A picture is worth 1,000 memes

Media statistic of the week 

Sara Fischer of Axios reports on new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Project data that shows more FOIA requests were filed in the Trump era than at any time in U.S. history. What’s more, the 386 FOIA cases filed during the Trump administration add up to more than all of the FOIA cases filed by the media during the 16 years of the Bush and Obama administrations combined. 

Buzzfeed News led the way in number of requests, followed by The New York Times. And Adrienne Underwood “can’t help but notice that FOIA requests peaked in the same year I made my hit niche spotify playlist ‘music to file open records requests to.’”

This week in media history

On Jan. 28, 1706, English writing master, stonecutter, letter designer, typefounder and printer John Baskerville was born. Baskerville was the creator of a typeface of great distinction bearing his name, and his works are among the finest examples of the art of printing.

This past week in the media industry 

Incisive, mindblowing spotlight 

Since 2015, Laurene Powell Jobs has spent roughly $250 million on journalism. Through the Emerson Collective, she owns The Atlantic along with equity stakes in Axios, The Athletic and Pushkin Industries. What is she up to? Robert Baird’s new piece for Columbia Journalism Review, Benevolent Haze, takes a look.

One quote that many are sharing from that piece: “What’s the point of having a billionaire owner—what’s the point, you might say, of having billionaires at all—if they insist on enforcing financial discipline even in the midst of a global catastrophe?” 

Tweets Meher Ahmad, “I was hired at California Sunday thanks to the increase in funding from billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs. As soon as her funding began to contract, I was laid off. It’s difficult not to question the point of Jobs’ wealth when it affects you so personally.” And Simon Galperin highlights, “When the philanthropist just straight up tells you they’re in it for the power.” 

Maria Bustillos calls it an “Incisive, mindblowing spotlight on Laurene Powell Jobs,” and Mya Frazier offers up a little advice: “If you’re a billionaire who wants to save journalism, maybe show some respect for its processes, and make yourself available to comment on an in-depth piece about your intentions.”

Your safety as a journalist

With ethical practices changing as a result of the increase in threats to journalists, Poynter’s Kelly McBride has a run-down of ways to balance the need to document the first draft of history with the need to keep journalists safe. “This moment will change the media,” tweets McBride.

“I don’t know who needs to hear this, but your safety as a journalist — today + every day — takes precedence to any ethical obligation you have,” notes Stephanie Lulay. “Be cautious in identifying yourself, always trust your gut + get the hell out if you feel unsafe.”

Meanwhile, Jon Allsop shares, “This morning for @CJR, I surveyed the state of press freedom 10 years after the Arab Spring. There are variations, of course, but the general picture isn’t good—reporters face arrest, expulsion, and harassment by lawsuits, spying, troll armies, and so on.” 

For the full story, read his Columbia Journalism Review piece on press freedom and the Arab Spring, ten years on. Elia El Habre highlights this soberting stat: “By the end of 2020, ‘one of every three journalists behind bars worldwide was in the Middle East.’”

Such a dark crossroads

New research from Gordon Pennycook and David Rand, published at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Misinformation Review, examines false beliefs about voter fraud in the wake of the 2020 Presidential Election and reveals that Trump voters with higher levels of basic political knowledge and engagement with election news were more likely to hold false beliefs about the election — a finding that shows false beliefs about the election are not merely a fringe phenomenon. 

The survey found that, “[D]espite a lack of any meaningful evidence of systemic election fraud, a majority of Trump voters believed that fraud is common in U.S. elections (>77%), and that Trump won the 2020 election (>65%).”

John Surico notes, “One of the major undercurrents of why we’re at such a dark crossroads is that the long-held belief ‘reading the news more makes you a more informed citizen’ is not only invalid now, but also, having the opposite effect on tons of people.”

Another step closer

On that note, Dan Wine says this is “Just what we need ??” and that emoji is doing a lot of the work. Jeremy Barr of The Washington Post reports that the post-election shake-up at Fox News is bringing more opinion at the expense of news. 

On Twitter, Barr shares, “Maria Bartiromo will get a tryout as Fox’s new 7 pm host. A news staffer tells me: ‘It is ludicrous and disheartening that we are rewarding her with a primetime spot, knowing full well she is among the most responsible for propagating the big election lie.’”

Andrew Chung sees it as the network taking “Another step closer to OAN/Newsmax/Infowars.” As Napp Nazworth points out, “Fox had to pick b/w being voice of the center right or the nutwing right. Chose the latter. ‘easier for Fox to beat Newsmax and everybody else back into the woods than it is for them to try to compete with the real journalism networks.’-Carl Cameron.”

As if

And then we have this news. Billionaire businessman and philanthropist Joe Ricketts is launching a national news outlet based in Omaha, Nebraska. Paul Hammel of the Omaha World-Herald reports that Ricketts is hiring staff to launch an online national news service called Straight Arrow News that he said will do what other outlets aren’t doing — provide news without a political slant. Presumably, he’s not including the present company of the Omaha World-Herald in that assessment.

