Fresh useful insights for people advancing quality, innovative and sustainable journalism
You might have heard: Mashable announced Thursday that its chief content officer Jim Roberts and chief revenue officer Seth Rogin would leave the company as it turn its focus to video and “growing Mashable across every platform” (LinkedIn Pulse)
But did you know: Mashable laid off its entire politics desk, most of its global news desk and half of its editorial video team (Politico)
As part of its restructure, Mashable laid off about 30 staff members on Thursday, including its entire politics desk, most of its global news desk and about half of its editorial video team. In addition to Roberts and Rogin, managing editor Jonathan Ellis and business editor Heidi Moore will also leave the company. Senior video producer Nadja Oertelt told Politico that the remaining members of the editorial video team will be merged with Mashable Studios, the company’s entertainment and branded video content division.
+ Mashable announced a $15 million funding round led by Turner just last week: The two companies are expected to partner to develop digital and TV content and advertising (Wall Street Journal)
+ Noted: Verizon is planning to bid for Yahoo’s core business next week: Google and Time Inc. may bid as well, but AT&T and Comcast will not (Bloomberg); Arizona’s House of Representatives is now requiring journalists to submit to “extensive” background checks, restricting access if they do not (Associated Press); The Newspaper Association of America sends a cease-and-desist letter to Brave Software, saying its ad blocker that offers to pay users in bitcoin to view other ads is illegal (Poynter)
API UPDATE
The week in fact-checking
As part of our fact-checking journalism project, Jane Elizabeth and Poynter’s Alexios Mantzarlis highlight stories worth noting related to truth in politics and on the Internet. This week’s round-up includes issues outside of politics that need fact-checking, how Jon Stewart contributes to honest discourse, and how computational tools can help fact-checkers.
How to start a small data journalism team in your newsroom (Nieman Lab)
Building a data journalism team in a small- or medium-sized newsroom can seem daunting, but ProPublica’s Scott Klein says it’s OK to start small. Klein offers tips for starting a small data journalism team in your newsroom, with advice including treating the team like a news desk, pick a strong editor to lead the team who will advocate for its mission, and give each person a project to be the creative owner of.
+ Earlier: Our Strategy Study on how to get started or go deeper with data journalism in your newsroom
Alibaba’s Jack Ma is paying South China Morning Post journalists ‘cash gifts’ as an incentive to stay (Quartz)
After buying the South China Morning Post in late 2015, Jack Ma is now paying full-time and part-time journalists at the newspaper “cash gifts” as much as $1,933 USD as an incentive to stay with the paper. Dozens of employees have left the company since the deal was announced in December, Quartz reports, with many worried that the newspaper could become “a mouthpiece for Beijing” and the Chinese Communist Party. The bonuses are not coming from SCMP’s finances, but rather Ma and former owner Robert Kuok.
Facebook is trying to stop a decline in ‘original’ sharing, especially among younger users (The Information)
Facebook is setting out to solve a fundamental problem on the social network, The Information reports: People are posting fewer things about their personal lives for their friends to see on Facebook. Facebook has dedicated a team in London to reverse the trend and develop a strategy to get people to share more. The Information writes that the trend was “particularly acute with Facebook users under 30 years of age who were sharing much less than they were a year earlier compared with people over 30.”
+ Facebook is also trying to get its users to stay within its app, and publishers are seeing a decline in traffic to their websites as a result, but for those on Instant Articles “it’s been a shift from bucket to bucket” (Digiday)
News organizations should think of comments as a way to uncover new stories (Journalism.co.uk)
At the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, The Coral Project’s Greg Barber said news organizations should foster online communities. At a time when many news organizations are cutting the comment section, Barber says there’s a strong reason why they should encourage these communities: “Online communities are important to not only augment what has already been reported, but to plant seeds for what can be reported in the future.”
Dean Baquet: Story about backlash to Gay Talese on Twitter was ‘flawed’ (New York Times)
In a story titled “Gay Talese Goes Through the Twitter Wringer,” NYT executive editor Dean Baquet says the paper made an “unfortunate example” of how it is too often clumsy in its handling of race and gender. The story covered controversial remarks Talese made about female journalists at a conference at Boston University, recounting an exchange between Talese and keynote speaker Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Talese was quoted as calling her “duplicitous.” Hannah-Jones was not given a chance to respond. Baquet says: “We have made strides in our coverage and culture, but the best solution is to continue building a more diverse, inclusive newsroom.”
FOR THE WEEKEND
+ Data is an increasingly essential skill for journalism today, but many journalism schools aren’t teaching it (Columbia Journalism Review), but teaching mobile-first design is also essential because “you cannot teach data journalism without teaching how to make it look good on a screen smaller than a pack of cards” (Medium)
+ Can two Millennial-focused news startups survive in Charlotte, N.C.? Both Charlotte Five and Charlotte Agenda are drawing substantial audiences, showing a strong demand for news from younger audiences (Newsonomics)
+ “What I learned from trying to innovate at The New York Times:” Networks are often concentrated around the physical place where you work, but John Geraci says organizations need to focus on what’s outside of their organization (Harvard Business Review)
+ On the future of public radio and news podcasting: “It is very, very hard to have a success if all you are doing is putting two or three people in a room with a microphone and posting the unedited tape. You better have the two most charming people on earth or a super-narrow niche” (Medium)
The post Need to Know: April 8, 2016 appeared first on American Press Institute.
from American Press Institute http://ift.tt/1Sj2JfF
0 التعليقات:
Post a Comment