Media IndustryThe biggest spender on pro-Trump Facebook ads (besides his campaign) “straddles the line between an ultraconservative newsNieman Lab - Christine SchmidtWe at Nieman Lab have gotten the question from readers several times: What exactly is The Epoch Times? It publishes in more than 20 languages, including Slovak, Hebrew, and Ukrainian; it’s attached (or
Media Industry How trans journalists are challenging — and changing — journalismNieman Lab - Lewis Raven Wallace“As we become more visible, trans journalists are asking journalism leaders to confront the structural barriers that make it hard for trans people to enter and remain in the industry.” Editor’s note: friends
Facebook Facebook is trying again with journalists for curating its news contentNieman Lab - Christine SchmidtFacebook is now following in the footsteps of Apple News, which has a 30-person unit devoted to surfacing quality journalism in a setup that The New York Times called “a radical approach: humans over (Welcome
Media Industry Open or closed: Who will control the paid-podcast experience, podcasters or tech companies?Nieman Lab - Caroline CramptonPodPass gets some positive early reviews. Also: a new network for kids’ audio, the CBC translates podcasts to TV, and are daily news shows having any real-world impact? Welcome to Hot Pod, a newsletter
Print Media So Youngstown will have a daily named The Vindicator after all. But it’s a brand surviving, not a newspaper.Nieman Lab - Joshua BentonLong after the local newspaper business stops making any sense at all, there’ll be a lot of powerful brand names that will retain value better than what the printing presses pumped out. That’s how we’ll
Satire Maybe you know that article is satire, but a lot of people can’t tell the differenceNieman Lab - R. Kelly Garrett, Robert Bond, and Shannon PoulsenLabeling satire as such may seem to take the sting out of the joke. But it’s also the most effective way we know of to prevent people from taking satirical content as fact — something surprisingly common.
Media Industry This reporter came for ER bills (with the help of 1,000-plus patients), and now doctors are listeningNieman Lab - Christine SchmidtSarah Kliff has brought her healthcare billing projects from Vox to The New York Times, reporting on the submissions of thousands of readers. And now she’s written for an audience of practitioners and
Play buttonMedia IndustryWhen it comes to the consolidation of local news companies, American worry a lot more about political bias than about newsroomNieman Lab - Christine SchmidtRemember the (legitimate) spook that Deadspin video stitching together local Sinclair anchors around the country introduced? From creator Timothy Burke’s explanation: It was just a strange, spooky thing
Media Industry Don’t click this: When should news organizations use “nofollow” links?Nieman Lab - Laura Hazard OwenPlus, a new free course for online fact-checking taught via workspace app Notion. The growing stream of reporting on and data about fake news, misinformation, partisan content, and news literacy is hard
Play buttonFake News One potential route to flagging fake news at scale: Linguistic analysisNieman Lab - Fatemeh Torabi AsrIt’s not perfect, but legitimate and faked news articles use language differently in ways that can be detected algorithmically: “On average, fake news articles use more expressions that are common in speech,
Media Industry Finally, Instagram is getting fact-checked (in a limited way and just in the U.S., for now)Nieman Lab - Laura Hazard OwenFacebook is expanding the third-party fact-checking program that it launched on its own platform in 2016 to Instagram — something that many who watch the space have advocated for awhile. Facebook has Instagram
Media Industry America’s largest union of journalists is doing a rewrite of its leadership electionNieman Lab - Joshua BentonThree decades of age separate the incumbent and his challenger, who present different views of the NewsGuild’s effectiveness organizing new newsrooms. A little-noticed announcement this week could have
Media Industry Americans with less education are more likely to say that local news is important to them (and to get it from TV)Nieman Lab - Laura Hazard OwenSome groups of Americans value local news more than others: People over 50, black Americans, and Americans with a high school education or less are more likely than other groups to say that they follow
Media Industry In Australia, a new government policy adds protections for journalists, but leaves whistleblowers out in the coldNieman Lab - Joshua BentonThat was one of several police actions against journalists that brought forward the issue of Australian press freedom — and its limits. Australia is the only liberal democracy that has no equivalent to
Media Industry Who works best in a revenue development role? Here’s what these local news organizations have foundNieman Lab - Christine SchmidtIt’s “hard to ask for money if you don’t believe in what it’s being spent on.” Folks, it happened: The key to sustainable local news has been discovered. And it involves making money. Spoiler alert: It’s
