepage is the best place to experiment with new ideas.”
But did you know: Guardian News & Media, the publisher of The Guardian, is aiming to break even within three years by reducing its budget by 20 percent, or just over £50 million (about $71 million). The company’s operating costs have increased by 23 percent in the last five years, while revenue has only grown by 10 percent. Guardian News & Media’s chief executive David Pemsel declined to comment on whether jobs would be cut. Guardian editor in chief Katherine Viner says: “Over the next three years, a growing and far deeper set of relationships with our audience will result in a reimagining of our journalism, a sustainable business model and a newly-focused digital organization that reflects our independence and our mission.”
Vox’s seven-person engagement team leads the creation and distribution of content to the six platforms Vox publishes to, the newest of which being Snapchat Discover. While the engagement team works closely with beat reporters to package stories for social, director of programming Allison Rockey says their main “focus is to know all the social platforms in and out, to really be the ones to foster communities and make sure they are growing.” Rockey talked to Journalism.co.uk’s Mădălina Ciobanu about the ins and outs of Vox’s workflows for social publishing.
Axel Springer’s Bild took a hard approach to ad blocking when it banned all ad blockers from accessing its website, but that approach is proving to be a financial success. In October 2015, 25 percent of its users on desktop were blocking ads. After it starting asking users to turn off their ad blockers, the number of users with an ad blocker enabled on desktop declined by two-thirds to the single digits, which Bild says created 3 million more “marketable visits” each week.
You might have noticed a new trend in everything from mailing list opt-outs to publishers’ websites: Choosing not to sign up for Elle’s mailing list comes with a message saying, “No thanks, I’m not interested in protecting my skin,” and when GQ asks you to turn off an ad blocker, it says “Please support GQ’s Award Winning Journalism!” Those guilt trips are becoming a more common user interface design feature, Katie Notopoulos writes, forcing users to say that “no, I DON’T care about being well-informed and reading great journalism,” when unsubscribing from a mailing list or choosing not to register with a website.
Fact-checking organizations have a big challenge to overcome: “Convincing people that this information a) is available and b) that it is adequate to be used is hard,” Africa Check’s Nechama Brodie writes. “The mandate of fact-checking operations should never focus exclusively on correcting misleading claims. The ultimate goal should rather be kick-starting their readers’ sceptical reflexes, and enabling them, and those in the media, to question and check claims for themselves. … If fact-checking is niche, then it will never be relevant or effective.”
“It’s no secret that fewer and fewer journalists are being asked to write more and more copy. Only the most short-sighted PR would say this is a good thing,” PR Week’s Robert Bownes writes. Data journalism leads to more in-depth journalism and more interesting stories, but this is also a challenge for those in the PR industry: “This may mean that more pitches are assessed on content rather than the order they appear in a reporter’s inbox. [And] it may mean PRs have to generally raise their game. It’s harder to hide a company’s bad practice or comms ‘spin’ if a reporter, aided by data scientists, can examine open data to verify claims.”
But did you know:The Guardian’s parent company will cut its budget by 20 percent, with the goal of breaking even within 3 years (Guardian)
Guardian News & Media, the publisher of The Guardian, is aiming to break even within three years by reducing its budget by 20 percent, or just over £50 million (about $71 million). The company’s operating costs have increased by 23 percent in the last five years, while revenue has only grown by 10 percent. Guardian News & Media’s chief executive David Pemsel declined to comment on whether jobs would be cut. Guardian editor in chief Katherine Viner says: “Over the next three years, a growing and far deeper set of relationships with our audience will result in a reimagining of our journalism, a sustainable business model and a newly-focused digital organization that reflects our independence and our mission.”
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How Vox creates and distributes content for 6 different social platforms (Journalism.co.uk)
Vox’s seven-person engagement team leads the creation and distribution of content to the six platforms Vox publishes to, the newest of which being Snapchat Discover. While the engagement team works closely with beat reporters to package stories for social, director of programming Allison Rockey says their main “focus is to know all the social platforms in and out, to really be the ones to foster communities and make sure they are growing.” Rockey talked to Journalism.co.uk’s Mădălina Ciobanu about the ins and outs of Vox’s workflows for social publishing.
How more publishers and digital marketers are using guilt trips as a UI feature (BuzzFeed)
You might have noticed a new trend in everything from mailing list opt-outs to publishers’ websites: Choosing not to sign up for Elle’s mailing list comes with a message saying, “No thanks, I’m not interested in protecting my skin,” and when GQ asks you to turn off an ad blocker, it says “Please support GQ’s Award Winning Journalism!” Those guilt trips are becoming a more common user interface design feature, Katie Notopoulos writes, forcing users to say that “no, I DON’T care about being well-informed and reading great journalism,” when unsubscribing from a mailing list or choosing not to register with a website.
‘For fact-checking to be sustainable, fact-checking organizations need to become obsolete’ (Poynter)
Fact-checking organizations have a big challenge to overcome: “Convincing people that this information a) is available and b) that it is adequate to be used is hard,” Africa Check’s Nechama Brodie writes. “The mandate of fact-checking operations should never focus exclusively on correcting misleading claims. The ultimate goal should rather be kick-starting their readers’ sceptical reflexes, and enabling them, and those in the media, to question and check claims for themselves. … If fact-checking is niche, then it will never be relevant or effective.”
