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You might have heard: Nonprofit funding is becoming an important source of support for a new cohort of non-commercial news organizations and a growing number of commercial news publishers
But did you know: The Boston Globe is working with three nonprofits to fund a classical music critic (New York Times)
Most newspapers no longer employ classical music critics, but The Boston Globe is trying something new: Three nonprofits are helping the Globe pay for Zoë Madonna to be a classical music critic at the paper for 10 months. The nonprofits include the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. This specific arrangement raises some important questions though, as the nonprofits funding the critic come from the same world that Madonna will cover. If the arrangement is successful, Michael Cooper writes that the model could spread to other newspapers — and could possibly work on other beats, too.
+ Earlier: Our examination of the ethical terrain of nonprofit funding of journalism
+ Noted: At the National Press Club, Peter Thiel defends his funding of the lawsuit against Gawker and says Gawker was a “singularly sociopathic bully” (Mediaite); The AP is experimenting with using machine learning to automate the process of turning a print story into a broadcast story (Nieman Lab); Politico launches Playbook Plus, a real-time website for news that breaks between morning Playbook newsletters (Politico); A new report from INMA and the Native Advertising Institute shows that 46 percent of newspaper media worldwide are using some form of native advertising (INMA)
A new open source tool for editing video and audio transcripts (Nieman Lab)
A new open source tool from Knight-Mozilla fellow Pietro Passarelli aims to make it easier to clean up transcripts and find the right quote. Called autoEdit, the tool works with IBM Watson’s speech-to-text API and Gentle to generate a transcript. From there, autoEdit offers a selection of editing options, such as exporting select quotes with the corresponding video clip in Adobe Premiere.
Montreal police monitored the iPhone of a La Presse journalist to identify his sources (Montreal Gazette)
Police in Montreal used dozens of surveillance warrants to monitor the iPhone of La Presse columnist Patrick Lagacé in order to identify his sources. Montreal police tracked Lagacé’s calls, texts and location through his iPhone. Lagacé called the actions “indefensible” and criticized Montreal police, saying, “I’m not an investigative journalist and they did this to me … This is now free game and not taboo anymore.” Montreal police, meanwhile, said the surveillance was part of a necessary internal investigation after leaks alleged that “police investigators specializing in street gangs and drug trafficking fabricated evidence.”
Using UX design principles to improve government: How a city in Florida is thinking about user experience (Fast Company)
Urban design often focuses on the physical things that make up a city, but a city in Florida is recognizing that the political machine behind that is ready to be redesigned. Led by city manager Anthony Lyons, Gainesville, Fla., is trying to incorporate user experience design in the local government. That doesn’t just mean getting rid of the red tape that often makes local government hard to navigate, but also thinking about how to make everyday tasks such as obtaining permits more accessible for the average citizen. Lyons explains: “It’s delivering service in a more equitable way. Government is designed for experts — you have to hire people to get through it. A big part [of our work] is designing for the first timer, the newcomer … we want to say, ‘What would it look like to make it a level playing field?'”
+ “Successful digital transformation does not require any sort of secret or rarefied knowledge. Rather, the biggest barrier is the will and determination to make it happen” (MIT Sloan Management Review)
Online publishing fails to reward investments in production and content quality (Monday Note)
“Today, the economic value of a journalism item stems from its popularity, i.e. the number of clicks (or views) it generates,” Frederic Filloux writes. “A well-crafted listicle put together by a clever Millennial will generate more revenue that any public-interest piece, this in total disregard for who actually reads it, for how long, etc. That’s the absurdity in today’s system.” Filloux suggests that publishers and advertisers are paying attention to the wrong metrics — traffic numbers over engagement. Instead of selling audience numbers, Filloux suggests publishers should sell ads based on their audience demographics and engagement.
+ Media blacklists are making their way into state politics: North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr is refusing to provide the Raleigh News & Observer with details of his campaign schedule and public campaign events in retaliation for the paper’s coverage of his campaign (Politico)
Rethinking those ‘Around the Web’ ads: New Yorker and Slate are dumping Outbrain and Taboola ads (New York Times)
Some publishers are starting to rethink the effect of Taboola ads on their brands and their readers, Sapna Maheshwari and John Hermann write. Both Slate and The New Yorker have eliminated Outbrain and Taboola ads from their websites within the last month. Among the reasons: The links can often lead readers to questionable websites, and sometimes the information the ads present is false. Plus, the ads sometimes create strange juxtapositions: Earlier this year, a Slate story about misogyny was accompanied with an Outbrain ad for “10 Celebs Who Lost Their Hot Bodies.”
+ Even though Slate and The New Yorker are dumping the ads, a lot of publishers still use Outbrain and Taboola ads (Nieman Lab): A ChangeAdvertising.org report found that 82 percent of the top 50 news sites were using “content ads” from similar companies (ChangeAdvertising.org)
The post Need to Know: Nov. 1, 2016 appeared first on American Press Institute.
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