Journalism Today. 20 Nov 2024

By Eduardo Suárez and Gretel Kahn

??? 3 top news stories

1. How Netanyahu used the German newspaper Bild for his own purposes. Haaretz reveals how Israel’s embattled Prime Minister used Germany’s best-selling newspaper to dodge public scrutiny over his failure to reach a hostage deal. Netanyahu’s spokesman Eli Feldstein circumvented military censorship by leaking an internal Hamas document to a journalist working for Bild. Once the document was published, he encouraged Israeli journalists to cover the story, which was mentioned by Netanyahu as proof that Hamas didn’t want a deal. | Read

• A key quote: “Like many supporters of Israel around the world, [the people running Bild] failed to distinguish the interest of Israel from those of Netanyahu, the increasingly unpopular politician. He is despised by the majority of the hostage families, who see him as a leader who either failed miserably to return their loved ones or, worse, actively sabotaged attempts to reach an agreement to release them,” writes Haaretz’s journalist Amir Tibon.

2. Fox News’ incredible revolving door. Donald Trump nominated former congressman and Fox Business host Sean Duffy to lead the Department of Transportation. Duffy, who was one of the President-elect’s most vocal defenders on cable news, is the second Fox commentator to be picked for the incoming cabinet. The first one was Army veteran Pete Hegseth, one of the hosts of Trump’s favourite show Fox and Friends, who has been nominated as Secretary of Defense. | Read · Check out this news analysis on the topic

• A good listen. NPR’s podcast On the Media ran a segment on the revolving door from the conservative network to the White House with Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters. The episode also includes interesting interviews with fact-checker Bill Adair and The Onion’s CEO Ben Collins. | Listen

?? A datapoint from us. Fox News is one of most followed news brands in the United States. According to our Digital News Report, 27% get their news every week from them offline and 18% online. Fox News is also the most distrusted news brand amongst the ones covered by the report. Around 43% of Americans don’t trust them. | Read our country page

3. Bluesky keeps growing. On Tuesday, Bluesky reached 20 million of users, a remarkable milestone for a digital platform that aspires to replace X as the place to go for fast-paced news and commentary. As Mark Little points out, Twitter only reached this number three years after its launch. A new piece by NPR’s Bobby Allyn looks at the origins of Bluesky, its funding and the challenges it faces as it becomes more popular, especially in Spain, the UK and the US. The piece includes an interview with Bluesky’s CEO Jay Graber. | Read

• A key quote: "My concern with the internet is it's just too controlled by a few powerful interests, and people don't have the ability to control their own fate, so we wanted to build social [media] that's built by the people, for the people,” says Graber.?

?? A datapoint from John Burn-Murdoch. A new post by FT data journalist shows how remarkable Bluesky's growth, how people keep deactivating their X accounts and how Bluesky has just overtaken Meta-own Threads in terms of daily active users.

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The Reuters Institute has almost 10,000 followers on Bluesky. If you don't follow us yet on this platform, please do it by clicking in this link.

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?? Chart of the day

??Gateways to online news. Across all markets, search and aggregators, taken together (33%), are a more important gateway to news than social media (29%) and direct access (22%). Unlike social media, search is seen as important across all age groups. Overall, we find that search has been remarkably consistent while direct traffic has become less important. Social has grown consistently, especially amongst young audiences and in countries from the Global South. | Read the report

?? Coffee break

Sally Buzbee will be Reuters’ new News Editor for the United States and Canada. She was most recently the executive editor of the Washington Post, a newspaper she left after British journalist Will Lewis was hired as publisher. | Read

The Washington Post was on track to lose at least as much money as it lost last year—$77 million—even before 250,000 digital readers unsubscribed after Jeff Bezos’ decision not to endorse Kamala Harris. | Read

UK young people read six news articles per day on average, according to a study based on tracking the website and app usage of a representative sample of young people in the UK. | Read

Apple shared the most popular podcasts of 2024. Among the top shows in the US market are The Daily, The Joe Rogan Experience, and Up First from NPR. | Read

The British Parliament will summon Elon Musk to testify about X’s role in spreading disinformation, in a parliamentary inquiry into the UK recent race riots and the rise of false and harmful AI content. | Read

?? One piece from our archive.

A project by our Journalist Fellow Regine Cabato looked at how newsrooms can improve their reporting on complex influence operations like the ones we've recently seen in the Philippines. Regine summarises her learnings in a piece which includes four key tips for journalists and news organisations: covering any policy interventions critically, being careful when approaching any political influencers, thinking before amplifying anyone spreading false narratives and creating a real protocol for newsrooms to follow when approaching these issues.?| Read

?? A new author for our DNR

We are seeking a new lead author for the Digital News Report. The new author who will support Nic through this year's process before taking the lead role in autumn 2025. He or she will be expected to manage the project year-round, working with our researchers, market research partners and country partners across the world.

• Keep in mind. This is a consultancy contract, not an employed role, so anyone interested needs to be self-employed (or be willing to become so). We are looking for an individual, not an agency. Because the role requires frequent participation in meetings and events in Oxford, it is essential that any applicants currently have the right to work (and be based) in the UK. | Learn more and apply now

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