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You might have heard: Former Facebook news curators say they regularly suppressed conservative news from the site’s trending news section
But did you know: The US Senate Commerce Committee is launching an inquiry into Facebook’s news curation (Gizmodo)
After Gizmodo reported that former Facebook news curators said they suppressed conservative news from the site’s trending news section, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, requesting answers about the trending news section. The letter asks Zuckerberg questions such as, who is ultimately responsible for approving topics, is there evidence that the curators have manipulated the content in the trending news section, and how is Facebook investigating the claims?
+ The root of the problem goes beyond just news curation, to how Facebook’s algorithm chooses to show people stories: Facebook’s trending news box is “basically a cable news ticker with worse taste and more celebrity selfie posts,” and its algorithm has more influence over what people read (The Verge) and the algorithm leads to liberals seeing more liberal stories and conservatives seeing more conservative stories, with the result being that “if you are a conservative, say, you are living in a cornucopia of conservative thought” (Stratechery)
+ Facebook’s argument that trending topics are surfaced by an algorithm is flawed itself: “This framing assumes that human editing is ideological whereas the algorithmic editing and surfacing of content is ‘neutral.’ … The problem with this line of thinking … is that the choices made by algorithms about what to surface are chosen by humans, based on those humans’ values and in the case of Facebook, the company’s business needs” (Fusion)
+ RedState’s response to whether its content its suppressed on Facebook: “We understand that we are categorized by Facebook as ‘advocacy” rather than ‘news,’ which [is] the exact same way Google characterizes us. We aren’t CNN, and we don’t really expect to be treated like CNN — but we would hope that Facebook would treat us equivalently with similar left-leaning outlets: if Talking Points Memo is ‘news’ then so are we” (RedState)
+ Noted: Quartz’s chart-making and data tool Atlas is now open to journalists and anyone else who works with data: You can create an Atlas account now to view, download and embed charts, and Quartz will slowly be giving people access to make charts (Quartz); After he was accused of plagiarism, Timothy Parker is out as USA Today’s crossword editor (FiveThirtyEight); Entries for the Online Journalism Awards are now open and will close on June 3 (Online News Association)
The New York Times’ lessons from Facebook Live: Videos don’t need to be tied to a newspaper story and success isn’t necessarily determined by the number of viewers (Digiday)
The New York Times has been broadcasting on Facebook Live for a month now. With a team of six staffers dedicated to Facebook Live, it’s streamed things like a wedding from its Weddings section, an interview with Caitlyn Jenner and a walking tour in Havana. Louise Story, who is leading NYT’s Facebook Live team, shares some of the lessons learned thus far, which include: A live stream doesn’t need to be tied to a story that’s in the newspaper, success might be determined by average time watched/shares rather than simply viewers, and it’s more “live interactive journalism” because it requires communication with the audience.
To scale its audience, The Independent is bolstering its programmatic ad team (Digiday)
Just two months after ending its print edition, The Independent says it’s already profitable. To generate enough revenue to maintain profitability online, The Independent is hiring programmatic ad specialists and hiring writers who can write both editorial content and native ads. The Independent is focusing on scaling its audience on a national and international scale, and a stronger programmatic team is key to selling ads overseas, Jessica Davies writes.
Media companies who want to join Snapchat Discover must be prepared to pay (The Information)
For a publisher to be on Snapchat Discover, they need to be prepared to pay Snapchat for the opportunity, The Information’s Tom Dothan writes. While the terms may vary, all publishers have agreed to give Snapchat a cut of their ad revenue, which is usually 30 percent. But some publishers’ agreements with Snapchat include a guaranteed minimum amount of money over time, guaranteeing that Snapchat makes money even if the publishers don’t sell ads.
New York dominates the podcasting industry, putting it at risk of only broadcasting a narrow viewpoint (Current)
The Internet is pushing the journalism industry toward the coasts, making journalism centralized in a few cities including New York City, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. That’s bad for the podcasting industry, Adam Ragusea writes, because the barrier to entry is now higher. For someone who may not come from a financially privileged background, moving to NYC to make $30,000 a year may not be feasible. That will have a negative effect on podcasting and journalism as a whole, Ragusea writes: “The uniformity of their life experience will result in journalism that reflects a narrow, exclusive view of the world.”
A ‘city-focused news platform’ called Ripple launches today, with stories written by volunteers (Recode)
Launching today, Ripple is a news service described by its founder Razmig Hovaghimian as “city-focused news platform powered by local journalists and storytellers.” Its website and mobile app use a location-based news feed to present stories from local news sites on big cities, such as San Francisco or New York. The feed will also include stories by a group of volunteer contributors who are interested in writing about their own neighborhood.
The post Need to Know: May 11, 2016 appeared first on American Press Institute.
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