‘Taco truck news’ and other re-imaginings

Media statistic of the week 

Axios’s Sara Fischer reports that a record number of journalists have unionized during the pandemic: In 2020, more than 1,800 journalists across unions from the NewsGuild and the Writers Guild (of America) unionized, according to data from the leaders of both groups. 

That’s up from roughly 1,500 the year prior. In 2021, more than 200 journalists have already unionized with the NewsGuild and hundreds more are pending. 

Joel Cunningham says, “It’s almost like it suddenly became starkly obvious how little many companies value the work of the people who actually provide the words supporting all those ads.”

Addy Baird reads those numbers and thinks, “bosses are scared.” And to her point: Katie Robertson reports that The New York Times has told tech workers to put their union effort to a vote. The company said that, for now, it would not recognize a newly formed union representing more than 650 Times employees.

This past week in the media industry 

Not going down without a fight

“THE CLOCK IS TICKING,” tweets Lukas Alpert, who reports at The Wall Street Journal that Tribune Publishing has set a May 21 deadline for shareholders to vote on the takeover proposal by Alden Global Capital. That narrows the window for competing bidder Stewart Bainum Jr. to firm up financing. 

Bainum has some help on that front, though. The Baltimore Sun’s Liz Bowie is working to galvanize reporters across Tribune properties to join in her ‘Project Mayhem’ effort to find civic-minded owners for the chain’s newspapers before Alden buys the company. 

As David Folkenflik reports at NPR, Bowie sees this as a turning point, even if Bainum’s bid falls short. She told him it “opens this door a crack to the idea that newspapers across the country should be owned by local owners and that there’s a way to revive these institutions and not just say they’re dead, let’s kill them off."

Journalism in the time of Covid

In a column for Nieman Reports, During Covid, Journalists Were Less Packaged. Let’s Keep It That Way, Issac Bailey argues that newsrooms need to “take the whole of the journalist into account in ways that weren’t always true pre-pandemic.”

During the pandemic, Bailey writes, “[w]e got to know journalists beyond the byline or made-up face on the screen, sometimes in ways that impressed us, sometimes in ways that depressed us. It was sometimes inspiring, sometimes messy. In short, it was … real.”

Ginger Gorman praises the “Lovely insight by @ijbailey I also think people trust journos more if they see them as humans.”

Next is Allegra Hobbs at Study Hall on The Art of Writing Obituaries During a Plague. For that piece, she spoke with Maureen O’Donnell, obituary writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, Penelope Green, a feature writer for The New York Times who focuses on obituaries, and Shannon Najmabadi, a women’s health reporter at The Texas Tribune, who talked about the “acute responsibility” of obit writing during Covid.

Rachel Holliday shares, “I recently interviewed family members for the first obituaries I’ve ever written (for @THECITYNY’s MISSING THEM memorial project) and thought, my god, how do obit writers do this all the time? always read @AllegraEHobbs, but this especially.”

And Jeremy Rees learned from this story that “There’s a society of obituary writers in the US. They have an annual conference and award for best obit. Those of us who love a good obit, salute you.”

Press freedom under attack

According to the latest survey from media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Pandemic Is Taking Toll on Press Freedom. The Nordic countries, along with Costa Rica, are again high up on the RSF’s latest Press Freedom Index, with Norway ranked first for the fifth year running. Once again, North Korea placed last, with Turkmenistan, China and Djibouti right behind. 

As Lisa Bryant writes at Voice of America, the latest index “offers little good news about the state of today’s media. While it shows little change from last year, the overall indicator of world press freedom has dropped significantly in recent years,” and the coronavirus pandemic has helped exacerbate repression.  

In Hong Kong, news outlets have found themselves in the authorities’ cross hairs as China stifles dissent in the city. Austin Ramzy and Tiffany May of The New York Times report on the Guilty Verdict for a Hong Kong Journalist as Media Faces ‘Frontal Assault.’ Journalist Bao Choy, who produced hard-hitting investigations into the 2019 Yuen Long violence, was convicted last week in a public records case.

