Sabtu, 30 Juni 2012

Nieman Journalism Lab

Nieman Journalism Lab

How online journalism’s shaken up political coverage in Mexico

Posted: 29 Jun 2012 10:15 AM PDT

[Editor's Note: Read a Spanish-language version of this story.]

Mexico will elect a new president on Sunday, completing a 90-day campaign in which the media has been one of the key issues. Traditional news outlets have been sharply criticized for playing favorites — most notably Televisa, the largest Spanish-language TV network in the world. The ledes of a couple Guardian stories lay out the case:

Mexico’s biggest television network sold prominent politicians favourable coverage in its flagship news and entertainment shows and used the same programmes to smear a popular leftwing leader, documents seen by the Guardian appear to show.

The documents — which consist of dozens of computer files — emerge just weeks ahead of presidential elections on 1 July, and coincide with the appearance of an energetic protest movement accusing the Televisa network of manipulating its coverage to favour the leading candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto.

A secretive unit inside Mexico’s predominant television network set up and funded a campaign for Enrique Peña Nieto, who is the favourite to win Sunday’s presidential election, according to people familiar with the operation and documents seen by the Guardian.

The new revelations of bias within Televisa, the world’s biggest Spanish-language broadcaster, challenge the company’s claim to be politically impartial as well as Peña Nieto’s insistence that he never had a special relationship with Televisa.

The scandal and the blowback from it have some people talking about a “Mexican Spring” — one powered by social media and ground-up movements. (Read about Yo Soy 132 — a movement prompted by this viral video and this tweet — for more background.)

When traditional media is untrusted, it opens up space for new competition — new outlets, new voices, new approaches. And that’s what’s happened in Mexico, where a generation of digital-native news organizations has changed how at least some Mexicans have learned about the election.

“Digital outlets’ main contribution was that they’ve dared to do a different kind of coverage: more in-depth and investigative reporting, and they are faster and more flexible to update the news,” Gabriela Warkentin, a communications scholar at Universidad Iberoamericana, told me.

This new digital generation has nowhere near the reach of a network like Televisa, she said. (Less than one-third of Mexico’s 111 million people have Internet access.) But their impact comes from doing stories others won’t. “They have provided much more information and analysis [than traditional media] that could help voters on their decision-making process — and that’s not a minor thing,” she said.

As in the earlier days of the United States blogosphere, the number of readers may be small compared to traditional outlets — but those readers are disproportionately politically engaged and influential. They’re also younger, a demographic that could be decisive in the election.

La nueva generación

Animal Político (Political Animal), ADN Político (Political DNA), and general news site SinEmbargo.com are the most prominent new players. All launched within the past 18 months and report audiences ranging from 900,000 to 1.3 million unique visitors a month. (For context, Mexico’s most visited news site claims 2.2 million unique visitors per month.)

The editors of the three sites say there’s a hunger for independent political coverage attached more to audience needs than to politicians’ interests.

“Traditional mass media has lost credibility in Mexico, and portals like ours have made a difference,” Alberto Abello, ADN Político’s editorial director, told me. His site does some original reporting but also relies on aggregating content produced by other publications from Grupo Expansión, a media conglomerate owned by Time Warner and to which the site belongs.

“There are newspapers where journalism is not the priority because they don’t depend on their readers. The scandalous majority of papers live from public funds,” Daniel Moreno, Animal Político’s editor, said.

Animal Político, SinEmbargo.com, and ADN Político are funded by investors who, they say, have no ties with any political party and who believe editorial independence should be the foundation of their business. “If a politician wants to dictate us the content in exchange for advertisement, we don’t want it. Being independent editorially could bring you immediate economic consequences, but it will assure sustainability,” ADN’s Abello said.

“Revenue is a very important issue and a big concern now for the digital-only orgs,” Warkentin said.

None of the three organizations gave specific details on the amount of their initial funding, but all three said they expected investment support would continue until they reach break-even financially. In the cases of Animal Político and SinEmbargo.com, that will be “soon,” their editors say, while ADN Político estimates it will end the year with no financial losses.

