Fresh useful insights for people advancing quality, innovative and sustainable journalism
You might have heard: BuzzFeed is dividing itself into two distinct departments — BuzzFeed News and BuzzFeed Entertainment
But did you know: BuzzFeed’s reorganization raises questions of whether its news operation could be spun off (New York Times)
After BuzzFeed announced earlier this summer that it would separate its news and entertainment divisions, Sydney Ember writes that some started questioning whether BuzzFeed could “de-emphasize or even spin off its news operation.” That wouldn’t be an unprecedented move, Emily Bell says: “We’ve seen in legacy organizations the splitting off of what might be deemed to be less profitable news and more profitable entertainment divisions. … If you were being very positive, you might say perhaps they’re going to find a way to make news sustainable in the long term. When you start enumerating what’s very positive about it, you can also see that this isn’t necessarily an out-and-out piece of good news.”
+ Noted: Roger Ailes hires Charles Harder, a Hollywood libel lawyer who represented Hulk Hogan against Gawker, to take on New York magazine and its reporting on Ailes (Financial Times); Google is testing a trending news feature on its homepage (Fortune); WNYC is increasing its income from podcasts with text-to-donate campaigns (Current); Nick Denton says Gawker chose to “bet … on readers rather than investors,” because if you’re engaging readers, everything else should follow (Financial Times)
Storyful’s lessons on building a newsroom from scratch: Work from your ‘first principles’ and create a culture of learning (Medium)
Looking back on the creation of Storyful in 2011, former innovative director Gavin Sheridan says its lessons on successfully creating a newsroom from scratch can be summed up in five basic principles. Sheridan recommends identifying your “first principles,” or boiling down your objectives into the simplest form possible. Mentoring was also emphasized in Storyful’s culture from the start, and that willingness to share and learn is essential for modern newsrooms to succeed, Sheridan says. And one major benefit of starting a newsroom from scratch, Sheridan says, is that you have greater control over what technology you choose to use.
+ With funding from the Knight Foundation, University of Nebraska professor Matt Waite and BuzzFeed’s Open Lab release an open-source guide to drone journalism (Drone Journalism Lab)
Alan Rusbridger: Facebook ‘sucked up’ £20 million of The Guardian’s digital revenue last year (Business Insider)
According to former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, Facebook “sucked up” £20 million of the Guardian’s digital revenue last year — or about $27 million USD. Before he left in May, Rusbridger says the Guardian expected about £100 million in digital revenue. But in the end, the Guardian brought in about £81.9 million in digital revenue. At the FT Weekend Live Festival in London on Saturday, Rusbridger said the reason the Guardian didn’t meet its target was largely “because it all went to Facebook.”
Why the best leaders can identify the people and events that made them who they are (Harvard Business Review)
“Identifying the foundational moments of our success allows us to maximize our potential, uncover our own passions, and become better leaders,” Bernie Swain writes. Swain says his research shows that the best leaders can identify the turning points in their life that made them who they are, which usually fall into one of three categories: people, events, and environments. Swain explains that this is because the best leaders are self-aware: “Highly accomplished people have an inner voice and pay attention to it. They understand the defining moments of their lives and thereby better understand their own strengths, biases, and weaknesses as leaders.”
Rather than eliminating comments altogether, news organizations should work on fixing comments (Washington Post)
“I find value in reader comments that can’t be adequately reproduced elsewhere,” Margaret Sullivan writes. “The argument that the conversation has migrated to Facebook and Twitter is flawed. Those are good places for discussion, but they are no substitute for having discussion take place where the story itself lives. I’m convinced that many smart readers with something to contribute will not follow a story onto social media to talk about it. News organizations should fix online comments rather than ditch them.”
The Newspaper Association of America is taking ‘paper’ out of its name (New York Times)
The trade group for newspapers is dropping “paper” from its name, Jim Rutenberg reports. As of Wednesday, the Newspaper Association of America will be known as the News Media Alliance. While the change represents the shrinking number of newspapers, it also shows how the word “newspaper” doesn’t hold much meaning for many of the group’s members, Rutenberg writes: “[The Washington Post and The New York Times] may have newspapers, but they get large percentages of their readers online.”
The post Need to Know: Sept. 6, 2016 appeared first on American Press Institute.
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