Kind of a big deal alert
Media statistic of the week
Quartz recently surpassed 21,000 paying members, almost doubling its subscriber base in less than a year. In an interview with John McCarthy at The Drum, Quartz’s president Katie Weber explains how the publisher has been growing its paid proposition at an accelerated rate during a pandemic. Dmitry Shishkin summarizes “A story of @qz success in 2020 according to its president @KWeber515: newsletters, virtual workshops, USER NEEDS (ahem!), and cross-functional ways of working.”
This week in media history
And YOU get a daytime television talk show! On September 8, 1986, The Oprah Winfrey Show was broadcasted nationally for the first time. Winfrey signed a syndication deal with King World after having turned her Chicago-based morning talk show into a ratings winner. The Oprah Winfrey Show went on to become the highest-rated talk show in TV history.
This past week in the media industry
So necessary, so vital
Jim Clarke of The Associated Press gets our attention with his “Kind of a big deal alert: We’re re-imaging what local journalism looks like. Pay attention to this effort.” In Journalism beyond competition, Corey Hutchins of Columbia Journalism Review writes about the Colorado News Collaborative, known as COLab, an “independent, nonprofit, statewide journalism coalition” that’s bringing together nearly a hundred journalists from more than sixty news organizations. As Hutchins reports, AP News is a member, and participants use the AP’s StoryShare tool in order to ensure more comprehensive coverage at a time of diminished resources.
“So necessary, so vital,” says Jodi Peterson, who highlights from the piece, “The depletion of local news scenes, exacerbated by the current pandemic, isn’t unique to Colorado, and similar models in other states are emerging to help mitigate the attendant problems.”
Be careful out there
“Oops. Another mistake,” Andy Serwer notices. Elizabeth Dwoskin and Craig Timberg of The Washington Post reported that Facebook has taken down a Russian operation that recruited U.S. journalists, amid rising concerns about election misinformation. The network of pages and accounts directed users to a fake left-leaning news website called Peace Data. Facebook said it plans to inform 200 or so journalists who were recruited by the Russian operatives.
Jack Stubbs of Reuters spoke to six freelancers hired by Peace Data and reviewed emails showing that the writers were approached on social media, paid up to $250 per article and encouraged to insert political angles into their work. Read his piece, Duped by Russia, freelancers ensnared in disinformation campaign by promise of easy money, for more on how Peace Data managed to trick and hire freelance journalists to write articles about topics including the U.S. presidential election, the pandemic and alleged Western war crimes.
Alice Woodhouse says, “I've not freelanced, but from friends who do, the fact these editors were so excited and payments came through promptly should've been a red flag.” At any rate, take Timothy Gardner’s advice: “Be careful out there.”
And Christopher Brennan offers up this suggestion: “Stop disinformation by recreating the New Deal’s Federal Writers’ Project so we can employ all the unemployed journalists, chronicle the human stories of the pandemic, and get them all off Twitter.”
It’s the least they could do (literally)
Mike Isaac of The New York Times reports that Facebook is making moves to limit election chaos in November. “Facebook to bar new political ad buys seven days before the election — part of a slate of changes to clamp down on confusion and disinformation heading into election day,” Isaac tweets.
Yes, that’s one whole week of clamping down. “As everyone knows, disinformation campaigns are like basketball games,” tweets Scott Bixby, “in that nothing actually matters until the final three minutes of the fourth quarter.”
Isaac also reports that existing political ads will not be affected. Hmm. Here’s how Kara Swisher puts it: “Horse meet open barn door you just ran out of.” Adds Daniel Kibblesmith, “Thank you computer gods who control our fates for no reason.”
Meanwhile, Twitter announced that it’s adding context to Trending Topics in an effort to clean up the feature that has been used for disinformation, but as Kate Conger and Nicole Perlroth report at The New York Times, the company is stopping short of what some Twitter employees and external activists have been advocating for: getting rid of the feature altogether.