Charles Johnson suggests an alternate headline: “Anti-union billionaire whose son is Republican gov and other son is RNC finance kingpin starting unbiased news outlet.”

Corey Hutchins also gives it a go, with: “Conservative Wyoming billionaire who shut down DNAinfo and Gothamist after they voted to unionize is set to launch a national news site, incorporated in Delaware, and based in Nebraska where his son is the governor.”

“Joe Ricketts, whose leaked emails called Muslims the ‘enemy’ and included birtherist lies about Obama, promises to bring us ‘unbiased, fact-based news.’ As if,” tweets Mark Jacob. As Evan Moore says, “I’m good, fam.”

It doesn’t get more desperate than this

Robby Soave is reacting to the story by Archie Bland of The Guardian, who reports that Rolling Stone is seeking ‘thought leaders'’ willing to pay $2,000 to write for them — which raises the question, “Are you rich enough to write for a magazine?” tweets Michael Moran.

“Emails seen by the Guardian suggest that those who pass a vetting process – and pay a $1,500 annual fee plus $500 up front – will ‘have the opportunity to publish original content to the Rolling Stone website.’ Bland writes. “It suggests that doing so ‘allows members to position themselves as thought leaders and share their expertise.’” OK then. 

As you can imagine, journalists have a lot of thoughts on this “thought leader” model. “It's official,” says Jeff Simon. “Rock journalism has turned upside down.” “How much do I hate this? So much it’d take a week of Tweets to count the ways,” Sylvie Simmons shares. And Peter W. Singer adds, “Never realized this needed to be said: If you have to pay for something to be published, you are not a ‘thought leader’ but rather an ‘advertiser.’”

Tweets Sam Bresnick, “.@RollingStone’s idea to save magazines is to make writers pay for the privilege to ‘shape the future of culture.’ Difficult to envision a darker future for the industry.” Nevertheless,  John Harris thinks “The future in which people pay the media for the privilege of writing for it... it's here.” 

There’s very little trust

Google, meanwhile, is offering to pay some European publications for their content. But Can Google Fix the $108 Billion News Industry It Helped Break? Bloomberg’s Alex Webb explains why the tech giant might have to do more to win them over.

On Twitter, he notes, “The irony is that some publishers don’t want more money from the tech giants, even though it’d be more equitable. They’re wary of becoming too dependent financially, which might leave them vulnerable to tech’s bait and switch. There’s very little trust.”

He also shares “A wee scooplet: Microsoft is developing a news app for desktop for which it will pay to license stories. But all content will be hosted natively, meaning news orgs can't cultivate a relationship with readers.”

This is ... interesting

Henry Queen links to the BBC News story on Google’s threat to pull out of the Australian market if a new law governing its relationship with news publishers goes ahead. The proposed law would mandate that Google has commercial agreements with every news organization — or enter forced arbitration, something Google says is “unworkable.

For its part, Facebook says it was blindsided by Australia’s mandatory media bargaining code directive. As Asha Barbaschow reports at ZDNet, the social media giant, like Google, said it would have presented a timely voluntary code.

But as Bloomberg’s Sybilla Gross reports, Australia says it’s ‘inevitable’ Google and other tech behemoths will have to eventually pay for news.

In the meantime, after months of heated negotiations, French media groups have signed a digital copyright deal with Google under which the tech giant will pay publishers for news previews. 

Big podcasting news

On to some “Big podcasting news. It seems @pocketcasts is up for sale.” Andrew Davies links to the report by Tyler Falk at Current, Public media owners agree to sell Pocket Casts podcast platform. 

As Ilya Marritz tweets, “Pocketcasts: - is great - is free - is losing money - might be sold by its public media owners, a group which includes my employer, WNYC.” An NPR spokesperson tells Falk that the plan to sell Pocket Casts is in “early stages of development.” 

And we’ve got more big podcasting news, because, as Tom Dotan and Jessica Toonkel write at The Information, “Apple—long considered the sleeping giant in the podcast space—is waking up.” They report that Apple is discussing launching a new podcasting subscription service, one that could pose a threat to Spotify. 

In other words, “The fruit company that put the pod in podcasting might finally try to make some money from it. With subscriptions, of course,” tweets Cory Weinberg. It’s news that’s “Both expected and ‘whoa,’” as Joshua Benton puts it. “Smart. Inevitable,” says Jessica Lessin, who adds, “Great scoop from @jtoonkel.”

The podcast sponsorship ecosystem

Speaking of Spotify, Ashley Carman spoke with nine podcasters for her piece for The Verge and discovered that Spotify is paying podcasters tens of thousands of dollars to buoy its own sponsorship tool. As Carman explains, “Spotify’s Anchor podcast app promised to find sponsors for smaller podcasters. What these peeps didn’t realize was that the main paying client would be Anchor itself.”

No, it’s not just you. “The podcast sponsorship ecosystem continues to not make sense to me,” tweets Joe Ovies. But Simon Owens says “It doesn’t entirely surprise me that Anchor isn’t generating a ton of ad money for podcasters yet. The podcast ad market is still tiny and it’ll take some time for Spotify to grow the pie.”

