A mix of the true and the fanciful

Media statistic of the week 

US media employment has fallen by 20,000 jobs since 2009. But one segment is up: internet media jobs. According to Ad Age Datacenter’s analysis of job figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment at internet media firms has more than tripled since June of 2009, to 277,000 jobs. TV and radio have mostly maintained their share of media jobs, while—no big surprise here—the big losses came in print media. Jeff Jarvis summarizes: “Useful @AdAge data: Net media jobs triple in decade to 36%. N’paper jobs imploded 35% to 17%, mags 16% to 11%. New net jobs: 193k; old-media jobs lost: 213k; net loss: 20. (Could be worse?).” As Lucas Grindley puts it, “Here’s a sort of a glass-is-half-full way of viewing massive job loss in journalism.”

This week in media history 

Let’s go way back in media history this week. The Haarlems Dagblad is a regional newspaper in Haarlem, Netherlands, but it was first published in 1656 as Weeckelycke Courante van Europa (“Weekly Newspaper of Europe”), making it the oldest surviving commercial newspaper. Read more about its history and evolution here.

This week in the media industry 

Reading the tea leaves

What does the future look like? It’s one of those quintessential beginning-of-the-decade questions, and here are a few stories that offer up some clues about where journalism is headed over the next decade and beyond.

At Columbia Journalism Review, Robert Ito highlights the field of speculative journalism, in which “writers take verifiable facts or news stories and, from them, extrapolate what might happen in the near—and sometimes not so near—future.” For that story, Journalism and the foreseeable future, Ito talked with Sam Greenspan, a former producer at NPR, who now has a podcast called Bellwether that features speculative journalism. Says Greenspan, “I think the goal should be to use fiction or sci-fi to tell a better true story.” He also stresses the need for clear lines around the genre, “particularly given how much speculating goes on among journalists and commentators every day,” notes Ito.

A special edition of Al Jazeera’s “The Listening Post” explores the science and the art of open-source journalism, a new kind of reporting that’s becoming particularly valuable for getting the full story in parts of the world where press freedom is on the decline. The power comes from “not just the reporters doing this kind of work — it is also the technology that makes their work possible. And that is a much more difficult thing to suppress.”

Starbucks is nearly three months into its experiment of offering complementary digital news subscriptions to its customers while they’re inside its stores. Erich Prince has the details at Media Village, noting that “partnerships between such businesses and publishers would, of course, present another possible path towards profitability for news outlets struggling to stay above water.” Kenneth Cukier has another suggestion, too: “Great @Starbucks is trialing free digital news, but if it and @HowardSchultz want to create a safe, stable and prosperous world, consider making papers freely available: gets customers seeing quality news and perhaps discussing it.”

At Digiday, Max Willens writes that new fronts will open in the media union wars in 2020 as freelancers look to get organized. He explains what the newly formed Freelance Solidarity Project, a group of freelance media workers operating with the help of the National Writers Union, plans to do this year.

And what can we learn from the past? On Twitter, Bloomberg’s Justin Fox shares, “I wrote a column about something that Bill Greider wrote about journalism in 1992.” Check out his piece on The Rise of Talk Radio, Internet Media and a Political Divide. With insights from the late William Greider, Fox looks back at the less-than-optimal state of affairs as a new media age dawned in 1992, arguing, “don’t get too nostalgic about old media.” Francis Wilkinson calls it a “Nice look at Bill Greider and the vexations of class bias in journalism.”

The f word

As we gear up for the 2020 election, you can bet the fake news machines are gearing up, too. But What if Fake News Isn’t the Real Problem on Social Media? In his piece for Social Media Today, Andrew Hutchinson takes a deep dive into the topic, exploring whether broader shifts in the political landscape are the result of lies and deceit online. 

His conclusion: “Various investigations — including my own rudimentary analysis — have actually found that it’s not fake news that’s fueling such, but inherent bias, which is being propped up by the capacity to find others online who agree, and the validation that individuals can receive as a result.”

Liberal, but not biased

And now a story that’s definitely not fake news: Major study finds no “liberal bias” in media — but there are other problems. At Salon, Paul Rosenberg writes about the findings from this new study, forthcoming in Science Advances, that shows even though reporters overall are significantly more liberal than the general population, it doesn’t matter. There’s no “gatekeeping bias.” If anything, Rosenberg notes, journalists have become too cautious. And John Ganz thinks, “the main problem with journalists is not political bias, it’s that they have no knowledge of and seemingly little interest in any context or history.” 

