OFF THE TOP
You might have heard: No more than half of U.S. adults have confidence in journalists to act in the best interests of the public (Pew Research Center)
But did you know: Another study finds that Americans blame unfair news coverage on media outlets, not the journalists who work for them (Pew Research Center)
A stunning 8-in-ten Americans (79%) say news organizations tend to favor one side when reporting on social and political issues, with even 69% of Democrats — who are much less likely than Republicans to complain that news coverage is unfair — saying news outlets lean to one side. However, a Pew Research Center survey shows that roughly eight-in-ten (83%) of Americans blame news outlets as a whole, rather than individual journalists. Just 16% say the journalists are to blame for unfair coverage. The most common reason cited for unfair coverage was that news organizations have a political agenda; however, 20% of respondents (making up both Democrats and Republicans) cited financial interests as the reason.
+ Noted: City Pages is closing, ending the era of alternative weeklies in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis Star Tribune); Applications are now open for Poynter’s 2021 Leadership Academy for Women in Media — which, at this point, is scheduled to happen in person in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Poynter)
API RESOURCES
Local news sustainability: API advisers highlight three paths forward
Thanks to a 2017-19 grant from the Knight Foundation, API has sent advisers into 23 U.S.-based newsrooms to support their efforts to reach or maintain long-term sustainability. We’ve highlighted three outlets — a large metro daily, a hyperlocal community newspaper and a digital startup — whose challenges are typical of many media organizations. The steps they’ve taken toward sustainability include creating a newsletter aimed at driving digital subscriptions, reaching new audiences through social media, and introducing key listening and engagement strategies into their work.
TRY THIS AT HOME
How Bloomberg is breaking down barriers between its ads and subscribers businesses (Digiday)
Bloomberg’s ad team has started using an in-house A/B testing tool used by the subscriptions team to optimize its products and campaigns. Meanwhile, the subscriptions team is using the ad team’s data on audience segments to market to potential subscribers. The data-swapping follows a reorganization of the company that brings the two departments under chief product officer and global head of digital Julia Beizer. The ad team had previously operated out of Bloomberg’s sales group. Bringing subscriptions and advertising together is going to become more common among publishers, writes Max Willens, as they continue diversifying revenue and learn to evaluate things like the lifetime value of a digital subscription.
+ How the Chattanooga Times Free Press explains to readers why we may not know results on election night and where it gets information on vote tallies (Chattanooga Times Free Press); Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editor George Stanley explains “what we do to ensure our election coverage is fair, accurate, honest and thorough” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
OFFSHORE
News organizations around the world planning to downsize office space (Reuters Institute)
A new report from the Reuters Institute found that nearly half — 48% — of newsroom leaders from around the world say their companies are planning to downsize their physical premises. An accelerated shift to hybrid newsrooms — with some staff in the office, some working from home, and some on the go — is likely to be a lasting legacy of the coronavirus crisis, authors write. Over half of respondents — 58% — seemed open to the shift, saying they’d like to go back to the office a bit less often than before the pandemic, and 21% said they’d like to go back much less often. One quarter said they’d like to go back as often as before.
OFFBEAT
An examination of the ‘sleeping giant’ metaphor shows how voting patterns are linked to information needs (Texas Monthly)
In in-depth conversations with Latino voters and nonvoters across Texas, researchers found that voting behavior is related to the news and information they consume. Many nonvoters said they felt they had little agency over their own lives — that financial stress and hardship left them little time to suss out how politicians and their policies impacted them. One man, who said he frequently consumes news via CNN and The New York Times, told researchers that he wasn’t sure how his vote would change the challenges he’s experienced around education and healthcare. “I would love to see why our vote matters,” he said. “I want to see a presentation — I want to sit down and I want them to convince me, why is it great to vote?”
UP FOR DEBATE
New York Times’ handling of ‘Anonymous’ Trump op-ed in question (Poynter)
The big reveal yesterday of the author of the 2018 op-ed entitled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration” is calling into doubt The New York Times’ decision to describe the author as a “senior official.” The author, Mike Taylor, is a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. Brookings fellow Susan Hennessy wrote, “The mere fact that the majority of people clearly came away with the perception that the author was dramatically more senior than he was in reality means that the Times failed to provide its readership sufficient context.” Axios’ Jonathan Swan added, “It’s an embarrassment.”
+ Backlash after Trump endorsement prompts changes to The Spokesman-Review’s opinion pages, including “no more unsigned editorials and no more endorsements,” and more local voices on local issues (The Spokesman-Review)
SHAREABLE
How news outlets become misinformation superspreaders (Journalist’s Resource)
News reports often depict social media and far-right news outlets as the primary sources of domestic misinformation — and they are, indeed, misinformation hotbeds. However, writes Thomas E. Patterson, there is a major source of misinformation that’s rarely mentioned in news stories — the news media themselves. Research has shown that mainstream news outlets, by dint of reporting on misinformation, play a larger role in propagating it than even coordinated foreign efforts like that of the Russians in 2016. The justification that “it’s newsworthy” ignores the damage that is done by the spread, argues Patterson — something that fact-checks can’t come close to recalling.
The post Need to Know: October 29, 2020 appeared first on American Press Institute.
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