Place as power

Throughout the last decade, many newspapers have been downsizing and vacating their iconic but costly buildings. Then, thanks to the pandemic, newsrooms closed over the past year and journalists stopped going in to the physical office space every day. Before they go back, Poynter’s Kristen Hare thinks it’s a good idea to consider the options. 

Her question: Do newsrooms have to be in … newsrooms?

In that piece, she highlights a few of the innovative ways newspapers are rethinking the newsroom. Nikki Usher says, “This is my favorite topic: place as power (so much so that I wrote a book about it). But this piece by @kristenhare is just so good - and I’m delighted to be joined in it by @danikathleen In it, I propose w/ Kristen ‘taco truck news.’” 

Yep, as Jennifer Dokes says, “Some interesting re-imagining going on in journalism.”

Impressive 

Speaking of interesting, Guardian Media Group announced it’s voluntarily returning ￡1.6m in furlough money to the government that was claimed during the early days of the pandemic to support the salaries of some staff. As Guardian media editor Jim Waterson reports, the company said it would repay the funds in light of a substantially improved financial position.

Reactions? Heather Mallick says, “Wow. Impressive revenues, impressive ethics.” And Daniel Levitt tweets, “A fantastic move. Love those guys.”

But Steven Perlberg frames it this way: “After laying off a bunch of people during the pandemic, turns out the Guardian’s revenues were basically flat and now it’s returning some government aid money. Heartwarming!” Well when you put it like that.

AP to the rescue

Here’s some decidedly good news: Sara Fischer of Axios reports that The Associated Press is doubling down on its local news experiment, StoryShare, which helped newsrooms quickly share information around COVID.

There are now more than 130 newsrooms participating in the program, and AP deputy managing editor for U.S. News Noreen Gillespie tells Fischer they hope to have 20 of these networks up and running by the end of 2021. In coming months, the network will expand from geographic networks to topical ones.

Matthew Brown notes, “This wasn’t a novel experiment when I worked at the AP in the 1990s. It was a bureau’s raison d’etre. Today, it’s a reflection of the state of local news in so many markets. @AP to the rescue!”

The evolution of science journalism

“I have strong opinions about the importance and independence of science journalism,” Deborah Blum shares, and you can read some of them in her new op-ed for Science Magazine, Science journalism grows up. 

Fintan Burke describes it as a “Brilliant summary of how science journalism evolved over the past 100 years,” while Roger Pielke dubs it “Spot on.”

“Important insights by @deborahblum on the history of science journalism and the vital role reporters play when they treat science with the same skepticism they’d bring to any other beat. (And what a treat to see the shoutout, Deb. Thank you!)” tweets Liza Gross.

Going f/t on Substack

Checking in with the Substackiverse, Steven Perlberg of Business Insider spoke with 12 Substack newsletter authors to find out how much revenue they make from paid subscriptions and ads. Check out his piece on the real people of Substack. Delia Cai admits, “there is no conversation i enjoy more than ‘how much is everyone making??’ so thank you @perlberg for including Deez Links in this very detailed writeup of non-superstar substack earners.”

And for The Digiday Podcast, Kayleigh Barber spoke with Heated founder Emily Atkin about what it takes to transition from staff writer to Substacker. Atkin left The New Republic to launch her climate change-focused newsletter in September of 2019. Heated now has more than 40,000 free subscribers and boasts a conversion rate of free to paid subscribers between 8-12%.

As Jessie Willms says, “this is a good little look at going f/t on substack from one of my fav. climate writers @emorwee.” The episode is the second of a four-part series on independent content creators that includes interviews with YouTubers, TikTokers and Substackers. 

The battle for podcast dominance

Speaking of podcasts, with the news that the world’s most popular podcast app is introducing paid subscriptions, Ashley Carman of The Verge wonders, Can Apple get you to pay for podcasts? 

Lauren Ober’s take: “I bet the answer is yes.” 

For a more in-depth analysis, “Here’s @ashleyrcarman going deep on paid podcasts and what Apple entering the mix means with lots of industry comment — I think it’s fascinating that this is the first Apple content service that isn’t on Android,” tweets Nilay Patel.