Issues of diversity
In her piece for Poynter on how two local newsrooms are sewing diversity into the fabric of their organizations, Eliana Miller looks at the sustainable new ways The Star Tribune in Minneapolis and the San Antonio Express-News are approaching diversity and hiring and retaining journalists of color.
“This is great!” says Maribel Molina, “I loved the suggestions from the Minneapolis staff.” And Chenue Her highlights, “‘If there isn’t a deep strategy around recruitment, retention and paths to leadership, the gravity of white centering takes hold’ - the brotha @tomhorgen preaching.”
Meanwhile, Daniel Thompson, an editor at The Kenosha News, resigned over a headline that highlighted a speaker who made a threat during a peaceful protest. Marc Tracy of The New York Times spoke with Thompson, who said he was the only full-time Black staff member at the paper. “Why do we need more Black managers in newsrooms? So people like Daniel Thompson don't have to quit to get executives to change an inflammatory headline,” tweets Dorothy Tucker.
The coverage is unavoidable
And now, “A great piece by @kerrymflynn on politics and sports journalism.” Frank Pallotta links to Kerry Flynn’s piece at CNN revealing that ESPN and its competitors are ditching their ‘stick to sports’ mantra. Politics is now fair game. On Twitter, Flynn shares, “This is an example of me turning a little tweet into a STORY. Media companies have long struggled with how to cover (or even if to cover) the intersection of sports and politics. But amid a pandemic and a national reckoning over race, it's clear that the coverage is unavoidable.”
“Telling journalists ‘stick to sports’ and athletes to ‘shut up and dribble’ is the same as telling them to ignore their own humanity. Sports crosses into other lanes. That's just the reality,” tweets An Phung. Adds Hamza Shaban, “It’s never been more clear how ridiculous ‘stick to sports’ is.”
Hiring journalists is good
TV station owner Nexstar believes there is room for a neutral alternative to CNN, MSNBC and Fox, so it’s serving up WGN America’s ‘News Nation’ for viewers who want their news served up opinion-free. Stephen Battaglio of the Los Angeles Times writes about the three-hour nightly news program, which debuted last week. But just how neutral is it? Bill Chuck advises, “Let's be wary of the neutrality of this as it is overseen by EVP Sean Compton who used to work with Trump. Caveat emptor.”
And maybe neutrality isn’t even the point. Jay Rosen wonders, “Why is it that every time a media company mounts an alternative to excess opinion in news they always land on the same ‘answer?’ Neutrality, view from nowhere, down-the-middle. Etc! Other ideas: Evidence-based. Transparency-based. Solutions over opinions.”
Either way, Chris Krewson says, “Saw lotsa commercials for this while watching ‘Back to the Future’ last night; not sure that's a real strong argument since the thing I tuned in for might become a more boring CNN, but good luck, hiring journalists is good.”
Documenting what’s changed and disappeared
As a new law takes aim at dissent, creating a challenge to free expression, Jin Wu and Elaine Yu documented the changing nature of speech in a New York Times piece detailing What You Can No Longer Say in Hong Kong. “For more than two decades, the only Hong Kong I'd known was one where free expression and dissent were legally protected and a vibrant tradition. @jwf825 and I documented what’s changed and disappeared when a place loses these rights,” Yu shares.
The dishy rundown
No word on season 3 of “Succession” on HBO yet, but in the meantime, Vanity Fair’s Joe Pompeo has what he calls “a dishy rundown of all the latest New York Times leadership/succession Kremlinology, now that Bennet’s out of the running and others are ascending.” Check out “Everything’s Now Up in the Air”: 2020 Upheaval Has Scrambled Succession at the New York Times. S. Mitra Kalita’s assessment: “Three white men as finalists for this job is unacceptable. And yes I told you so.”
