Time to rededicate myself to sadness

Media statistic of the week

This Reuters Institute fact sheet analyzes the percentage of people of color in top editorial positions in a strategic sample of 100 major online and offline news outlets in five different markets across four continents: Brazil, Germany, South Africa, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US).

What did they find? Here’s one of the bigger talking points: “Overall, 23% of the 81 top editors across the 100 brands covered are people of color, despite the fact that, on average, 44% of the general population across all five countries are people of color.”?

Be sure to check out the full report.

This past week in the media industry

Negative words in headlines generate more clicks

Does this surprise anyone, really??

“Negative words in news headlines generate more clicks — but sad words are more effective than angry or scary ones” reads the headline of this piece by Joshua Benton for Nieman Lab.

Benton dives into the results of a new study published in the journal Nature Human Behavio(u)r .?

The gist of the study: “So: Add a negative word to your headline — words like harm, heartbroken, ugly, troubling, angry — and get 2.3% more clicks, on average. And adding a positive word — like benefit, laughed, pretty, favorite, kind — does the opposite and keeps people from clicking.”

“News publishers, as rational economic actors, want to maximize the audience for everything they do, and there’s something about the negative lens on reality that draws eyeballs to copy,” tweets Jeremy Berke .

“Time to rededicate myself to sadness,” adds Andrew Beaujon .

“You should read this heartbreaking, ugly, troubling story which is not beneficial, pretty, favorite or kind,” tweets Ann Marie Lipinski .?

Possible TikTok ban in the United States

The discourse around a possible TikTok ban in the United States has heated up.?

Later this week, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Ahead of the meeting, TikTok confirmed that it now has 150 million monthly active users in the United States , up from 100 million it said it had in 2020, according to Reuters’?

David Shepardson .?

“The app faces growing pressure in Washington including calls to ban the app by many in Congress who fear its U.S. user data could fall into the hands of China's government,” writes Shepardson.?

TikTok is attempting to reassure advertisers that the app will not be banned, reports Patience Haggin and Suzanne Vranica for The Wall Street Journal.?

“In a Friday email to an ad agency that had inquired about the uncertain situation, TikTok discussed the steps it has taken to secure user data, saying, ‘We are confident that we are on a path to fully satisfy all reasonable U.S. national security concerns,’” they write.

And it’s not just in the United States. “More than a dozen countries around the world have introduced full, partial or public sector bans on TikTok amid heightened national security concerns,” reports Sara Fischer for Axios.?

Fox viewers less trusting of network

Variety’s Andrew Wallenstein and Gavin Bridge detail the results of a new survey that reveals more than a fifth of Fox News Channel viewers are less trusting of the cable network in the wake of publicly disclosed text messages and emails from Fox executives and on-air personalities.

Here’s more:?

“In addition, 13% of Fox News viewers no longer believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen after reading communications in which the network’s stars, including Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, were making allegations on TV regarding voter fraud that was inconsistent with what they were saying privately.?

The survey was fielded online March 10-12, 2023, to 1,524 respondents just days after the latest batch of texts, emails and depositions were released in connection with a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems.”

“Well this is delicious,” tweets Kaz Weida .

Meanwhile, “Fox News is seeking a temporary restraining order against a senior producer named in Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit against the network,” reports Axios’? Rebecca Falconer .

A few more

• “Hundreds of WGA East members who work for Hearst Magazines Media are planning to stage a walkout Thursday to demand a fair contract,” reports David Robb for Deadline Hollywood.
• NPR’s David Folkenflik details what really happened at Rolling Stone when they broke the news of an FBI raid at the home of ABC News national security producer James Gordon Meek in 2022. “The FBI raided a notable journalist’s home. Rolling Stone broke the news but didn’t say why. My story for NPR on what happened inside the magazine,” tweets Folkenflik.?
• After two decades of reviewing films, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott reflects on his career and the 2,293 film reviews he’s published . “It’s impossible to see everything, and irresponsible not to try,” Scott writes.?
• TechCrunch’s Taylor Hatmaker reports that Twitch plans to lay off 400 employees . “Like many companies, our business has been impacted by the current macroeconomic environment, and user and revenue growth has not kept pace with our expectations,” new Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wrote. “In order to run our business sustainably, we’ve made the very difficult decision to shrink the size of our workforce.”
• Things are tense at the New York Times. “Labor tensions at the New York Times are intensifying , with the publisher expressing concerns about the union’s tactics in the negotiations and Times staffers taking to Slack to vent frustrations with management,” writes Alexandra Bruell for The Wall Street Journal.
• For The Verge’s Centennial Series which features companies that are over 100 years old, Nilay Patel sits down with Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt. “We get into all of it — the culture wars, J.K. Rowling, book ban bills in states across the country, and how Barnes & Noble went from being the bully on the block to competing with Amazon,” says Patel. You can listen to the interview or check out the transcript.
• Around the 10-year anniversary of his CNN show, The Lead, Jake Tapper chatted with Esquire’s Jack Holmes about the show, objectivity in journalism and the changes that have taken place in the media over the last decade .?
• Amazon is no longer selling newspaper and magazine subscriptions for print or Kindle, reports Nieman Lab’s Laura Hazard Owen . “Amazon hasn’t shared its exact reason for the change (the company’s statement to publishers is here), but one obvious explanation is that relatively few people are buying these subscriptions and it doesn’t make financial sense to continue to support them. Instead, Amazon wants publishers to add their content to its $9.99/month digital subscription program, Kindle Unlimited, which includes a bunch of magazines and access to one newspaper that I saw — USA TODAY,” writes Hazard Owen.?

From the Muck Rack team

One in five journalists have switched jobs or made a career change due to the economy, according to new survey results from our sixth annual State of Journalism report, which surveyed more than 2,200 journalists to understand the current state of journalism and the future of the industry. It also found layoffs and furloughs have increased the workload for about 20% of journalists.

Check out some more highlights and download the full report.