How data journalism and more long-form stories are a challenge for the PR industry (PR Week)
“It’s no secret that fewer and fewer journalists are being asked to write more and more copy. Only the most short-sighted PR would say this is a good thing,” PR Week’s Robert Bownes writes. Data journalism leads to more in-depth journalism and more interesting stories, but this is also a challenge for those in the PR industry: “This may mean that more pitches are assessed on content rather than the order they appear in a reporter’s inbox. [And] it may mean PRs have to generally raise their game. It’s harder to hide a company’s bad practice or comms ‘spin’ if a reporter, aided by data scientists, can examine open data to verify claims.”
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But did you know: The New Republic’s longtime literary editor Leon Wieseltier disputed rumors that he’s buying the magazine, but Wieseltier is starting a new publication with Laurene Powell Jobs. The new publication is unnamed right now, but will “discuss the effects of technology on our lives and think critically about it.” But, Wieseltier is clear that this new publication will not be a reboot of The New Republic: “I can’t imagine a more distressed asset. [Chris Hughes] vandalized it. He sacked it.”
While Snapchat itself has evolved from a communication tool to a storytelling medium to a distribution platform, NPR’s Vesta Partovi writes about how NPR’s Snapchat strategy has evolved. To produce a Snapchat story today, Partovi says NPR’s social media team is using four key concepts: storyboarding, captioning, collaborating, and engaging. A story is pitched to the social team, reporters and producers collaborate on how to make the story work for Snapchat, a storyboard is created, and the Snapchat story is filmed, with audience engagement and feedback following publication.
Just a few weeks after Twitter’s plans to increase its character limit were reported, Chinese social network Weibo says it will also increase its character limit. Weibo is a microblogging platform similar to Twitter. Weibo will begin testing the increased character limit on Jan. 28. Users will still only see the first 140 characters in their timeline, but will be shown a “read more” option to reveal the rest of the post.
“In modern business, collaboration is next to godliness,” but research is starting to show that there’s a downside to open office spaces. University of California, Irvine’s Gloria Mark has found that even short interruptions increase the time needed to complete a task by a significant amount, while other studies have shown that multitasking reduces the overall quality of work. The Economist writes: “Helping people to collaborate is a wonderful thing. Giving them the time to think is even better.”
Mic CEO Chris Altchek said last week that to get the Millennial generation to care about news, they need a different kind of news than what appeals to older generations. But, BuzzFeed’s executive director of news Shani Hilton explains why Millennials really aren’t that different: “Millennials are interested in the same things that other people are. ‘Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me something I care about.’”
When Quartz launched in 2012, it intentionally did not have an app because it created a barrier for readers to discover Quartz, publisher Jay Lauf says. Now, Quartz has plans to launch its first app in the first quarter of 2016. That’s because audiences are changing and the app landscape is changing, Lauf says: “Over the past four years, the places where people spend time reading have changed greatly. We’re trying to position ourselves to be wherever those users are.”
But did you know:Leon Wieseltier says he won’t be buying The New Republic, but he is starting a new publication with Steve Jobs’ widow (New York Magazine)
The New Republic’s longtime literary editor Leon Wieseltier disputed rumors that he’s buying the magazine, but Wieseltier is starting a new publication with Laurene Powell Jobs. The new publication is unnamed right now, but will “discuss the effects of technology on our lives and think critically about it.” But, Wieseltier is clear that this new publication will not be a reboot of The New Republic: “I can’t imagine a more distressed asset. [Chris Hughes] vandalized it. He sacked it.”
Each morning we scour the web for fresh useful insights in our Need to Know newsletter. Sign up below.
The 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 why Iowa’s ethanol debate isn’t as complicated as it seems, what gets journalists interested in accountability journalism, and fact-checking survival tactics in the new movie “The Revenant.”
How NPR has formalized its strategy for making Snapchat stories (NPR Social Media Desk)
While Snapchat itself has evolved from a communication tool to a storytelling medium to a distribution platform, NPR’s Vesta Partovi writes about how NPR’s Snapchat strategy has evolved. To produce a Snapchat story today, Partovi says NPR’s social media team is using four key concepts: storyboarding, captioning, collaborating, and engaging. A story is pitched to the social team, reporters and producers collaborate on how to make the story work for Snapchat, a storyboard is created, and the Snapchat story is filmed, with audience engagement and feedback following publication.
Why some say the culture of collaboration in the workplace has gone too far (Economist)
“In modern business, collaboration is next to godliness,” but research is starting to show that there’s a downside to open office spaces. University of California, Irvine’s Gloria Mark has found that even short interruptions increase the time needed to complete a task by a significant amount, while other studies have shown that multitasking reduces the overall quality of work. The Economist writes: “Helping people to collaborate is a wonderful thing. Giving them the time to think is even better.”
Because it’s seeing its audience change, Quartz will launch an app in early 2016 (Nieman Lab)
When Quartz launched in 2012, it intentionally did not have an app because it created a barrier for readers to discover Quartz, publisher Jay Lauf says. Now, Quartz has plans to launch its first app in the first quarter of 2016. That’s because audiences are changing and the app landscape is changing, Lauf says: “Over the past four years, the places where people spend time reading have changed greatly. We’re trying to position ourselves to be wherever those users are.”
The American Press Institute presents a roundup from the world of fact-checking, debunking and truth-telling — just in case you haven’t been paying as much attention as we do.
Fact-checking Hollywood