To be sure, “The battle for podcast dominance is on,” as Anne Steele writes in her Wall Street Journal piece on Apple, Spotify and the New Battle Over Who Wins Podcasting. As she reports, podcasts exploded in popularity during the lockdown and are on track to bring in more than $1 billion in U.S. advertising revenue this year. 

“Spotify’s new subscription platform won’t take a cut from participating podcasters AND it’s scaling up an ad tech platform AND it’s available on both iOS and Android,” notes Simon Owens, who thinks “Apple is simply not innovating fast enough in the podcast space.” 

Meanwhile, Current’s Tyler Falk reports that NPR will roll out paid subscriptions to its podcasts with the launch of a program that allows podcast listeners to bypass sponsorship messages in exchange for subscription fees. Falk reports that the network will also participate in Apple and Spotify's podcast subscription initiatives.

Simon Owens weighs in here too, tweeting, “I doubt that ad-free podcasts will be a major subscription draw, but they can be an added benefit for those who want to support you financially. In other words, people will mainly subscribe to support NPR, and the ad-free versions of shows are extra perks.”

Nothing will be left

Last up is your headline of the day, courtesy of Edward Ongweso Jr’s story at Vice: Nextdoor Knows Its Users Are Racist. The neighborhood watch-esque social network announced it is adding an “anti-racism notification” after years of criticism that it breeds racism. 

Or as Ongweso explains on Twitter, “one of the country’s fastest growing surveillance platforms has announced a new anti-racist notification system!”

Mitchell Clark also wrote about the notification system for The Verge, Nextdoor will alert users if it thinks they’re about to post something racist. Seems like a risky move, since, as Stephen Hackett points out, if you weed out the racism, “nothing will be left.”

In the meantime, Chris Gilliard already has a suggestion for version 2.0: “The next iteration should just pop up every time you log in to Nextdoor.” Much more efficient.

A few more 

• “Have you ever said ‘the audiobook was better’? That may change after you read @JeffreyT1’s fantastic piece on a little-known publishing-industry trend,” says David Marcelis, who refers the skeptics to Jeffrey Trachtenberg’s Wall Street Journal story, Malcolm Gladwell’s New Word Order: Audiobook First. Trachtenberg writes about how a growing number of books, including several from a startup co-founded by author Malcolm Gladwell, are being conceived as slickly produced audio projects, complete with sound effects and original music.
• In the wake of what it calls CNN’s “continued racist comments and insensitive reporting directed at Indigenous people,” the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) is urging Indigenous journalists to avoid working with CNN. It’s also calling for Rick Santorum’s dismissal from the network after video surfaced of comments he made at the Young America’s Foundation’s Standing Up for Faith & Freedom Conference.
• Mark Stenberg of Adweek wrote about how the Financial Times is restructuring its consumer revenue team to ratchet up retention. 
• Kathleen Kingsbury explains why The New York Times is retiring the term ‘Op-Ed’ and calling them Guest Essays instead. 
• Last year it was reported that Rupert Murdoch was planning to expand his news empire by launching a new channel in the UK to rival the BBC that would take its inspiration from Fox News in the U.S. According to The Spectator, it’s not going to happen, since News UK concluded it was not ‘commercially viable’ to launch a linear news channel. 
• At OpenWeb, Kusuma Thimmaiah writes about Influencing Quality with the “Best” Sorting Algorithm. Matthew Karolian says, “This is a great update from @OpenWeb around boosting the civility of comments on the web.”

From the Muck Rack Team

As the media landscape continues to evolve, we've noticed an interesting trend: Journalists are a multi-tasking bunch often wearing many hats and launching exciting projects on the side of their full-time gigs or freelancing careers. Muck Rack is highlighting some of these entrepreneurial journalists who are kicking off their own new media ventures. We recently had the opportunity to chat with Anthony Noto, head of content for LM2 Research and co-host of the podcast “Who’s Saving The Planet?” Head over to the blog learn more about Tony’s podcast and advice he has for fellow journalists hoping to start their own venture.