“Making peace with online chum”

 Media statistic of the week 

As the 2020 election cycle kicks into high gear, there’s no shortage of commentary and coverage on social media networks. But even though the partisanship and political divisions are stark, there’s one thing everyone can agree on: According to a new analysis of data from Pew Research Center’s Election News Pathways project, Republicans and Democrats, as well as Independents who lean in either direction, all distrust social media sites for political and election news. 

Mark Jurkowitz and Amy Mitchell of Pew Research Center break down the data for us, which reveals the sites with the highest percentage of distrust are Facebook (59%), Twitter (48%) and Instagram (42%), followed by YouTube (36%). “And what is striking in this era of partisan polarization in news habits is that they are more distrusted than trusted by Democrats and Republicans alike – and both by large margins,” they note.

But also, “Wow. A quarter of US adults get their political news from Facebook -- more than most other news sources -- and yet most Americans don't trust the news they're getting from social media, especially Facebook!” Ramin Skibba points out.

This week in media history 

On February 4, 2004, Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg launched The Facebook, a social media and networking website he had built for Harvard students. By the next day, over a thousand people had registered. As of December 2019, Facebook now has 2.5 billion monthly active users.

This week in the media industry 

There’s hope

We’re starting you off with some good news: “Reports of the death of local accountability journalism have been greatly exaggerated. Just look at all this awesome work - and amazing impact making the world better - from the @propublica Local Reporting Network.” Ken Ward directs you to the story by Charles Ornstein of ProPublica about the work of the Local Reporting Network and ProPublica Illinois, which shows Local Accountability Journalism Still Has a Huge Impact.

In other words, “There’s hope,” tweets Ornstein, who adds, “Journalism isn’t noise. It matters.” As Eric Umansky points out, “Many governors have announced reforms after stories we did with our local partners. In Illinois, Connecticut, Alaska, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Kentucky, California, and more. Because the truth still matters, especially outside DC.” Bottom line: “This is good news for real people,” says Barbara Iverson.

The WaPo mullet strategy

Hamilton Nolan kicks off his first column for Columbia Journalism Review as CJR’s new Washington Post public editor by analogizing the Bezos-owned Post to the Bezos-owned Amazon (a rhetorical move he acknowledges “would be trite...And for that reason, I will do it.”) In that piece, he explains how the Washington Post pulled off the hardest trick in journalism. “[T]he Post, especially in the world that exists at the bottom half of its home page,” Nolan writes, “is by far the media’s most enthusiastic user of the classic two-sentence headline construction that signals clickbait.”

As Lydia Polgreen puts it, “Interesting read on the WaPo mullet strategy, by @hamiltonnolan. Award-bait business up top, clicky party down below.” Adds Tom Gara, “Great piece on the WaPo’s singular achievement: ‘making peace with online chum in a way that many of its fancy peers have always professed to find distasteful.’” There are plenty of quotables from that piece — it’s Hamilton Nolan, after all — but you really should read the whole thing. Nolan also encourages Post readers and employees to share their thoughts with him, tweeting, “please send me leaks and smart ideas.”

The fallout from AB5

California Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), a controversial new law that took effect in the state on January 1st, requires many employers to reclassify many independent contractors as employees. The law will impact a wide range of gig workers based in California, including freelance newspaper writers, editors and cartoonists.

Jason Boog reports at Publishers Weekly that around 300 writers, translators, musicians, dancers and other California creatives gathered on the steps of the California State Capitol in Sacramento last Tuesday to call for the state legislature to repeal the legislation. 

During his speech at the rally, novelist and journalist Walter Kirn said, “Our culture has already started drying up and turning brown like a leaf. The freelance world, whether it’s a court reporter, translator, interpreter, freelance writer or musician, has poured water on the culture to keep it alive. Without AB5’s repeal, it is going to dry up and blow away.” 

The law is also filled with gray areas and exceptions. “The fallout so far is that clients are frightened to work with California based-professionals because the law is so murky,”  said consumer finance journalist and author Erica Sandberg.

