The journalism cool kids club on Mastodon isn’t going well

Media statistic of the week

How are Gen Z and millennials getting their news these days??

A report out of the Media Insight Project, a collaboration of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute, outlines Americans ages 16 to 40 who closely follow several such topics: national politics and government; social issues; crime and public safety; traffic, transportation or weather; practical COVID-19 information; and health or mental health.

Here’s one interesting stat from the report: “The audience for national politics skews toward older Millennials, while the audience for news on social issues skews toward Gen Z. However, neither audience is dominated by one age group. Older Millennials account for 49% of those who follow national politics most often, with younger Millennials at 29% and Gen Z at 23%. In contrast, Gen Z account for 47% of those who most often follow social issues, with younger Millennials at 27% and older Millennials at 26%.”

This past week in the media industry?

Where will Twitter users flock to next?

With all the turmoil at Twitter and users leaving the site, many journalists are looking for their next social platform to call home.

Columbia Journalism Review’s Mathew Ingram reports that there has been a steady stream of users, including a number of journalists, signing up for Mastodon, an open-source alternative.

Unfamiliar with Mastodon?

“No one controls Mastodon—or rather, everyone controls their own version of it. There are thousands of servers running the software, and each one chooses which servers it “federates,” or exchanges information with. Don’t like the users who belong to a specific server? Just block them,” explains Ingram.

But, there’s been a bit of a problem for journalists hoping to use the platform.

“Unfortunately for some of the journalists who have joined the service, this mass-blocking (or ‘defederation’) approach is now being applied to them,” reports Ingram. “A server that caters specifically to journalists was set up recently by Adam Davidson, creator of NPR’s Planet Money podcast. At last count, the server, called journa.host, had about thirteen hundred users, including some prominent journalists (and me). Earlier this week, a user of another network pointed out that about forty-five ‘instances’ are blocking all content from members of journa.host.”

“Basically, people hate journalists,” tweets John Stoehr, while Emma Ashford adds, “I still haven't set up a Mastodon account, and this is why. There's no way this thing is a viable substitute for what many of us use Twitter for.”

“Sounds like the journalism cool kids club on mastodon isn't going well,” tweets Corey Atad.

If Twitter goes away

Over on Nieman Lab, Laura Hazard Owen reflected on 11 things journalism loses if Twitter goes away.

As Chris Winters put it, “What #journalists will lose if this bird goes belly-up.”

The list includes items like real-time feedback, criticism, and perspectives on stories, a regular reminder of the problems with “objectivity”, DMs as a reporting tool and so much more.

A personal favorite? “This tweet should be a story.”

A+ stunt, A+ big-hearted execution

In his “PR day of yes,” Slate’s Dan Kois said yes to every publicist pitch he received for an entire day. The results of the experiment surprised Kois.

Here’s a snippet of the must-read piece:

“I feel for the publicists, too, who are also just trying to make a living in the content economy. You started your own PR firm to pay off student loan debt, and now your only client is a spiritual healer. Some conscientious publicists, after I replied Yes, asked me what kind of story I was working on and how their client would fit in. I told them the truth: I was responding to every single pitch I got, to see what kinds of interesting people I’d meet. Many of those publicists never wrote me back again. Good for them! They did the curatorial, image-protecting work you hope you’d get from a public relations professional.

But the fact that I’m receiving all these pitches in the first place suggests that many, many publicists send out press emails blindly, to every email address they can buy, shotgunning them into the media world in hopes that just one might hit its target. Another way to say that, of course, is: You never know! Emails are basically free, and who can say which reporter will end up interested in your weird Taylor Swift casket?”

“This is an amazing story idea and I wish I'd thought of it but also please don't email me about it,” tweets Alex Boyd.

“This is absolutely delightful and *almost* makes me want to respond to more publicist emails,” adds Erica Meltzer.

“A+ stunt, A+ big-hearted execution by @dankois,” tweets Allison Benedikt.

The Athletic to put spotlight on women’s sports

The Athletic plans to double its coverage of professional women's sports through a multiyear partnership with Google, its chief commercial officer Seb Tomich told Axios’ Sara Fischer.

