Everyone’s a sellout now

Media statistic of the week

Can you determine fake news headlines from real news headlines?

“About 3 in 4 adults in the U.S. can discern real political news headlines from fake ones, finds a new paper, ‘Is journalistic truth dead? Measuring how informed voters are about political news,’ forthcoming in the American Economic Review,” writes Clark Merrefield for Nieman Lab.

Here are more details about how the study was conducted:

“The findings are based on a dozen quizzes completed by a total of nearly 8,000 participants representative of the national population, conducted by Charles Angelucci, an assistant professor of applied economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Andrea Prat, an economics professor at Columbia University, from June 2019 to March 2022.

While participants overall were much more likely than not to pick the true headline, demographic factors, not partisanship, were a stronger predictor of avoiding fake news, according to a subsequent statistical analysis the authors conducted. For example, younger, less educated people are less likely to pick true headlines, compared with those who are older and have a bachelor’s degree or higher.”

Learn more.

This past week in the media industry

Hot Wordle summer

If playing Wordle or Connections or Spelling Bee is part of your daily routine, you’re definitely not alone. But have you ever thought about the team (and strategy) behind the New York Times’ most popular games??

Vanity Fair’s Charlotte Klein takes a deep dive into New York Times Games.?

A fun snippet from the piece: “‘Wordle really lowered our age demographics,’” says Zoe Bell [a game developer at the Times], bringing in people ‘very social in their play.’ The Times raced to stabilize its audience, adding a log-on to capture people’s stats and streaks. ‘We called it Hot Wordle Summer internally,’ says Bell. They tried not to break anything along the way.”

“Anyone upset at a newspaper producing games, cooking content and ‘lighter fare’ have an ahistorical view of newspapers. There's no such thing as a platonic ideal of a newspaper. Plus, the lighter fare has LONG been an integral part of the business model,” tweets Elahe Izadi.?

“NYT has as many people working on games as business journalism,” adds Jessica Lessin.

And speaking of the New York Times, they had a strong end to 2023, due in part, to the success of games and other products.

“The New York Times Company added 300,000 paid digital subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2023, the company said on Wednesday, helping to push annual revenue for digital subscriptions above $1 billion for the first time,” reports Katie Robertson for the New York Times. “The company has focused in recent years on pushing a bundle of products to subscribers: its core news report as well as games like Wordle and Spelling Bee; its product review site, Wirecutter; a recipe app; and The Athletic, its sports news website.”

The 2024 Grammys

Did you catch the 2024 Grammys on Sunday evening?

“The 66th annual Grammy Awards took a fast car towards ratings success on Sunday, bringing in an average 16.9 million viewers with a show that featured several high-profile performances and surprises,” writes Variety’s Selome Hailu.?

Another fun fact from Hailu’s coverage: This marks a 34% improvement from last year’s show, which reached 12.4 million viewers on average, and the most-watched Grammys ceremony since 2020.

ICYMI, here’s a full list of winners from CBS News’ Jordan Freiman.

A few more

• Microsoft is working with Semafor to create news stories with the aid of AI chatbot, reports Anna Nicolaou for the Financial Times. Responses from the journalism community were mixed. “LOLOLOLOL SIRI PRODUCE ME A SCOOPLET Microsoft in deal with Semafor to create news stories with aid of AI chatbot,” tweets John Stanton.?
• Many of the most popular streaming platforms are cracking down on password sharing; Disney Plus is joining the list. “Disney Plus is finally implementing measures to keep US subscribers from sharing their passwords with people who aren’t paying for the service,” writes Charles Pulliam-Moore for The Verge.?
• “Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said in a video posted to X on Tuesday that he is in Moscow to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin,” report Axios’ Dave Lawler and Sara Fischer.
• Another great piece from Sara Fischer about the evolution of Substack. “Substack is experimenting with a new pilot program that helps creators on its platform find advertisers and coordinate ad buys, Axios has learned,” she writes.?
• What are YouTube’s priorities for 2024? Abner Li from 9to5Google has the details. Check out the full piece, but here’s an interesting snippet: “Shorts is averaging over 70 billion daily views, and the number of channels uploading Shorts has grown 50% year over year.”
• “Linda Wertheimer, one of the ‘founding mothers’ of National Public Radio, said today that she is retiring,” reports Ted Johnson for Deadline.
• Slate’s Nitish Pahwa details “how Quora died” in this interesting piece about the once thriving Q&A site. “The hell of the new internet came for one of our best online communities,” tweets Tobi Walsh.
• “I wrote about the soul-sucking labor of self-promotion and ‘audience building’ that basically every artist/journalist/creative worker has to do now ... unless they are very lucky,” tweets Rebecca Jennings about her piece in Vox titled “Everyone’s a sellout now.”

From the Muck Rack team

It’s no secret company culture and work environment are important for organizations looking to attract and retain talent, which is why we’re thrilled to announce Muck Rack as a winner of the Digiday WorkLife Award in the Best Virtual Work category.

A strong virtual work culture takes tremendous effort, and we are proof that investing in your strategy works. In fact, in our 2023 Engagement Survey 93% of employees reported that they are able to work in a way that works for them; 97% reported feeling engaged at work in an employee survey conducted by Inc. Plus, remote work gives us the advantage to hire the best talent regardless of their location, as showcased by our growing staff of over 250 team members.