Don’t know whether to laugh or cry

Teens Are Now Claiming They Have Coronavirus for Tik Tok Clout. Yep, that’s the headline. And as Blake Montgomery writes at The Daily Beast, not only are teens pretending to have the Coronavirus for likes—they’re succeeding (on the “likes” front, that is). So “by my count, this means it's about six weeks until a 29 year old journalist does the same,” tweets Cameron Wilson. Fatima Syed highlights the fact that “A Vancouver kid who calls himself the ‘CEO of Coronavirus’ on TikTok made a fake video of the disease for clicks. I dont know whether to laugh or cry.”

One thing’s for sure: We shouldn’t be surprised. As Ed Yong writes in his piece for The Atlantic, The New Coronavirus Is a Truly Modern Epidemic, and we’re now in a time when “scientific research and the demand for news, the spread of misinformation and the spread of a virus, all happen at a relentless, blistering pace.” 

Yong quotes Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious disease physician at Boston University School of Medicine, who says, “The new crisis is very much the kind of epidemic we should expect, given the state of the world in 2020. It’s almost as if the content is the same but the amplitude is different.” Steve Silberman calls this a “Fascinating analysis by @edyong209 of the ecology of information and misinformation feeding fears around the #Coronavirus outbreak.”

Are you ready for some blogball

Did you follow the #BigGameColorCommentary on Sunday? Getting super literal with it, Pantone launched its first ever Super Bowl social media campaign in celebration of the fact that both teams wore red as their primary color (Pantone 186 C for the Chiefs and Pantone 187 C for the 49ers, to be specific). 

As Ian Zelaya reported at Adweek, the company posted Instagram and Twitter stories relating its color system codes and general color knowledge to everything from play-by-plays and Super Bowl facts to popular game day food and Super Bowl ads.

In other Super Bowl news, “Are you ready for some blogball,” as Katie McDonough says. We hope you had the chance to enjoy the (unfortunately brief) return of a group of ex-Deadspin writers and editors, who reunited for a Super Bowl blog underwritten by password-management tech company Dashlane. 

Maxwell Tani and Andrew Kirell of The Daily Beast spoke with former Deadspin features editor Tom Ley about Unnamed Temporary Sports Blog Dot Com, which also featured posts by Barry Petchesky, David Roth, Drew Magary and many others. There were even posts that covered topics besides sports. (Gasp!) And “????All is right in the world. For three days, at least,” tweets Andrew Daniels. As Gary A. Harki says, “Reuniting with beloved colleagues who had no choice but to leave sounds like the dream.”

A few more

As we covered in the Muck Rack Daily last week, Dylan Byers of NBC News had the scoop on a big media story, namely, that BuzzFeed News editor Ben Smith is joining The New York Times as a media columnist. Smith will write the “Media Equation” column, which, as Byers notes, “became a must-read for media industry insiders under David Carr, who died in 2015.” Responding to the news, Erin Lee Carr offered up her seal of approval, tweeting, “Great, lovely to hear that @BuzzFeedBen will be covering the amorphous, ever-changing environ that is media and + media column at the @nytimes. I think my dad would like the hire. Give em’ hell Ben.”

Legendary NPR journalist Gwen Ifill is being honored with a Black Heritage Forever stamp. NPR’s Vanessa Romo has that story. “So many of us do this standing on your shoulders, Gwen. May our work be a testament to your legacy,” tweets Errin Haines Whack. Adds Eric Deggans, “Only Gwen Ifill could keep making breakthroughs years after she left us.”

The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple noticed that The Atlantic made Rahm Emanuel a contributing editor. Then, suddenly, he wasn’t. Read that piece for “the full story on the hiring, and firing, of rahm emanuel,” as Jamelle Bouie tweets.

Kathryn Hopkins of Women’s Wear Daily has your roundup of who’s been hired, fired or maybe just jumped ship in media land over the past couple of weeks.

From the Muck Rack Team

Muck Rack Features Editor Jessica Lawlor recently had the opportunity to chat with Ashlie Stevens, a culture and food writer for Salon. Head over to the Muck Rack Blog to find out how Ashlie comes up with story ideas, a recent project she’s particularly proud of, her advice for PR pros and more in 6 questions with Ashlie Stevens from Salon.

Question of the week

What’s your take on California’s new law reclassifying gig workers as employees? Do you think it’s a harbinger of things to come in other states?