Fresh useful insights for people advancing quality, innovative and sustainable journalism
You might have heard: Facebook is taking steps to try to reduce the spread and influence of misinformation on the platform, including partnering with fact-checkers to identify and flag false stories
But did you know: Facebook is changing its News Feed algorithm to detect and promote posts ‘that people consider genuine, and not misleading’ (TechCrunch)
Facebook is making a big change to its News Feed algorithm, detecting and promoting content that “that people consider genuine, and not misleading, sensational, or spammy.” The algorithm changes will also boost posts in real time that are going viral, which Josh Constine writes “could help it compete with Twitter for in-the-moment news sharing.” Facebook says most Page owners shouldn’t see significant changes in referral traffic, but some might see a small increase or decrease depending on whether they share “authentic, timely content” versus “inauthentic and dated stories.”
+ Both Facebook and Google are facing criticism after conservative content was removed: A conservative page owner says three posts disappeared on Facebook, which Facebook says was the result of “automated systems rather than by the community standards team” (BuzzFeed)
+ Noted: The White House announced its first picks for its “Skype seats” in press briefings, with the first seats going to reporters from Cleveland’s Fox 8, Kentucky’s Jobe Publishing, Rhode Island’s WPRI and radio host Lars Larson (The Hill); WSJ editor Gerry Baker instructs staff to stop calling travel ban countries “majority Muslim,” then later says the term should not be “offered as the only description of the countries covered under the ban” (BuzzFeed); GateHouse Media acquires Dix Communications for $21.2 million, adding its five daily newspapers in Ohio to its roster (Canton Repository); Conde Nast restructures its ad sales team around specific industry categories (Wall Street Journal); Layoffs hit the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, with cuts to its bureaus in Asia and Europe (Politico)
How to bring analytics to life for reporters and editors: Give specific examples, bring them back to your goals and offer perspective (MediaShift)
GateHouse Media’s Jean Hodges asks, how can digital editors who are passionate about analytics bridge the gap for reporters and editors who might not understand the numbers as well? Start by keeping it simple and explaining the analytics you’re sharing in easy-to-understand language and give specific examples of things that worked well or didn’t work well. Hodge also recommends explaining how the analytics relate to goals your newsroom is trying to meet and give perspective on how the numbers compare to previous months or years or to your peers.
+ Tips for how news organizations can be part of the conversation on Facebook: Prioritize quality over quantity of posts, mix up the type of posts you’re publishing, and take steps to diversify your audience (NPR Curios)
Australian professor: NYT’s push into Australia could speed up the decline of local news outlets (The Conversation)
The New York Times’ new Australian bureau is just one part of its three-year, $50 million effort to expand globally and grow its subscriber base. But RMIT University’s Alexandra Wake explains that “the long-term impact of the New York Times’ aggressive subscription push [in Australia] may be detrimental to local news outlets.” Few people in Australia currently pay for news — the 2016 Reuters Digital News Report estimates just 10 percent of Australians pay for news online — and Wake argues that NYT’s push into Australia could speed up the decline of its news outlets. “If the New York Times hastens the demise of Fairfax and other Australian news outlets in its race for global dominance of quality and innovative storytelling, and the Australian government further nobbles the publicly funded broadcaster the ABC, we will be left with fewer news options, and that’s a bad thing for democracy in Australia,” Wake writes.
The value of a team that doesn’t agree on everything: Disagreements lead to better ideas (Harvard Business Review)
If your team agrees on everything, there’s no point to working together, Liane Davey writes: “There’s no point in collaboration without tension, disagreement, or conflict. What we need is collaboration where tension, disagreement, and conflict improve the value of the ideas, expose the risks inherent in the plan, and lead to enhanced trust among the participants.” Davey argues we need to change our mindset about conflict, letting go of the idea that conflict is destructive in favor of the notion that conflict brings value. “Collaborating is unnecessary if you agree on everything. Building on one another’s ideas only gets you incremental thinking. If you avoid disagreeing, you leave faulty assumptions unexposed. … To maximize the benefit of collaborating, you need to diverge before you converge,” Davey explains.
‘Should journalists protest in Trump’s America?’ (Poynter)
On Sunday, Robert Hernandez shared his thoughts on Trump’s executive order as “a Catholic who believes in equal/human rights regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation,” following up with the question many journalists have been struggling with: “As [a] journalist, this has been a tough time. Do I watch and report, or do I participate?” While some newsrooms have guidance on similar issues, recent events have raised new questions: “Consider a Muslim journalist whose family may be impacted by the ban — can she join the airport demonstrations? Does newsroom guidance apply to the reporters who cover women’s issues or immigration? Is it political to say that climate change exists? And what about the Trump voter who wants to correct the misconception that all journalists are liberal?”
+ 1A’s Joshua Johnson’s response: “Reporting IS participation. Incisive & meaningful. Journalists are inside the action… let’s not miss our chance to do good.” (@jejohnson322, Twitter)
+ A Marketplace reporter says he was fired after publishing a post sharing his thoughts about objectivity and reporting in a so-called “post-fact” environment and navigating that environment as a transgender person, with Marketplace saying they believe in objectivity and neutrality (Medium); From API’s archives: Objectivity is not necessarily an absence of perspective, but instead a method of reporting
+ Technology and Trump alike are changing the way journalists think about and describe falsehoods, Adrienne LaFrance writes: “With frequent dialogue among editors, reporters, and readers on social platforms, and with sites like NewsDiffs … scrutinizing the press is possible like never before. … Today, the challenge of figuring out what is real — and often doing so before an audience in real time — is why journalists must be careful, as ever, with facts and words. Fairness matters. But so do accuracy and credibility.” (Atlantic)
‘The real crisis in American journalism is not technological, it’s geographic’ (Guardian)
“In the wake of the most divisive presidential election in recent memory, and the midst of many hand-wringing treatises on the state of journalism, we’ve somehow overlooked what happened with local news, the place where most Americans used to get the bulk of their information,” Kathleen McLaughlin writes. “The scaffolding of American journalism, a basic bulwark in our apparently delicate system, is crumbling. … Local press isn’t dead, but it’s fragmented and weakened. Talk to readers, and you’ll find they believe local news these days is both less enticing and less accessible — and thereby less likely to be shared on Facebook, that great master of content.”
The post Need to Know: Feb. 1, 2017 appeared first on American Press Institute.
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