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You might have heard: Facebook announced more changes to the news feed, which will attempt to reduce the amount of “clickbait” in users’ feeds (Facebook Newsroom)
But did you know: Facebook identified two characteristics of ‘clickbait’ — the headline withholds info or exaggerates the article (Fortune)
As Facebook attempts to cut down on the amount of “clickbait” in the news feed, it’s identified two characteristics of clickbait headlines, “(1) if the headline withholds information required to understand what the content of the article is; or (2) if the headline exaggerates the article to create misleading expectations for the reader.” By trying to reduce clickbait, Mathew Ingram says Facebook is “fighting a monster that it helped to create,” and risking reducing publishers’ Facebook traffic yet again. But while these style of stories get a lot of views, 80 percent of users say they’d prefer to see “genuine” stories, Ingram says.
+ The Atlantic rewrites famous headlines to comply with Facebook’s new policy: “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” becomes “Frank Sinatra Is a Complicated Person (and Unfortunately Our Reporter Did Not Get to Speak to Him)” (Atlantic)
+ Noted: Tronc is splitting itself into two separate units for revenue reporting: The traditional unit will be known as TroncM and the digital publishing unit will be known as TroncX (Politico Media); In a memo to staff, Boston Globe editor Brian McGrory explains how the Globe is planning for a “digital reinvention” and warns that some layoffs may be possible (WGBH); Live streams from the Democratic and Republican conventions received 120 million views on Facebook (The Wrap)
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 the facts behind “Stranger Things,” a quiz to test your “crap detection” skills, and what the Information Age means for the average American.
Talkshow is a new tool to help news organizations hold ‘troll-free’ Q&As and live blogs (Nieman Lab)
Talkshow is a new messaging app launched earlier this year, designed to help hold “troll-free” interactions with people in the form of Q&As or live blogs. Talkshow lets users broadcast one-on-one conversations, while mimicking the feel of texting. Some news organizations have started experimenting with Talkshow, seeing opportunities to interact with readers. The Washington Post used Talkshow in May to have a conversation with users about generational identity. That conversation attracted a smaller audience (about 775 people), but the Post says it showed how Talkshow can be used to “create cohesive conversations around topics that benefit from user input.”
Olympics committee says news organizations can’t use GIFs in Olympic coverage (Mashable)
The International Olympics Committee is warning news organizations to not use GIFs in their coverage of the 2016 Olympics. In its rules, the committee says if a news outlet shows footage of the Olympics, that could mean that the viewer won’t watch the games from the rights holder — in the U.S., that’s NBC. And the committee clarifies that this rule extends to GIFs, too: “Additionally, the use of Olympic Material transformed into graphic animated formats such as animated GIFs (i.e. GIFV), GFY, WebM, or short video formats such as Vines and others, is expressly prohibited.”
How Snapchat got advertisers to invest in new, experimental ad formats (New York Times)
When Snapchat started selling advertisements over a year ago, its ad formats were unfamiliar to advertisers: Snapchat wasn’t offering traditional ad-targeting tools, and advertisers didn’t understand how an ad could be effective if it disappeared. But Snapchat has managed to convince brands heavily focused on metrics that Snapchat is “playful way to deepen customer loyalty and affinity” by proving that its ad formats are highly interactive and by leveraging the power of its huge user base.
The journalism industry’s future is threatened by its lack of diversity, and more career paths are needed to correct that problem (Guardian)
“At least the public agree on one thing in such divisive times,” The Guardian writes. “Journalists, or the supposedly homogeneous ‘media,’ are to blame for just about everything.” But with an increased focused on diversity, the journalism industry could become more connected to the very people it’s supposed to be serving. And to do that, more career paths into journalism need to open up, The Guardian writes. In the U.K., the typical career path for a journalist used to be going from a local weekly, to a regional paper and then on to a national, Roy Greenslade says, but now a more typical path is going from a master’s degree into journalism, a career path that’s out of reach for many for financial reasons.
Journalists say their most trusted source of news remains traditional media (MediaShift)
To better understand how journalists themselves interact with media, Ogilvy Media Influence conducted a survey of editors, producers and reporters, asking what sources they trust, how they consume news, and what tools they use to tell their stories. While the survey found that platforms and social media have a growing influence on newsrooms, the most trusted source of news for journalists remains traditional media: 72 percent of respondents said traditional media was their most trusted source, with company websites and press releases coming in second at 13 percent.
+ Local news startup The Charlotte Agenda says its model of membership and making ads a key part of the experience is working: It’s on track to bring in $850,000 this year (Nieman Lab)
FOR THE WEEKEND
+ How New York magazine made “The Case Against the Media”: Driven by the current political environment and “criticism from all angles,” lead editor for the story Genevieve Smith says it felt like the right time to explore anxieties in the industry (Folio)
+ Outgoing Guardian executive editor of digital Aron Pilhofer on the value of exposing journalism students to different disciplines: “In the course of getting an undergraduate degree, you’re not going to learn to be a programmer in six months. I certainly think being exposed to these sorts of storytelling possibilities, that’s key. I think reaching out to other disciplines also is key. … It’s making students aware that there are different ways into a newsroom now. When you’ve got a desk like the one that I run, where you’ve got designers and developers and hardcore programmers and people doing VR and all the rest, these are not the traditional skills that you would have found in most newsrooms 10 years ago or five years ago.” (Columbia Journalism Review)
+ Looking at Verizon’s string of acquisitions over the last year, there’s a common theme: “The company is rethinking who its customer actually is” (New York Times)
The post Need to Know: Aug. 5, 2016 appeared first on American Press Institute.
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