Almost never quite what it appears to be
Media statistic of the week?
U.S. newsroom employment has fallen 26% since 2008 . But while newspapers have seen steep job losses during that span, digital-native news organizations have seen considerable gains, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While newspaper newsroom employment fell 57% between 2008 and 2020, the number of digital-native newsroom employees rose 144% during that same time.
Jill Geisler summarizes: “Digital up a lot, broadcast TV a little, newspapers off a cliff, radio and cable down.”
This past week in the media industry?
A threat to journalism, democracy
One of the big stories this week has been the release of an expansive investigation by The Washington Post and 16 media partners into NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, which was licensed to governments around the globe for tracking terrorists and criminals and was then used to hack the cellphones of journalists and human rights activists around the world .?
As Dana Priest , Craig Timberg and Souad Mekhennet of The Washington Post reveal in an interactive piece introducing the investigation, military-grade spyware licensed by the Israeli firm NSO Group was used in to hack 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists, business executives and two women close to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.?
The Pegasus Project is the work of more than 80 journalists on 4 continents, including journalists from Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories, The Washington Post, Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, the Guardian, Daraj, Direkt36, Le Soir, Knack, Radio France, The Wire, Proceso, Aristegui Noticias, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Haaretz and PBS Frontline. As the Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner says, “Pegasus is a threat to journalism and therefore democracy.”
Each of the outlets has deep dives into the investigation from a variety of angles and geographic perspectives. Here are just a few of the many stories you’ll want to check out from this sprawling, collaborative global investigation:
Searching for disinfo data
Last week, the US Surgeon General called on tech platforms and the news media to take greater steps to combat Covid-19 misinformation . As Ted Johnson reported at Deadline Hollywood, the White House singled out Facebook specifically, with President Biden commenting, “They’re killing people. Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and they’re killing people.”
Biden has since clarified that he was reacting to a report that 60% of the misinformation about the vaccine on Facebook came from 12 individuals. But as Sheera Frenkel reports at The New York Times, the White House Dispute Exposes a Facebook Blind Spot on Misinformation .
“There was a lot of debate this weekend about why Facebook couldn’t give Biden the data on Covid misinfo,” she tweets. “The problem is that measuring misinformation is complicated, and FB data scientists have said they are a year out (or more) from being able to do it.”
So, basically, they can’t give him the data because they don’t have the data. “If I am reading this right, the company that has all the data when it comes to selling you comfy slippers does not have the data when it comes to COVID disinformation?” tweets Kara Swisher .
Margarita Noriega says, “This is brilliant reporting (no surprise), and it points to something of a pet peeve for me — when people write about or discuss tech policy solely based on available data, as opposed to asking what data is worth knowing about in the first place.”
Lethal misinformation
Back to the Surgeon General’s declaration that the barrage of misinformation spreading on social media is a public health hazard: In an essay for NBC News’ THINK, Joan Donovan , research director of Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center, and Jennifer Nilsen , research fellow at the Shorenstein Center, write that this is a turning point in internet history, and that Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies need to be treated like Big Tobacco .
“[Surgeon General] Murthy’s action plan calls on researchers, journalists, educators and policymakers to use an all-hands-on-deck approach to address this crisis,” they write. “Beyond the individual steps tech companies take, these professionals must detect, document and debunk misinformation-at-scale.”
In the meantime, this seems...unsurprising, but certainly brazen:?
“Tucker Carlson has called the idea of vaccine passports the medical equivalent of ‘Jim Crow.’ Other Fox personalities have also railed against them. Meanwhile, Fox itself has quietly implemented the concept of a vaccine passport for its own employees.”?
Oliver Darcy links to his reporting at CNN, Fox has quietly implemented its own version of a vaccine passport while its top personalities attack them .
Tapping into the creator economy?
The online influencer culture is starting to draw serious interest from big venture capital firms. The Information estimates VCs have invested $2 billion in 50 creator-focused startups this year. But as Erin Woo and Taylor Lorenz write in their New York Times story, Hello, Content Creators. Silicon Valley’s Investors Want to Meet You , the real money could be in digital tools, not the personalities.?
In another New York Times piece, Lorenz and Mike Isaac write about Facebook’s likely doomed game of catch-up: Facebook Wants to Court Creators. It Could Be a Tough Sell .?
Facebook’s a little late to the party, but in its defense, it was otherwise occupied. “While @facebook was busy selling user data and @instagram was being transformed into a bloated shopping network, creators switched to platforms such as @tiktok_us,” tweets Nimish Sawant . “Now suddenly, Facebook/Instagram are realising the importance of creators.”
