Fresh useful insights for people advancing quality, innovative and sustainable journalism
You might have heard: In a letter to Freedom Communications, the US Justice Department warned that if Tribune Publishing purchased the Orange County Register and Riverside Press-Enterprise, it would take antitrust action
But did you know: Tribune Publishing is the highest bidder for the Orange County Register and Riverside Press-Enterprise at $56 million (Tribune Publishing)
Tribune Publishing will be the new owner of Freedom Communications’ Orange County Register and Riverside Press-Enterprise, beating out Digital First Media and a group of local investors led by Freedom CEO Rich Mirman. At an auction yesterday, Tribune agreed to pay $56 million in cash for the newspapers and Freedom’s real estate in Santa Ana and Riverside. The Orange County Register reports that the auction “erupted into all-day battle,” and the group of local investors walked out on the all-day negotiations. What remains to be seen now is what kind of antitrust action the U.S. Department of Justice will take.
+ Ahead of the auction, Rick Edmonds questioned whether a newspaper company could even achieve a monopoly anymore: “Some would even question how much a big media company could stifle competition anymore with so many more news sources and advertising options available” (Poynter)
+ Noted: CNN is planning a major digital expansion and push to mobile: 50 jobs will be eliminated, but it will add more than 200 jobs (Washington Post) and CNN will also invest $20 million into the digital expansion (Wall Street Journal); Some major news websites, including NYT and BBC, were attacked by “ransomware” malware that attempted to install the malware on users’ computers (Guardian); Google says it will start ranking “mobile-friendly” websites even higher in May: Its requirements for being considered “mobile-friendly” include using text that is readable without zooming and sizing content to the screen (VentureBeat); Crux will live on as a part of Knights of Columbus, and Crux will remain an independent news organization (Crux)
The Washington Post is harnessing interruptions to keep readers’ attention on mobile (Garcia Media)
The Washington Post is refining the art of the interruption with some new features designed to keep users’ attention, Mario Garcia writes. One new feature allows users to bookmark their spot in a story and receive an email later with a reminder to return, and another shows users a pop-up when they’re been inactive for more than 5 minutes. With more users reading on mobile where there’s constant interruptions, the Post is using interruptions to keep readers on track, rather than to drag them in a different direction.
As The Independent becomes digital-only, it’s hiring writers who will work work on editorial and native ad content (Digiday)
The Independent is recreating itself as a digital-only organization as its print editions come to an end in the next two weeks. While other news organizations have created separate divisions for native ads, The Independent is taking a unique approach: It’s hiring writers who will work on both the editorial and commercial sides of the business. Group commercial director of ESI Media, which owns The Independent and The Evening Standard, says: “The thought process behind these new roles is that the writers will be close to the industry they write about, so will be best placed to help brands unlock the audiences that enjoy reading that content.”
+ Just a few weeks after an earnings report showed the Toronto Star’s tablet edition isn’t performing as well as it hoped it would, Star publisher and Star Media Group president John Cruickshank announced that he will step down in May, saying: “I’m ready to leave scaling new journalistic heights to someone with less arthritic limbs and more recently acquired tools and skills” (Nieman Lab); With the help of La Presse, the StarTouch tablet edition was launched with the idea that tablets lead to higher engagement
+ Vice Media announces plans to expand into Eastern Europe: Vice says it will be in Russia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Slovakia and Croatia by the end of the year (Hollywood Reporter)
If Instagram moves to an algorithmic feed, publishers who already perform well will get a boost (Digiday)
News broke Tuesday that Instagram may move to an algorithm-based feed similar to that of Facebook’s. But what would those changes mean for brands and publishers on Instagram? Publishers who are already performing well on Instagram will be helped by the algorithm, especially those who post content around trending topics. But brands and publishers who have lower engagement on their Instagram posts will be hurt by the algorithmic feed, and will likely be forced to rethink their Instagram strategies, Garett Sloane writes. As for what that new strategy will need to look like, Sloane says algorithms tend to force publishers to go for quality over quantity of posts.
New York Times and other news organizations should be more transparent about story changes made after publication, because editing after publication doesn’t build trust (Fortune)
The New York Times has come under criticism lately for editing a story about presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and changing the tone of the story after publication. Those kinds of edits are fairly common, NYT executive editor Dean Baquet said, but Mathew Ingram says news organizations still need to be more forthcoming about the changes that are made after publication and why those changes are made. Ingram writes: “Pretending that this doesn’t happen, or that it only involves routine tweaking, isn’t doing the Times any favors in the trust department.”
+ Earlier: A practice called “diffing” allows readers to compare current versions of a news story to previous versions, and a tool called NewsDiffs co-created by a former NYT reporter is tracking changes made by several news sites
+ Earlier: Our strategy study on how to build credibility through transparency
Have a data-driven story that doesn’t fit at your news outlet? The Thrust wants to help you publish it (Nieman Lab)
A new website called The Thrust wants to help reporters publish interactive, data-driven stories they’re passionate about, but that may not fit at any existing news outlet. The Thrust is currently in beta and was created by Ken Schwencke, formerly of the Los Angeles Times, and The Guardian’s Troy Griggs. Griggs describes The Thrust’s mission as: “If a writer has this story, writes this story, and they pitch it to their place, and that place says no, they can find another home for a story that matters to them. What we do is provide that space for ourselves, and also see how useful that space might be to everyone in this field.”
The post Need to Know: Mar. 17, 2016 appeared first on American Press Institute.
from American Press Institute http://ift.tt/1ppZMms
0 التعليقات:
Post a Comment