Rosenberg’s hope: “This study may help empower the media profession to be less easily intimidated going forward. There is a great deal that needs repair and renewal in American democracy, and journalism has a vital role to play in that process.”

On becoming a B Corp

At The Guardian, Julie Richards, delivery portfolio director at Guardian News & Media, tells Sophie Zeldin-O’Neill Why the Guardian became a B Corp, and Rob Mcgibbon offers up his “Applause. I might become a B-Hack. What does the Guardian’s new B-corp status mean? ‘It’s about long-term impact.’” 

Part of its commitment includes being carbon neutral by 2030. And the organization already has a target of eliminating the gender pay gap in the top half of the company by 2022. Richards notes, “Our climate pledge was really driven by our reporting on the severity of the climate crisis, and the strength of feeling among our readers and our staff.”

An incredible example

Speaking of climate reporting, as bushfires rage in Australia, Amanda Meade of The Guardian reports that the ABC has received overwhelming praise for its ‘vital’ emergency reporting, despite ongoing scorn from Murdoch-owned media. ABC’s Judith Whelan shares, “I cannot tell you how proud I am to work for the #ABC with such passionate, tireless, committed colleagues who just keep going every day for the sake of communities around Australia.” Tweets Matt Danzico, “ABC is ‘saving lives’ in Australia with its reporting. An incredible example of what a broadcaster can do/be.”

Buyers wanted

Baltimore Sun journalists are pursuing local investors amid hedge fund fears, as Melody Simmons reports for the Baltimore Business Journal. Tweets Megan O’Matz, “Baltimore Sun journalists seek new, local ownership for the 183-year-old newspaper, reaching out to the Abell Foundation, the Goldseker Foundation, developer David Cordish and others who have expressed interest in acquiring The Sun in the past.”

Politico’s Daniel Lippman and Tina Nguyen are reporting that The Hill’s owner is seeking potential buyers, investors. The asking price is $100 million, but owner Jimmy Finkelstein wants something closer to $300 million, which is “Quite a spread…” notes Brian Morrissey. As David Phinney says, “$300 million sounds like hyper hype.” To sum up: “Politico sez Jimmy Finkelstein is looking to sell The Hill and quotes a truly insane price range for a product with an ad based business model,” tweets Chris Krewson.

Movin’ on up to the old Chicago Tribune building

While we’re at it, here’s another big-ticket item: What was once the Chicago Tribune’s office will now become 162 luxury condos, selling between $900,000 and $7.6 million, Christina Poletto reports at The Wall Street Journal. As Alec MacGillis puts it, “Metro newspapers are being eviscerated, but my, what fine multimillion-dollar condos they can be turned into!” 

Erin Blasko points out, “Sadly, these developments trade on nostalgia for the newspaper era at a time when fewer and fewer people value the actual product.” But Niall Stanage admits, “I get that this is bittersweet — or maybe just bitter — for people in my business. That said, if I had a million bucks to spare, I’d totally buy an apartment in the old Chicago Tribune building, which is really beautiful.”

This week’s round-up

• From Poynter, fact-checkers say these are the best fact-checks they did during this decade. Worth noting that this includes not just the really tough and high-impact fact-checks, but also the really funny and unbelievable ones.
• “Times Insider” delivers behind-the-scenes insights into news, features and opinion come together at The New York Times. For the latest in the series, Matthew Sedacca spoke with Suzanne Spector, the lead editor of Dispatches on the International desk, who explains how Dispatches allows international correspondents tell highly visual stories that say more about the places they cover than the day’s news.
• Joan E. Solsman of CNET reports that the streaming wars are spilling into CES 2020 as media nabs the spotlight. “Quibi may be a funky name you’ve never heard of,” she writes, “but it’s aiming to bring the star power that gets CES talking.” Backed by every major Hollywood studio, Quibi’s being touted as a star-studded mobile subscription service for short-form video.
• At Forbes, Karen Weaver details How Jim Delany’s Media Intuition Changed The College Sports Ecosystem.
• CNN’s Frank Pallotta reports that Former HBO chief Richard Plepler has signed a production deal with Apple.

From the Muck Rack Team

As a podcaster, Tim O’Brien gets a lot of media pitches these days, and, he says, “What I’ve learned of late is that lot of pitches I receive (I mean a whole lot), tend to sound like a bad country song.” On the Muck Rack Blog, he offers some advice on how to change your tune if your media pitches sound like a bad country song.

Question of the week

What’s your take on speculative journalism? Do you see value (and/or potential danger) in its “mix of the true and the fanciful,” as Ito puts it?