It’s been, um, real?

Media statistic of the week 

An average of nearly 20 million viewers tuned in last Wednesday to the Democratic primary debate hosted by NBC News in Las Vegas, making it the most-watched Democratic primary debate of all time, according to the early figures from Nielsen Media Research. Oliver Darcy notes that the 2015 Republican presidential debate in Ohio—the first of the 2106 Republican primary—remains the most-watched primary debate of all time. Approximately 24 million people tuned into Fox News for that one.

This week in media history 

During a CBS News Special Report on Feb 27, 1968, anchor Walter Cronkite, reporting from Vietnam, famously concluded his broadcast by declaring that the Vietnam War was unwinnable, a closing that changed America’s perception of the war. 

“For it seems now more certain than ever, that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate,” Cronkite said. “To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, if unsatisfactory conclusion.” 

Listen to the full broadcast here.

This week in the media industry

A lot of talent on that masthead

American Media purchased Men’s Journal in July 2017 from Wenner Media, and Steven Ward reminds us that “Under Jann Wenner, @MensJournal was quite the magazine. A literary mixup of Outside and Esquire. Under editors Terry McDonell, Bob Wallace, Mark Bryant, Sid Evans, John Rasmus, Brad Wieners and others it was one of the best men’s mags ever created. Now”: Men’s Journal Lays Off Entire Editorial Staff. What a headline. 

Kathryn Hopkins of WWD reports that American Media is merging the magazine’s editorial operations with Carlsbad, Calif.-based The Adventures Sport Network, which it acquired last year. Beginning in April, all editorial operations will be run out of that West Coast office. “Because that’s what media can be like. And people wonder why I and others freelance,” says Erik Sherman. 

“This is tragic. Pour some (craft brew) out for a great mag put out by an epic crew. A lot of talent on that masthead,” tweets Shawn McCreesh. Adds Ashley Mateo, “This is such a bummer, and I hope all the amazing editors I’ve worked with @mensjournal are snatched up by other pubs ASAP.”

This is a crisis

In a new piece for The Guardian, Victor Pickard, declares, “The McClatchy newspaper chain’s recent filing for bankruptcy is one more data point showing that US journalism is dying.” He argues that since the market has failed us, journalism’s survival requires public funds. “We do need a subsidized press - @emilybell and @sulliview have written eloquently about this before - but I wish we could spend more time being mad at the incompetence of media sales teams,” says Heidi Moore.

On Twitter Pickard, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication and author of “Democracy Without Journalism? Confronting the Misinformation Society,” points out, “Without a functional press, we'll have a difficult time addressing climate crisis, structural inequality & a myriad of other social problems.”

“Do newspapers need a bailout? American journalism isn’t dying but LOCAL journalism may be. This is a crisis and it’s time Congress paid it more than lip service. Cox just bought the Dayton paper to save it. Good for them. But where else is this done?” wonders John Erickson.

A bit nihilistic 

In the meantime, maybe newspapers should try to avoid hastening their own demise? Because here’s how Nilay Patel frames this next one: “‘We’d like to stop people from sharing and talking about our stories’ - dying newspapers.” 

He’s referring to the fact that The News Media Alliance, a trade group representing thousands of U.S. newspapers, plans to propose limits to a rule that allows tech companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter to host user-generated content on their platforms without being liable for what it contains. In an exclusive for Axios, Sara Fischer explains that the 24-year-old provision “has paved the way for the modern internet economy, but has also been blamed for giving tech companies little incentive to police nefarious content or false information on their platforms.”

Joshua Benton thinks, “This is one of the more nihilistic things that the news media’s trade association has proposed: Make Facebook and Google legally liable for any damn fool thing any user posts on any of their platforms. But keep protecting newspapers from the same thing!” 

Adds Rob Pegoraro, “As a journalist, I resent lobbies for my profession trying to scrap the law that makes it safe for social platforms to host people’s posts. You want to whack Facebook and Google? Pass a privacy law that stops the tracking that fuels their ad businesses.”

Facebook weighs in

Meanwhile, “If you want to know how Facebook thinks Facebook should be regulated on content, it’s here. Many of their ideas for laws that will hold them accountable are based on things they’re already doing.” Sarah Frier links to Facebook’s new white paper and the summary by Monika Bickert, Charting a Way Forward on Online Content Regulation. The paper offers 5 principles that could frame content regulation to keep the internet safe while protecting free expression.

Mike Swift highlights the fact that “.@Facebook maintains #platforms aren't #publishers: ‘Internet platforms are intermediaries, not the speakers, of such speech, and it would be impractical and harmful to require internet platforms to approve each post.’” 

“Facebook doing a full-court press to shape the future of internet regulation coming into view. But regardless of motives, this is a thoughtful paper that raises serious questions regulators (and all of us!) need to think about,” says Evelyn Douek.

No comment(s)

In what Lee Thompson calls “Significant news to some,” MLive, Michigan’s largest local news site, has decided to get rid of the comment sections, and John Hiner explains the reasons why. “Conversations routinely go off-topic, the tone can get uncivil or even nasty, and our moderators (and a vendor our company hires) stay busy around the clock policing the conversations, addressing flagged comments and even going so far as to ban some users,” he writes.

It’s a decision that’s getting plenty of applause from journalists on Twitter, including Jonathan Oosting, who offers “Kudos to MLive for deciding to turn off its comment sections, which helped build site loyalty early on but had increasingly devolved into nasty and disturbing territory.” 

“They decided to relocate the moderation budget to produce more stories & encourage users to comment on Social. Which media company will be next?” Maria Arce wonders. “So long, MLive comment section. It’s been, um, real?” tweets Kyle Meinke.

