Need to Know: August 25, 2020

OFF THE TOP

You might have heard: Initial surge in news consumption around coronavirus in the U.K. has been followed by significant increase in news avoidance(Reuters institute)

But did you know: Most Brits say news media have helped them respond to COVID-19, but a third say news coverage has made the crisis worse (Reuters Institute)

In the latest study about coronavirus and the media from the Reuters Institute, 35% of Brits said that the news media has made the COVID-19 situation worse, while only 7% say the media has made it better. The number of people turning to the news specifically for coronavirus information has dropped significantly since April. Less than half (45%) of Brits now say that news organizations are trustworthy sources of COVID-19 information, down from 57% in April. While the majority say that the news media has helped them understand the pandemic and what they should do in response, 27% of Brits feels the media has exaggerated the crisis.

+ Noted: Emily Bell named inaugural Leonard Tow Professor of Journalism at Columbia Journalism School (Columbia Journalism School); Report for America is looking for experienced journalists as corps members (Twitter, Kristen Hare); Ed Yong of The Atlantic awarded 2020 Victor Cohn Prize for medical science reporting, cited specifically for his 2018 work about the potential effects of a pandemic on the U.S. (Council for the Advancement of Science Writing)

API RESOURCES

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TRY THIS AT HOME

Helping families navigate back to school via text (Medium, Subtext)

To help families dealing with uncertainty around the beginning of the school year, NJ.com created NJ Schools News, a text campaign that will send free updates about school reopenings across New Jersey. The site received more than 1,000 subscribers in the first 24 hours, many of whom quickly began sending in stories and tips about their own school districts. The sign-up form appears on all back-to-school stories and the education page also features a sign-up link. On the FAQ about the campaign, NJ.com encourages subscribers to respond with their own questions via text. The site had previously used a text campaign by Subtext for COVID-19 coverage, which brought in 75,000 subscribers over five months.

+ Earlier: Project Text rebrands as Subtext (Medium, Subtext)

OFFSHORE

‘Antidote to screen time’: How children’s news magazines in the UK have thrived during pandemic (Press Gazette)

While most news publications have struggled during the pandemic, news aimed at children has been a rare publishing success story in the U.K. One kids magazine, The Week Junior, saw its circulation climb by 22% in the past year, with paid subscriptions up by more than 10,000. The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Anna Bassi, says that parents were likely turning to these magazines during the quarantine to keep their kids informed about the pandemic. Parents are also more likely to buy print copies for their kids in the hopes of pulling them away from screens. In writing about the pandemic for kids, editors are careful to not emphasize the most alarming news, like death tolls, and to avoid speculation about what might happen in the future.

+ Earlier: NowThis launches kids brand to reach children of millennials (Axios)

OFFBEAT

Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases after all (The Verge)

Last week, WordPress’s founding developer, Matt Mullenweg, accused Apple of locking the CMS’s free app out of the App Store to force the company to offer in-app purchases, of which Apple would then take a 30% cut. While WordPress does sell things like domain names and website templates through WordPress.com, the app was focused on allowing developers to build and manage a free WordPress.org account. In a statement, Apple backed down, apologizing to WordPress for the “confusion” and saying it will allow the app to remain.

+ Earlier: A gaming company’s lawsuit could force Apple to reduce its 30% cut off subscriptions sold through the App Store (Nieman Lab)

UP FOR DEBATE

Telling stories about crime is hard. That’s no excuse for not doing better. (Columbia Journalism Review)

With police brutality now part of the national conversation again, Jason Cherkis reflects on his own time as a crime reporter at an alt-weekly in Washington, D.C. Despite his desire to speak truth to power, he now feels that he often gave the police the benefit of the doubt while not extending the same courtesy to the policed. He argues that the crime beat should be part of broader coverage of societal issues like education and the economy, and that news outlets shouldn’t cover an arrest unless they can commit to covering that person’s case to its conclusion. He also advocates for hiring journalists with firsthand experience of the criminal justice system.

+ Earlier: When media rely on what police say, they miss key truths about crime, black communities (Philadelphia Inquirer)

SHAREABLE

UNC students journalists behind that ‘clusterfuck’ headline want you to focus on literally anything else (Medium, Gen)

The student journalists at The Daily Tar Heel gained national attention last week when their editorial about the pandemic response at their school, the University of North Carolina, was titled “UNC has a clusterfuck on its hands.” In an interview, Opinion Editor Paige Masten and Editor-in-Chief Anna Pogarcic say they hope that the attention gained from that headline will spotlight the reporting done by students since March about COVID-19 on campus. Pogarcic also challenged critics who said the use of a curse word was lazy, and instead turned attention to the difficulty her reporters have had in getting information from university administrators.

+ Related: Story/assignment ideas and resources for student journalists covering their school reopening (Poynter)

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