“Over the course of the multiyear partnership, The Athletic is hoping to double the number of articles written about women's sports from around 900 today to about 1,800,” she writes.

While the news itself is positive, some journalists took to Twitter to express hesitation over how the work will be funded.

“Media companies relying on big tech companies to fund investment never works in the long run. Hopefully somehow this time is different,” tweets Jay Yarow, while Vince Tuss adds, “If you’re owned by the New York Times, why is the ‘help’ of Google necessary?”

Shakeup at Disney

Major leadership shakeup at Disney over the weekend. CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo shares the details:

“Disney chose to rehire Bob Iger as chief executive after receiving internal complaints from senior leadership that Bob Chapek was not fit for the job, according to people familiar with the matter.

The executive change came together quickly, blindsiding Chapek and his closest allies. Disney’s board reached out to Iger on Friday, without any other serious candidates in mind to replace Chapek as CEO, CNBC’s David Faber reported Monday, citing sources.”

“this is wild… like, was the board just taking a shot in the dark on Friday? ‘hm, you think Iger would say yes? nahhhhh... aw, what the hell, let's give it a shot’ ‘holy shit, he agreed?! quick, let's put out a press release before he changes his mind!’” tweets Samit Sarkar.

Dubbed “Disney’s Mr. Fixit”, Iger has been brought back to right the ship. The Guardian’s Mark Sweney writes, “Investors warmly welcomed the news of Iger’s return with Disney’s shares up more than 8% – nearly $14bn – when Wall Street opened on Monday.”

‘Online mobs are now coming for student journalists’

For The Washington Post, Taylor Lorenz shares the story of Olivia Krupp, a sophomore student journalist at the University of Arizona facing online harassment after a story she wrote about a TikTok influencer for the school paper was published.

“Krupp found out her story had gone live when she began receiving text messages. Her phone was suddenly barraged from numbers she’d never seen before,” Lorenz reports. “‘I hope when our society wakes again you are lined up and shot,’ read one text viewed by The Post. Dozens of others viewed by The Post berated her appearance, threatened her, and called her misogynistic slurs.”

Lorenz explains that targeted online harassment has become a pervasive threat to newsrooms across the country. “A 2019 survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists found that 85 percent of respondents believed their career had become less safe in the past five years and more than 70 percent said they experienced safety issues or threats as part of doing their job,” she writes.

“It takes a truly despicable person to do things like this to anyone, let alone students,” tweets Andrew Sylvia.

“My work as a student journalist was one of the most joyful, exhilarating experiences of my career. It makes me sad to think about what young reporters today must put up with as they hone their craft,” adds Julia Love.?

A few more

• Tragic news out of Charlotte. WBTV Meteorologist Jason Myers and Sky3 pilot Chip Tayag were killed in a helicopter crash this week, reports the WBTV Web Staff.?
• Eric Zuckerman, Twitter's head of US news partnerships, leaves the company after seven years, reports MediaGazer on Twitter. Check out Zuckerman’s full Twitter thread here.
• Twitter reinstated Trump’s account, reports Sheila Dang and Helen Coster for Reuters. Over 15 million Twitter users voted in a poll posted by Elon Musk with 51.8% voting in favor of reinstatement.
• BuzzFeed is the subject of an upcoming documentary from Kelsey Darragh, a former staffer and filmmaker, reports Variety’s Brent Lang.
• Morning Brew is laying off 14% of its staff, per an internal email posted by Max Tani on Twitter. “CEO Austin Rief says the cuts are due to ‘a lot of fear and uncertainty’ in the economy which is spooking advertisers,” he writes.

From the Muck Rack team

November is Native American Heritage Month.

To celebrate, The Museum of Public Relations hosted a two-hour program highlighting the important roles more and more Native Americans are taking in PR and communications to ensure their communities are represented in companies’ marketing, PR and HR activities.

We recapped some of the amazing projects highlighted during a panel about amplifying indigenous peoples’ stories through PR.