Despite that, Nicholas Jackson says, “I will never tire of these stories. People can—and should!—criticize the NYT, but it remains among the most influential English-language publications. (That's why, even in our filter bubble-d world, you still read and engage w/ it even when you disagree.)”
Dan Froomkin shares, I was reading that @joepompeo piece on the ‘scrambled’ NYT succession and muttering: Yes, but which of them would reject the worst parts of Baquetism?? When I saw this by @marclacey and HOO BOY.” As Gerry Smith says, “I always make time for a palace intrigue story by @joepompeo, especially when it includes the word ‘defenestration.’”
This is a *WILD* story (or two)
If you’re looking for an “incredible yarn and reporting,” as Stephen Morris puts it, don’t miss Wirecard and me from the Financial Times, in which journalist Dan McCrum gives a first-hand account of what it was like to expose the criminal enterprise. Robert Smith admitted, “This might be my favorite thing I've read this year: McCrum’s account of the hacking, intimidation, and surveillance he faced while he unraveled Germany's largest accounting fraud.” Alice Fishburn deemed it a “MUST READ. It's not often we put one of our reporters on the cover but McCrum’s account of what it was like to investigate Wirecard for five years is just something else…” And Joseph Cotterill suggested, “Wait for the movie, yeah?”
And then there’s “How a global conspiracy theory led to arson and kidnapping in the Peruvian Andes.” Leo Schwartz links to Laurence Blair’s piece at Rest of World, One village’s response to misinformation? Burn the internet towers and take hostages. As Mehr Nadeem says, “This is a *WILD* story about how 5G conspiracy theories led to the abduction of telecom workers in a remote indigenous settlement in Peru.”
A few more
- Helene Cooper of The New York Times reports that Trump says he’ll reverse the Pentagon Plan to close the Stars and Stripes newspaper. As she points out, the reversal came when Trump was in full defensive mode over reports that he had disparaged military personnel.
- The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a story explaining why they aren’t reporting on the records of the victims of the Kenosha protest shooting, along with answers to other questions about their coverage. As the paper points out, “They are the victims of a shooting, and as far as we can tell their past legal records have no bearing on them being shot during a protest.” And Robert Mentzer says, “I kinda like this.”
- From Drusilla Moorhouse and Emerson Malone of the copy desk at BuzzFeed News, Here’s Why BuzzFeed News Is Calling QAnon A “Collective Delusion” From Now On. Doug Bursch, for one, thinks “Collective Delusion is a really good choice of words.”
- “Nothing quite like being forced.” That quote sure says a lot. At Digiday Max Willens writes about how publishers are whipping up quicker, cheaper ad products for advertisers.
- Reuters announced that it’s partnering with Facebook to deliver live U.S. election night results to social media users, explaining, “Throughout election night, authoritative data delivered by Reuters will be shown on Facebook’s Voting information Center and shared in push notifications.”
- New York Times readers responded to Michelle Cottle’s op-ed on the need for an overhaul of the presidential debates with their own Ideas for Better Political Debates.
- Boone Ashworth has a piece for Wired on Google’s plans to remix news radio just for you. “Think of it like a Feedly or Flipboard-type service for spoken stories from your preferred news publications,” he suggests. “The future of radio is driven by data and curated for one,” tweets Shawn DuBravac.
From the Muck Rack Team
Muck Rack recently had the opportunity to chat with Scott Nover, platforms reporter at Adweek. Get to know him a bit better by checking out 6 questions with Scott Nover of Adweek on the blog.
Abby Wolfe compiled a list of 10 things only journalists understand. Obviously, there are many fulfilling things about being a journalist, but there are just as many exhausting, frustrating and generally annoying aspects about it too. Here, you can enjoy the relatability of 10 such situations.
Question of the week
Do you plan to watch the “neutral, opinion-free” News Nation broadcast? Or as an alternative to excess opinion, would you be more interested in some of the other ideas Jay Rosen suggested: “Evidence-based. Transparency-based. Solutions over opinions”?