The copy, paste and distort trolls

Media statistic of the week?

The Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford have released their “Digital News Report 2021.” This year's report reveals new insights about digital news consumption based on a YouGov survey of over 92,000 online news consumers in 46 markets, including India, Indonesia, Thailand, Nigeria, Colombia and Peru for the first time.?

Among the key findings, despite more options to read and watch partisan news, the majority of respondents (74%) say they still prefer news that reflects a range of views and lets them decide what to think. Most also think that news outlets should try to be neutral on every issue (66%), though some younger groups think that ‘impartiality’ may not be appropriate or desirable in some cases – for example, on social justice issues.

This past week in the media industry?

Gets at the heart of it

Sid Bedingfield has an essay in The Washington Post explaining the irony of complaints about Nikole Hannah-Jones’s advocacy journalism. The White press helped destroy democracy in the South, he writes. Black journalists developed an activist tradition because they had to.

Bedingfield, associate professor in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, is co-editor, with Kathy Roberts Forde, of “Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and Black Demands for a New America,” and author of “Newspaper Wars: Civil Rights and White Resistance in South Carolina, 1935-1965.”

“This should be required reading in newsrooms,” Kat Stafford says, quoting from his Washington Post piece, “Far from objective, the work of the Southern white press and its allies destroyed democracy in the South for nearly a century and crafted a racial hierarchy that infected modern America and endures today.”

Nikole Hannah-Jones herself weighs in, saying, “This by @SidBedingfield gets at the heart of it: The tradition of the Black press has been to fight for and save democracy. No neutrality.” Adds Nick Andersen, “this. this. This.”

Saying the truest words

For the relaunch of its “Women Rule” newsletter, Politico convened a Zoom conversation with the women running four of the largest newsrooms in DC to talk about journalism post-Trump and as Covid wanes. Katelyn Fossett spoke with Carrie Budoff Brown, editor of Politico; Elisabeth Bumiller, Washington bureau chief at The New York Times; Swati Sharma, editor-in-chief of Vox; and Krissah Thompson, managing editor of diversity and inclusion at The Washington Post.

Nikita Mandhani highlights from the conversation, “‘I think one thing that I really live by is that your journalism is only as good as a culture in the newsroom. You can’t have one without the other,’ @SwatiGauri saying the truest words. Some great advice for journalists and leaders here.”

A smart, bendy paywall

The Globe and Mail has built a paywall that knows when to give up.?

Sarah Scire of Nieman Lab wrote about The Globe and Mail’s inhouse-developed artificial learning technology, called Sophi, which uses deep-learning techniques to automate and optimize as many publishing decisions as possible, including curating homepages, choosing which articles to post on Facebook and more.?

Sophi has since been adopted by more than 50 outlets across 11 different publishers, Scire writes. Steve Matthewson dubs it “A smart, bendy paywall that balances the potential for ad v subs revenue - and knows when to get out of the newsroom’s way.”

Noting that “10% of staff are data scientists,” Dickens Olewe says, “this is great. Journalists, you know where this is going.” Adds John Ibbitson, “For more than a decade I’ve engaged with friends and readers about the future of print journalism. THIS is the future. I’ve been a huge fan of Sophi since Day One. Here’s why it’s working for The Globe and other papers.”

Comedy, poetry, music … DJs?!

CNN’s Brian Stelter recently interviewed Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong and its new editor Kevin Merida, who talked about why the Los Angeles Times wants to be a ‘media platform,’ not just a newspaper.

“Comedy, poetry, music … DJs?! In their first joint interview, owner @DrPatSoonShiong and new executive editor @meridak discuss their exciting vision for the @latimes. So proud to be part of this wild ride and this institution’s revival,” tweets Sewell Chan.

“A ‘community’ news(paper) brand at scale,” is how Raju Narisetti puts it. “California has long had the business economy to support an ambitious ‘local’ paper, anchored in LA or SF. Great to see @latimes now aspire to be this under @meridak.”

Outrage detox

Boring news cycle deals blow to partisan media. That’s according to a new analysis by Neal Rothschild and Sara Fischer of Axios. “Sort of makes you think…” tweets Joe Haberstroh.

“Opposition media traditionally relies on traffic booms when a new party takes office,” they note, “but right-wing outlets have seen some of the most precipitous declines in readership since a Democratic president took office.” Left-leaning outlets have also seen a drop off.

“As I have noted before, 45 was good for the media business. But too many outlets became addicted to the continuous drama -- and to expressions of outrage to the drama,” says Terry Cowgill. “The result: substantial losses in audience and revenue for all.”