Sad for them, for us and for China

Last week, China revoked the press credentials of three Beijing-based Wall Street Journal reporters, “the first time in the post-Mao era that the Chinese government has expelled multiple journalists from one international news organization at the same time,” as the Journal notes. 

Deputy Bureau Chief Josh Chin and reporter Chao Deng, both U.S. nationals, as well as reporter Philip Wen, an Australian national, were ordered to leave the country. According to what China’s Foreign Ministry said, the move was punishment for a recent opinion piece published by the paper. Kate O’Keeffe thinks, “It’s profoundly sad and worrying that, in the age of information, there’s so little of it about the world’s biggest country.” 

Anna Fifield covered the story at The Washington Post, highlighting the fact that “the move followed a decision by the United States a day earlier to designate five major Chinese media outlets as government entities.” As Fifield tweets, “Three talented and dedicated journalists who’ve produced hard-hitting but scrupulously fair and unsensational reports from China, both on people with power and people without, are being expelled. This is sad for them, for us, and for China.” 

The next day, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board wrote, “The truth is that Beijing’s rulers are punishing our reporters so they can change the subject from the Chinese public’s anger of the government’s management of the coronavirus scourge.” Reading that editorial, Peter Brennan noticed, “WSJ is far braver than the NBA.” And William McGurn is “Very proud to work for a news organization that would run this editorial. Do read.” 

On digital threats against journalists

“Careful with your phones,” warns Sheila Coronel, who links to Ahana Datta’s piece for Columbia Journalism Review on how governments of the world just ramped up spying on reporters. “Tell me about it lol,” tweets Brooke Binkowski.

Runa A. Sandvik calls this a “Must-read from Ahana Datta, head of security at @FT, on digital threats against journalists and how nations have their ‘own signature style of attack.’” And Wajahat S. Khan highlights, “The Best of @CJR continues Here’s @FT's cyber chief, Ahana Datta: ‘Journalists will develop a sense of complacency born of hopelessness: They’re listening to me anyway, so why bother. It has never been more important that we not give in to that feeling.’”

Good stories and award-winning journalism

On to some good news. “Oh so many stories to be read. And then put on the screen,” says Waheeda Harris, of the news that Truly*Adventurous is setting sail with a digital IP journalism formula that is generating a flurry of film & TV deals, according to the reporting by Mike Fleming Jr of Deadline. Nick Davidson offers up “Congrats @TrlyAdventurous for being rock stars, making good stories and solid deals!” 

Truly*Adventurous, which is run by Greg Nichols and Matthew Pearl from a 42-foot sailboat in Marina del Rey, digitally generates a longform, magazine-quality article every three weeks through a partnership with Medium and Audm. Fleming reports that it has now put in play 15 film and TV projects they will produce, some with major elements attached.

Kristen Hare of Poynter writes about a new tool from AP called AP StoryShare that’s designed to help newsrooms in New York share news with each other. In an editorial, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise explained, “It lets us offer you in-depth reporting on a topic that we can’t spare a reporter for, but some newsroom somewhere can.” Tweets Poynter, “So far, this tool that helps newsrooms share work with each other is just available in New York. But it could expand.”

Long Island University, the institutional home of the Polk Awards, announced the 15 winners of one of journalism’s most prestigious honors at the National Press Club in Washington last week. As Marc Tracy of The New York Times reports, The Times received four George Polk Awards, the most of any news organization, including one for The 1619 Project. Huge congrats to all the Polk Award winners.

And more congratulations are in order as the winners of the 2020 Sigma Awards, a brand new competition to celebrate the best data journalism from around the world, have been announced. Read about all the award-winning projects here.

Farewells

Jean Daniel, one of France’s leading intellectual journalists and a friend and colleague of the philosopher-writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, has died at 99. Robert McFadden has the New York Times obit for Daniel, a self-described non-Communist leftist, who used journalism as a means of advocacy.

And finally, we’re all indebted to Larry Tesler, the computer scientist behind cut, copy and paste, who died last week aged 74. Where would we be without him. As Frank Strong says, “This man boosted productivity a gazillion fold. Thank you @nomodes. RIP.” The BBC News obituary highlights, “Silicon Valley's Computer History Museum said Mr Tesler ‘combined computer science training with a counterculture vision that computers should be for everyone.’” 

At Lithub, Jessie Gaynor also pays tribute to Tesler, pointing out that “Cut/paste is a gift to anyone who doesn’t necessarily want to kill every darling, but would prefer to move a few of them around. And for that gift, we can thank computer scientist Larry Tesler, who died Monday at 74.”

From the Muck Rack Team:

Last Thursday, the New York City chapter of the Online News Association (ONA) hosted a robust panel discussion at Muck Rack’s Soho office with recruiters from some of the top media brands in the city. On the blog today, Justin Joffe shares highlights from that discussion, including what media recruiters are looking for in 2020.

Ragan’s Social Media Conference @Disney: On March 11th-13th, Ragan will be hosting their social media conference of the year where you’ll have the opportunity to connect with fellow communications peers and learn tips, takeaways and secrets to better connect with audiences across all social platforms. Oh, and it’s at Disney World!

Featured speakers include: John Young, Social business advisor at Southwest Airlines; Alyssa Velazquez, Director of MTV’s social media and fan engagement at ViacomCBS; Avery Jukes, Brand Manager for Sahale Snacks at The J.M. Smucker Company; and more! 

Tickets are available here. Sponsors for the event include Muck Rack, The Outloud Group, Ragan Consulting Group, shootsta, PoliteMail, Microsoft and FIU Journalism & Mass Communication. 

Question of the week

What do you think about MLive’s decision to get rid of the comments section? Do you see any potential downsides to it?