The bubble that may have burst
Media statistic of the week
The latest “Boxed In” study, by Dr. Martha Lauzen, executive director of San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, shows that streamers now have more major female characters than broadcast TV. Streaming companies also continue to put more women in positions of creative power than broadcast networks do.?
Among the findings, 50% of major characters on streaming shows were women, versus 48% on networks. When analyzing for all speaking roles, streamers were at 47% representation for women while broadcasters had 45%.
Behind the scenes, women accounted for 38% of executive producers on streaming programs versus 29% on broadcast programs. Women comprised 29% of directors working on streaming programs but 18% on broadcast programs. Variety’s Selome Hailu has more from the study, which was first conducted during the 1997-98 TV season and has since tracked more than 53,000 characters and 66,000 credits.
This past week in the media industry?
A ton of thoughts about ‘new journalism’
Media startup Semafor made its splashy debut last week, and on the eve of the launch, Nieman Lab’s Sarah Scire spoke with co-founder and editor-in-chief Ben Smith and executive editor Gina Chua about the news organization’s “more honest” article format and global ambitions.
And now for some other people’s thoughts…
Jon Allsop of Columbia Journalism Review weighed in on the format with his piece, Semaform and function. On Twitter, he shares, “For @CJR's newsletter today, I reviewed the debut of Semafor (I'm sure you can guess how). It promises, at this very early stage, to deliver some excellent journalism. But it's set itself much loftier goals than that, and those seem less coherent to me.”
Emily Kennedy says, “@Jon_Allsop offers a good critique of the Semaform in today's @CJR newsletter, in particular pointing out that ‘it’s not clear to me that separating facts and analysis is even possible.’”?
Defector’s Laura Wagner echoed some of Allsop’s points in her review, Semafor Is The Problem, and went on to argue that “the discrepancy between Semafor’s lofty ambitions for saving media by tackling polarization with a revolutionary news article template and its actual product, which is a bog-standard reproduction of what already exists, is more than an indictment of the thought leaders in charge of Semafor.”?
Carli Velocci says, “I didn't have time to dig into Semafor but this Defector piece sums it up really, along with a ton of thoughts I've been having about ‘new journalism,’ which is that a lot of it is the same ol' journalism.”
“Defector piece on @Semafor as good as everyone has said, particularly this bit,” adds?Navneet Alang.?
But Josh Quittner says, “So much whistling past the graveyard, from the Times, Defector and others nonplussed by @semafor. I'm kind of loving it: Tasty layout, especially the data reps, and tight, smart writing a la Axios.”
It’s not impossible
In the lead-up to the U.S. midterm elections, how are social media platforms faring in the fight against misinformation this time around??
On the whole, not so great. According to a new report from human rights watchdog Global Witness and the Cybersecurity for Democracy Team (C4D) at New York University, Facebook and TikTok are approving ads with 'blatant' misinformation about voting in midterms, CNN’s Jennifer Korn reports:
Researchers submitted 20 ads with blatantly false or misleading voting information. TikTok approved 90% of them, while Facebook approved a “significant number.”?
The one standout: YouTube, which detected and rejected every single one of them. In calling on TikTok and Facebook to do better, one of the researchers pointed out that YouTube’s performance in the experiment proves that detecting damaging disinformation isn’t impossible.?
Something else that may not be impossible: convincing social media users not to be jerks. At Recode, Shirin Ghaffary wrote about Instagram’s surprising strategy for bullies: Tell them to be nice.?
The new “nudging” features prompt users to rethink posting mean comments or messages — and it actually seems to work in some cases. As Emily Stewart puts it, “telling people to be modestly nicer on the internet kind of works, is a miracle.”
Passing the ‘both-sides’ baton
Back to what appear to be losing battles, in ‘There Are Only Five Media Stories,’ the latest installment of his “Breaking the News” newsletter, James Fallows shares that he’s no longer going to harp on the failings of mainstream news, because if the critiques were going to work, he notes, we would see evidence of that by now.
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“I am learning to accept that our mainstream media will not adapt to the needs of this moment in our public life. Having talked and written about institutional bias of this sort for many decades, I am beginning now to accept that the central institutions are not going to change. This is how it is going to be. I don’t need to keep pointing this out.”
It’s also “Why I'm passing the ‘both-sides’ baton to @DougJBalloon,” he tweets.
Fallows quotes several observations from former Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan’s new book, “Newsroom Confidential” (which is also where the headline of the piece comes from). He says the “sixth media story” is what comes next, and that involves “much more emphasis on building something new…Behaving like a network of entrepreneurs rather than of critics. Working around the old system, rather than trying to change it.”
Jeremy Caplan urges, “Read this interesting post by @JamesFallows referencing the work of @Sulliview and assessing problematic media patterns and tropes - looking forward to the follow-up posts further exploring solutions and what’s next.”
The supposed decline of newsletters
Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson take a look at whether the newsletter bubble may be ready to pop in their recent The New York Times piece, Are We Past Peak Newsletter? which also includes some scoopy details.
Aron Pilhofer says it’s a “Good piece in the NYT on the newsletter bubble that may have burst. Or, IMO, maybe never was. Substack had 90+ employees and just $9 Million (with an ‘M’) in revenue last year. That plus big advances meant they were burning through cash.”
Or maybe it’s just that newsletters really aren’t all that unique. Elana Zak notes, “Everything in the news industry has its ups and downs. Newsletters are no different. They may not be as hot as they were 18 months ago, but they're still an important loyalty and retention tool for newsrooms.”
Meanwhile, Luke Johnson says, “Seems like this article gets written every 3 months about the supposed decline of newsletters. I don't see it. My readership has been surging the past 3 months and there are a bunch of interesting new ones that really add value.”
Erin McCann sums it up this way: “We are now past the period of peak newsletter which means those of you anticipating the next period of newsletter reinvention have about 18 months to perfect your PowerPoints and claim credit for discovering newsletters.”
Tirelessly reporting
With its network of citizen journalists who want to hold the Iranian government accountable, Iran Wire is providing critical insight into the massive protests in the country. Pranshu Verma wrote about the digital news outlet — and the high stakes — in his piece for The Washington Post, Reporting in Iran could get you jailed. This outlet is doing it anyway.
Maziar Bahar offers “Thanks @pranshuverma_ for a great article on my colleagues at @iranwire who’ve been tirelessly reporting on human rights situation in #Iran.”
At The Associated Press, Dake Kang profiles former CCTV investigative journalist Wang Zhi’an and “his journey from on-air personality at the heart of China’s vast state media apparatus to reporter in exile”: Fleeing Xi’s China, journalist makes fresh start abroad.?
After being blacklisted in China, Wang now lives in Tokyo, but he hasn’t given up, Kang writes. “Deep in debt and armed with little more than a laptop, a tripod, and a camera borrowed from a friend, Wang is back in business — this time on YouTube and Twitter, both banned in China.”
Escape into the supernatural and spiritual?
Just in time for Halloween, Taylor Lorenz introduces us to the “Otherworld” podcast in her latest for The Washington Post, The 'This American Life' of ghost stories is captivating Gen Z.
It’s not just the season. “‘Otherworld’ comes at a time when young people have lost complete faith in legacy institutions and are increasingly seeking escape into the supernatural and spiritual. Signs of this shift can be felt across the internet,” Lorenz notes.
She adds, “Conspiracy theories are on the rise, Catholicism is having a renaissance, witchcraft and ‘manifesting’ are popular on TikTok, and people across the political spectrum have embraced more mystical belief systems.”
More media headlines this week
From the Muck Rack Team
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