Media Industry Tighten up that paywall! (And some other lessons from a study of 500 newspaper publishers)Nieman Lab - Laura Hazard Owen“The publishers that reported more than 6 percent of unique visitors reaching their stop threshold had ‘thriving’ digital subscription businesses.” When The New York Times first launched its paywall back
Podcasting PodPass wants to build the identity layer for podcasting (before some big tech company does it first)Nieman Lab - Jake Shapiro“Ultimately, we hope that a critical mass of podcasters, hosting providers, and apps/platforms will help shape and adopt PodPass as a generative strategy to expand podcasting — creating more value for
Media Industry The unions are (still) coming, and now starting to bargain togetherNieman Lab - Christine SchmidtFunding, distribution, algorithmic pivots, unionizing: The path to profitability in digital media is far from figured out, but unionization seems to be part of the trend. The Ringer’s editorial, audio,
Media Industry How The Wall Street Journal is building an incubator into its newsroom, with new departments and plenty of hiresNieman Lab - Christine SchmidtWhile local newspapers play the 2019 Consolidation Games, the national dailies are busy with the Great Digital Subscriber Race — and making sure they have the right teams and tech in place to win. Ready,
Gannett Newsonomics: The perils — and promises — of New GannettNieman Lab - Ken DoctorWhat will the largest local news company need to do and be to be successful in the 2020s? Neither Gannett nor Gatehouse has offered any big vision of what that is, or could be, even fueled by new money.
Media IndustryInvestigative journalism YouTube outlet Point is raising money for a misinformation-themed video game based on real-lifeNieman Lab - Laura Hazard OwenThe growing stream of reporting on and data about fake news, misinformation, partisan content, and news literacy is hard to keep up with. This weekly roundup offers the highlights of what you might have
Facebook Facebook is reportedly interested in licensing publishers’ content for its News tab this fallNieman Lab - Christine SchmidtThe game of “follow Facebook’s money trail” is never a fun one — unless you’re receiving the money, until you’ve been burned by it. (See Facebook Live, Facebook Watch, etc. etc. etc.) Now, per the Wall
Google Search Google Search will now show you podcast episodes (but it won’t have to link back to Google Podcasts)Nieman Lab - Christine SchmidtGoogle is surfacing podcast episodes in Search based on what’s talked about in the show, as well as its title and description. The links take you to Google Podcasts, of course (for now). This works for
New Media Social media is distorting the representation of women in Africa. Here’s what can be done about itNieman Lab - Sharon Adetutu Omotoso“The new media continues in the ways of the old conventional media — that is, it supports patriarchy and negative portrayal of women.” When computer technology made electronic communication possible, “new
Media Industry Pacific Standard is shutting down, cut off from its major foundation funderNieman Lab - Christine Schmidt“We’ve been told repeatedly that the amount of funding that came from Sage was going to be the same for the long term every year and we were responsible for raising additional revenue…and we’ve done that.”
Media Industry The New York Times and The Guardian are celebrating good digital revenue news todayNieman Lab - Laura Hazard OwenGood news from big newspapers: The New York Times now has 3.78 million digital subscribers, the company said in its second-quarter earnings report released Wednesday, while The Guardian confirmed that
Media Industry Radio giant Entercom buys podcasters Pineapple Street Media and Cadence13Nieman Lab - Nicholas Quah“In other words, the podcast space is in the midst of a plodding consolidation period, and this is just further evidence of that.” Entercom, one of the largest traditional radio companies in the US, has
Media Industry The Markup is back, with Julia Angwin reinstated as editor-in-chief and 6 reporters who’d resigned on boardNieman Lab - Laura Hazard OwenAngwin is part of a new leadership team: Nabiha Syed, formerly associate general counsel at BuzzFeed, will be president, and Evelyn Larrubia, who was executive editor of Marketplace, will be managing In
Media Industry Passerby, occasional, regular, super fan: The Atlantic says these are the 4 types of news site visitorsNieman Lab - Laura Hazard OwenIt’s not just about eyeballs anymore. As news organizations turn to readers for more of their revenue, they’re less concerned about pageviews and unique visitors and more about whether their audiences
Media Industry How Piano built a propensity paywall for publishers — and what it’s learned so farNieman Lab - Christine Schmidt“Having a machine-learning framework to say who’s likely to churn, register, and subscribe has been a critical step in us making those experiences more tailored.” They went from being the kid nobody wanted