Big newsletter news

Sara Fischer of Axios has the exclusive details on Forbes’ new newsletter platform, which will allow journalists to launch their own paid newsletters and split the revenue with the 103-year-old publisher. Simon Owens weighs in here too, commenting that “This seems like a big deal. It’s the first mainstream media company that I know of that will actually partner with writers (i.e., giving them a cut of revenue) to launch newsletters.”

A lot of people are drawing comparisons to Substack. For example, Nimish Sawant sees it as “More competition for @substack,” but Tim Copeland says, “substack works because there’s no editorial oversight. that’s why this won’t work.”

Or maybe we’re reaching our capacity for newsletters. Travis Bernard notes, “This is quite a competitive space. Most users only subscribe to a few newsletters, if any at all. Much like a social media feed, your inbox can quickly become congested if you ‘follow’ too many. It feels like we’re hitting a newsletter saturation point.”

We’re not done talking about newsletters yet, though. “Get ready for your timeline today to be full of nothing but hot takes on newsletters and the future of content,” tweets Chris O’Brien, because Twitter is acquiring newsletter publishing company Revue. 

For highlights of the deal and what it means for “creators,” turn to that piece by Sara Fischer of Axios. You can also read the official announcement from Twitter, Making Twitter a better home for writers. Alex Howard notices that “Twitter is now closer to paying people to tweet, but not with ad revenue.” 

Yet more competition for Substack? “Revue started as a Substack competitor and is now a Substack competitor once again,” notes Simon Owens. And coming soon to a timeline near you: “Please subscribe to my twitter,” tweets Steve Kovach.

Trend watching

As Pat Myers of The Washington Post writes, “If you’ve been scrolling through TikTok lately — or have been in the vicinity of someone who has, and tends to hum — you’ve likely encountered the unlikely fad of sea chanteys.” And this turned out to be a good reminder that The Post’s Style Invitational is way overdue for a song contest. Et voila: Style Invitational Week 1420: Singing on the job.

Is 2021 really the year of sea shanties? It couldn’t be worse than whatever 2020 was. And with ShantyTok’s popularity growing, the British Library is getting on board, releasing a proper sea shanty guide.

And last up, you’ve seen the memes, now meet The Photographer Behind the Bernie Sanders Chair Meme. Brendan Smialowski, a former sports photojournalist from Connecticut who documents politics for wire service Agence France-Presse, took the photo that went viral and tells all to Reed Dunlea of Rolling Stone. 

Michael Shure says, “This is a great interview and look into the mind of a photographer. (Also I’m envious of his clothing policy).” And a lot of journalists appreciated Smialowski's answer to the question, What was your first thought when you saw how the photo came out? “The picture itself is not that nice. It’s not a great composition. I’m not going to be putting this in a portfolio.”

Maybe not, but as Nikki Junewicz says, “They say a picture is worth 1,000 words... in this case- 1,000 memes.”

A few more

• Even though the great days of US broadcasting may be behind us, this past week brought poignant reminders, as Edward Helmore writes in his piece for The Guardian, Larry King dies, Tom Brokaw retires – and the 'heroic age' of TV news slips further away
• Biden has picked Jessica Rosenworcel as acting FCC chief. In that piece for NBC News, April Glaser does some digging into her history at the agency and what to expect for the future of issues like net neutrality and broadband access. (As Bill Harnsberger says, “For those of you wondering if net neutrality is coming back...it seems likely.”) Rosenworcel, who joined the FCC in 1999 and has been a commissioner since 2012, is only the second woman to lead the agency as acting chair.
• NPR’s Shannon Bond talked to the CEO of MeWe, a Facebook alternative that pitches itself as being all about privacy, about the surge of users it's seen since the Capitol riot, why it's not an “anything goes” platform, and the changes it's making to content moderation. Check out that interview with MeWe CEO Mark Weinstein, Fast-Growing Alternative To Facebook And Twitter Finds Post-Trump Surge ‘Messy.’
• The bitcoin bull market is sparking a boom in crypto news media outlets, but as Jeff Roberts writes at Fortune, it’s uncertain how many will last. Lara O’Reilly shares, “I was interviewed by Fortune for this piece about the rise in crypto news media. Asked whether bigger, established financial news players might like to acquire the newer crypto media companies, I said it was more likely they’d look to poach their talent.”
• Devin Coldewey of TechCrunch reports that The Boston Globe is starting a new program by which people who feel an article at the newspaper is harmful to their reputation can ask that it be updated or anonymized.

From the Muck Rack Team

On the Muck Rack Blog, Emma Haddad shares insights from PR professors who are using Muck Rack in the virtual classroom and explains how you can get involved, too.

Also on the blog, Muck Rack co-founder and CTO Lee Semel offers up some steps you can take to make sure you, your team and the brands you work with are safe. Check out 10 things PR professionals need to know about security.