Helena Bottemiller Evich weighs in: “As a part of the mainstream media, I just want to say I think this is very very very good news. I hope media outlets can build business models that aren’t so dependent on constant outrage.”

Climate and weather

With a once-in-a-millennium heat dome baking the Pacific Northwest right now, here’s a timely look at how media outlets are telling the story of climate change with the daily news. From Sara Fischer and Andrew Freedman at Axios, Climate coverage booms, but still pales compared to weather.?

“Sigh. Glass half full, or half empty?” wonders John Voelcker.

Michael Friedmann urges, “Check this out: though #weather and #climate are two separate disciplines… they are becoming increasingly wedded together with new media projects…”

What’s reliable

Google is testing a new feature to notify people when they search for a topic that may have unreliable results. The company confirmed to Shirin Ghaffary of Recode that it started testing the feature about a week ago. “Uncertainty now a feature in SERP,” Steve Dempsey points out. “Interesting test from Google to highlight when search results seem volatile.”

Meanwhile, “Once again, @JuddLegum exposes the duplicity of @facebook’s right-wing ideologues when it comes to the platform’s ‘news’ algorithm and ‘support’ for local news.”

Peter Himler links to that piece from Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria at Popular Information on how Facebook’s algorithm devalues journalism — especially local reporting, instead “rewarding right-wing aggregators who take the work of local journalists & give it an inaccurate or incendiary spin,” as Legum explains.?

“Important,” tweets Timothy Karr. “@JuddLegum and Tesnim Zekeria demonstrate how Facebook’s engagement algorithms—in the hands of the copy, paste and distort trolls at @BenShapiro’s Daily Wire—directly undercut revenues of the local news outlets that actually do the reporting.”

“If you think original reporting is important, this is not good,” tweets Ben Fritz. “Facebook has committed millions of dollars to boosting local journalism, but it’s hard to see things like this and not feel like it’s much more than PR,” adds Jason Abbruzzese.

How tech news sausage gets made

For her Mother Jones piece on how Amazon bullies, manipulates, and lies to reporters, Ali Breland spoke to a dozen journalists about the aggressive and sometimes outright deceptive tactics that Amazon’s PR team uses to intimidate and mislead reporters, and by extension, the public.

What she discovered is, as Alissa Wilkinson puts it, “Incredible, and wholly unsurprising.” In fact, it wasn’t news to a lot of journalists who’ve experienced it firsthand.

Will Oremus tweeted, “When I wrote a carefully sourced deep dive on Amazon’s surveillance tentacles, I was barraged w/ demands for corrections from *three* separate PR arms: Alexa, AWS, and Ring. Had to spend a whole day wrangling w/ them instead of writing my next story.”

And Zack Whittaker shared, “This is a very good and accurate (it’s happened to me!) portrayal of just how Amazon’s PR (and by extension its subsidiaries — like AWS, Ring, etc.) tries to deceive and lie to reporters.”

“I love this story from @alibreland,” says Kevin Collier. “Not everybody cares how tech news sausage gets made, but one of the toughest parts of the job is parsing the words of representatives of some of the most powerful companies in the world in a way that’s fair for readers.”

The PRESS Act

Last Friday, Josh Gerstein of Politico reported that Attorney General Merrick Garland has endorsed the idea of legislation to create an enduring ban on federal prosecutors subpoenaing reporters or their phone or email records in federal investigations. During a press conference, Garland said he’s barred such demands, but action by Congress is the only way to make protection “durable.”

On Monday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) proposed a new bill, called the Protect Reporters from Excessive State Suppression (PRESS) Act, that would protect journalists’ data records from being seized by the government. Nicole Lee has more on that at Engadget.

On Apple Daily’s legacy

In The Atlantic, Timothy McLaughlin and Rachel Cheung have written A Eulogy for the Free Press in Hong Kong after the closing of Apple Daily last week. While the outlet was a flawed symbol for media rights, its closure, they write, marks a dark new chapter in Hong Kong.

Cheung shares on Twitter, “Sat down at Apple Daily’s canteen with a senior reporter on Wednesday morning, but before we could finish breakfast, we were warned that police were on their way and had to leave in an emergency evacuation. With @TMclaughlin3 on Apple Daily’s legacy.”

Meanwhile, Helen Davidson of the Guardian reported that Hong Kong police arrested a former senior Apple Daily journalist at the airport while he was attempting to leave the city. Fung Wai-kong is seventh senior figure from publication to be arrested in two weeks

The pillars of protection

Tatiana Siegel has a follow-up to her Hollywood Reporter story on Scott Rudin, and it is something.?