Gene Park thinks, “the thing about chasing creators is that memes and virality stem from the userbase. Facebook has never really been a reliable source of meme or discourse, it’s historically been stuff that originates on 4chan/reddit first. FB Groups changed that kinda.”
While we’re at it, Rob Pegoraro says, “Here’s another reason why Facebook could--make that, should--have trouble appealing to creators: all the journalism jobs destroyed after newsroom managers jumped on soon-abandoned Facebook initiatives like social-reader apps and pivoting to video.”
Context for today’s (social) media consumption
In case you missed it from earlier in the month, Chris Baraniuk links to “Just a fantastic - and very timely - essay…” by Brendan Mackie for Real Life, Why Can’t We Be Friends . Mackie writes about how podcasts and other forms of “parasocial” media reframe friendship as monetized self-care.?
Nicole Zhu quotes from the piece, “‘parasocial media in itself is not the problem but the expression of deeper hunger for belonging amid structures that can’t sustain it’ — @mackiehistory the history of friendship in this is really helpful context for today’s (social) media consumption.”
Streaming strategies shaping up
Brian Steinberg of Variety shares, “It was, um, way too early for me to have to discover NBC News’ Capitol Hill correspondent @kasie was leaving the network as well as her 5 am MSNBC show,” but nevertheless he got the scoop on the “Way Too Early” host: Kasie Hunt is leaving NBC News and MSNBC for CNN, which lured her away in an aggressive effort to get into streaming video.
“MORE,” he tweeted: “Many NBC News employees didn’t learn that Hunt was leaving until late last night or early this morning. I am told there was an emotional conference call among Wash buro staffers this AM.”
Even earlier than that, Steinberg reported on MSNBC’s Streaming Expansion: Mika Brzezinski, Nicolle Wallace to Launch New Shows . Jan Simmonds says it’s a “Smart strategy, whoever is first to invest in putting consistent recognizable names on their news streaming platforms could capture the initial market share. Worth the investment in my opinion.”
Meanwhile, Andrew Wallenstein takes us inside CNN Plus, with an exclusive first look at the new streaming service, set to launch Q1 2022. Wallenstein spoke with CNN+ boss Andrew Morse for Variety’s “Strictly Business” podcast. Morse revealed that CNN is looking to hire 450 people in the next 6-9 months to support the new streaming service.
领英推荐
Unprecedented Film Controversy of the Day
As Timothy Bella reported last week at The Washington Post, the director and the crew for “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” used artificial intelligence to create three sound bites with Bourdain’s voice . Filmmaker Morgan Neville says the process was approved by the late celebrity chef’s widow and literary executor, but critics — including Bourdain’s widow, Ottavia Bourdain — aren’t happy about it.
In her Washington Post column Ann Hornaday argues that the controversy over Anthony Bourdain’s deepfaked voice is a reminder that documentaries aren’t journalism —?they’re art.
“Although nonfiction filmmakers use journalistic tools such as interviews, research and acute observation, they aren’t reporters but storytellers, who will go to any lengths necessary to engage their audience not just through information, but emotion,” she writes.
“As always, read @AnnHornaday for clarification and context on whatever seems like the Unprecedented Film Controversy of the Day, which is almost never quite what it appears to be,” tweets Alyssa Rosenberg .
Adds Alan Zilberman , “I talked a lot about Roadrunner with friends this weekend, specifically about the liberties documentary filmmakers take with their subjects. It’s a tough, evolving conversation, but I think this @AnnHornaday column sums it up rather elegantly.”
On conflicts of interest
Lachlan Cartwright and Lloyd Grove of The Daily Beast reported last week that The New York Times has suspended reporter Karen Crouse, who failed to disclose her Michael Phelps book deal .?
On the one hand, Michael Grant thinks “Karen Crouse is an excellent reporter but this is really bad.” But on the other, Craig Silverman offers this “Reminder: David Brooks faced no discipline, and just had to step back from his second fully-salary job, after we revealed his massive conflicts of interest. Yes the Opinion section is different from News. Still, these seem like very inconsistent outcomes.”
Even so, AJ Perez says, “This is still so confounding. How does a NYT journo think this was OK? I’ve only begged off one story in my career for a conflict — and my editor said there wasn’t really one. I still wasn’t comfortable reporting it, so I passed it off.”
Erik Wemple also wrote about the suspension in his Washington Post column, tweeting that it’s “a stunning, book-related conflict of interest involving sports reporter Karen Crouse and legendary swimmer Michael Phelps.” He points out that this is the second time in the past few weeks that the Times has published “jarring, after-the-fact disclosures regarding conflicts.”
Alan C. Miller says, “These kinds of conflicts of interest not only violate the standards of quality journalism but they undermine trust as well.” A simple rule of thumb, courtesy of Jack El-Hai : “Writers, disclose your #conflicts of interest!”