Shielding Scott Rudin reveals how the Oscar-winning super-producer avoided answering for abusive behavior for decades. “This one delves into the pillars of protection that allowed him to operate with impunity for 4 decades. Billionaire backers, NDAs, intimidation. And in 2020, the NYT killed a story on him,” she shares.

“In which Scott Rudin pushes employees out of moving cars (which they called one of his ‘go-to moves’ when he’s upset),” tweets Sarah Bahr. About that, Marc Graser says, “I had heard the stories about people kicked out of cars by Rudin but @TatianaSiegel27 actually tracked down the people.”

Also, “For all the people who said they’d stand up to Scott Rudin: apparently, he is willing to call the cops on you,” notes Anne Clark.

But about The New York Times killing a story? The Times responded via Twitter: “This assertion is utterly false. We don’t ‘kill’ stories because of pressure from advertisers or any other outside interests. We publish investigations when editors believe they are ready for publication. That has been the case for 170 years.”

Quite a read

Last week, the media world was abuzz about Ben Smith’s New York Times column on Tucker Carlson’s gossipy ways. If you thought that was something, Smith wants you to know, “This is quite a read.”?

At The Washington Post, Erik Wemple reveals that Fox News is roiling over that column in The New York Times. If you want to cut to the chase, read Paul Farhi’s “Recap: A @nytimes column about a @FoxNews guy gossiping w/reporters prompts 2 other @FoxNews guys to call the first @FoxNews guy ‘gutless.’ But the other @FoxNews guys are too gutless to name the 1st guy. So there.”

Tolerated beyond comprehension

Also quite a read, Caitlin Moscatello of New York magazine takes us Inside the Petty, Vindictive, Career Ruining Infighting at NY1. “Backstabbing and ageism in TV news? Shocking!” tweets Lisa Napoli.?

Nevertheless, Heath Brown is willing to bet that “Nobody has ever fit more dish into one story than @caitmosc did here.”

It’s also kind of depressing. Rachel Holliday Smith shares, “I got my start as a NY1 news assistant. it’s a role where you do everything — shoot tape, gather interviews, set up live shots, chase down tips, stake out, haul gear — for nothing. $10.50/hr in 2010. in a bummer story this graf hurt the most.” Adds Lisa Tozzi, “While this scratched an itch for office goss, it also made me kind of sad.”

Jai-Leen James says, “this is what happens when on-air talent are built up to be demigods. this behavior is not normal and is tolerated beyond comprehension.”

Conan, 4300 shows later

We’ll wrap up with the end of an era in late-night TV. As Team Coco bid farewell last week, Joe Adalian of Vulture spoke with Conan O’Brien on His Late-Night Legacy and Future, his 28-year run, and his trick for staying childlike forever. Jen Chaney calls it the “Great, definitive interview with Conan O’Brien.”

“My first interview with @ConanOBrien was in 1994, backstage in his tiny 30 Rock office after the taping of one of his first 100 shows,” he shares. “My latest was a few weeks ago, and about 4300 shows later. “

Adrian Cheung says, “watching Conan for 20+ yrs has basically informed my sense of humour: that there’s a place for silly, absurd, self-deprecating, occasionally v stupid but also wickedly smart stuff salute @teamcoco @ConanOBrien ????”

A few more

• BuzzFeed announced that it’s going public via SPAC, acquiring Complex Networks as part of the deal. Ben Mullin has details at The Wall Street Journal.
• Also at The Wall Street Journal, Joe Flint reports that the NFL is exploring strategic options for media properties, including selling stakes. The league has hired Goldman Sachs to aid in hunt for potential partnerships.
• NBC has launched the “Today” podcast, which means you can now listen to the show whenever you want, as Brian Steinberg reports at Variety.
• A freed U.S. editor says he was tortured in Myanmar. After being deported to the United States following over three months in detention, Nathan Maung, editor-in-chief of the online news platform Kamayut Media, told Reuters Myanmar security forces punched, slapped and beat him and kept him blindfolded for more than a week of interrogation.
• Christian Fuchs wrote a piece for The Conversation, republished at Nieman Lab, arguing that, rather than privatizing public service media, we should be expanding it online. Victor Pickard’s take: “This call by @fuchschristian for a ‘public service internet’ -- and expanding public media instead of privatizing it -- is exactly right.”
• Erik Wemple of The Washington Post has noticed that Dean Baquet keeps using the same cliché. Stay for the kicker.