The wheels continue to fall off
Jim Waterson of the Guardian reported last week that GB News is in crisis as exec quits and presenter is pulled (and then quit) for ‘taking the knee.’ “Scoop: John McAndrew, GB News’ director of programming, has quit…” Waterson tweeted. “Ex-Sky News executive who pushed for regional reporting… resigned rather dial up culture war… appears there’s a battle for control GB News and the full culture warriors are winning.”
“I wonder what people who went to work there thought they were going to get?” tweets Charlie Phillips . Meanwhile, Liam Hoare notices, “The captain has elected, on this occasion, not to go down with his ship, it seems .”?
As Harry Taylor says, “The wheels continue to fall off. Still unfathomable why Andrew Neil, with decades as a respected journalist/interviewer, had anything to do with it.”
Tell us how you really feel
Next, from Joshua Benton of Nieman Lab, I have to come to bury Knewz, not to praise it , aka, “How the news aggregator with a dumb name went from ‘We are transforming news! We will crush Google and Facebook!’ to being a D-minus Drudge clone wrapped around an @OnlyFans blog, in 18 months.”
As Chris Krewson says, “Wow I wonder how @jbenton really feels about the death of Knewz.” Greg Emerson calls it a “Brutal (and fair) takedown of News Corp’s ‘Knewz’ aggregator,” and Dylan Smith adds, “@jbenton isn’t just one of the keenest observers of the media today, he’s one helluva writer. This is a treat.”
It all started with a single comment
Benton’s also making a few headlines himself. “Why did a federal judge greenlight a defamation lawsuit against Harvard and @jbenton, founder of @NiemanLab? It all started with a single comment on a 2018 story,” tweets Bill Grueskin , whose piece at Columbia Journalism Review traces how a Twitter thread sparked a lawsuit against Nieman Lab’s founder .
The gist: A former journalism professor has filed a defamation suit, claiming she lost her job at Temple University after Benton outed her on Twitter as the author of several controversial, right-wing comments. As Grueskin points out, the suit raises a host of issues, and it also reignites an ongoing debate about how journalism outlets run comment sections.
Journalists interviewing journalists?
NC Local Newsletter Editor Eric Frederick recently spoke with Joe Killian of NC Policy Watch, who talked about Nikole Hannah-Jones, UNC, the art of reporting, fairness and the faults of journalism .?
A couple of quotes from that Q&A are making the rounds, including: “Tell me where you think I made a factual error. I’m always glad to correct a factual error. If you’re just upset because I let you know what was going on in my head when I was news gathering, then, I mean that’s a problem for your psychiatrist or priest.”
Killian also talked about the importance of collaboration among news organizations, noting, “We’re all in this to get at the truth, and as much of it as we can get, and if we all do it together, we’ll get all the meat off the bone.”
For his Galaxy Brain newsletter, Charlie Warzel interviewed BuzzFeed News climate and science reporter Zahra Hirji on lessons of pandemic reporting and how to share context on climate throughout newsrooms. Check out that Q&A, Congrats, You're A Climate Reporter Now .
“Today’s Galaxy Brain is a fantastic interview w/ the great @Zhirji28 about how we’re all climate reporters now. We talk about how she covers this sprawling beat & how to find & frame stories. But the real gem is the EXTREMELY ACTIONABLE advice for writers,” Warzel says.
Lisa Song quotes, “And when people say, ‘what can I do?’ I’m like, ‘EVERYTHING!’ You can do anything and it can help. Love this interview with @Zhirji28 on climate reporting and fighting the ‘it’s over, we’re screwed’ narrative."
History witnessed through his lens
Reuters journalist Danish Siddiqui was killed last Friday while covering a clash between Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters near a border crossing with Pakistan. His wire service reported the tragic news from Spin Boldak, Afghanistan.?
The Wire in India wrote: Pulitzer-Winning Indian Photojournalist Danish Siddique was Killed in Kandahar . “So much of India’s recent history could be witnessed purely through Danish Siddiqui’s photographs. This is devastating,” Jahnavi Sen added.?
Reuters also put together this highlight of Siddiqui’s photojournalism work , alongside some of his quotes. “Look at his work!” Slogan Murugan urges. “Danish Siddiqui captured our times like no one else!”?
A few more
On an endless quest for unexplored rabbit holes in agricultural and barge news
3 年"The US?Justice-Department has largely banned seeking reporter email, phone records in leak investigations." "Largely banned"? What is that? Uh, no. You can't "largely ban" something, that's like being partly pregnant. It's either banned or it's not--it's an either / or condition. What editor let this one through??