“We are optimistic that Animal Político will have a long life,” Moreno said. Daniel Eilemberg, president of Elephant Publishing, the Miami-based company behind Animal Político, acknowledges that online advertising in Mexico is still immature, but he says it’s growing rapidly. (IAB Mexico projects online ad spending stands will approach US$500 million this year and is grew 33 percent last year, with particular strength in automotive and financial services.)

Trying new things

Not everyone is sold on the impact of the digital outlets. Guillermo Osorno, a veteran journalist who edits the magazine Gatopardo and who writes a column for newspaper El Universal, says “digital coverage has became more important during this campaign, but I wouldn’t say that journalists are making a difference on the Internet.”

León Krauze, a Mexican journalist who’s a columnist at SinEmbargo.com, said that the new outlets are headed by experienced journalists with background in broadcasting and print. “I don’t think there’s innovative digital journalism in Mexico,” he said. But he added that the mere presence of more outlets is refreshing. “It is the beginning of a phenomenon that’s here to stay,” he said.

Animal Político, SinEmbargo.com, and ADN Político have each tried to innovate. A few examples:

  • Animal Político crowdsourced what questions should be asked of the candidates under an effort called 10 Preguntas. It used the Personal Democracy Forum’s platform; you can see the questions and answers from most of the candidates here. “Animal Político has done a great job using social media, not only to share its contents but to monitor what its audience wants and to discover stories that were not covered,” said Warkentin.
  • ADN Político offers Encuestas de encuestas (Poll of polls), which compiles data from all public polls and lets the users interact with and visualize the data, comparing different pollsters and subgroups.
  • SinEmbargo.com runs video op-ed pieces. “They get as many hits as the written columns. That’s a big paradigm shift in Mexican media,” the site’s content director, Alejandro Páez Varela, told me. SinEmbargo.com also tried interactive graphics to visualize controversial statements, flip flops, and achievements by each candidate during the campaign.

With election day approaching, all three sites are focused on providing the best coverage Sunday. But the biggest challenge will start on Monday, when they’ll face the same question American political sites face: How do you sustain interest — and revenue — once the election cycle is over? Eilemberg of Animal Político says they’re hoping to expand in new ways, like events and syndication.

“That’s why we are also thinking about diversifying our revenue streams,” he said.

Photo of Andrés Manuel López Obrador campaign rally by Rosa Menkman and photo of anti-PRI graffiti by Randal Sheppard used under a Creative Commons license.

De cómo el periodismo online sacudió la cobertura electoral en Mexico

Posted: 29 Jun 2012 10:15 AM PDT

[Nota del Editor: Una versión de este artículo se puede leer en inglés aquí.]

México escogerá un nuevo presidente el domingo, cerrando una campaña electoral de 90 días, durante la cual los medios de comunicación fueron uno de los temas centrales.  Organizaciones noticiosas tradicionales han sido fuertemente criticadas por favoritismo político, especialmente  Televisa, el grupo mediático en español más grande del mundo.  Los siguientes extractos de informaciones publicadas por el diario británico  Guardian resumen por qué:

La cadena de televisión más grande de México vendió presuntamente a importantes políticos un tratamiento informativo favorable en sus noticieros y shows principales y usó los mismos programas para desacreditar a un líder de izquierda, según unos documentos vistos por The Guardian.

Los documentos, que consisten en docenas de archivos informáticos, salen a la luz tan sólo unas semanas antes del Proceso Electoral Federal del 1 de julio y coinciden con la aparición de un enérgico movimiento de protesta que acusa a Televisa de manipular la forma en la que cubre las noticias para favorecer al candidato favorito Enrique Peña Nieto.

Una unidad secreta de la cadena de television dominante en México, estableció y financió una campaña para que el candidato favorito, Enrique Peña Nieto, ganase las elecciones presidenciales, según unos documentos vistos por The Guardian y gente familiarizada con el operativo.

Las nuevas revelaciones de la falta de objetividad de Televisa, la cadena de medios más grande del mundo en lengua española, cuestionan la afirmación de ser polítcamente imparciales hecha por la compañía así como la insistencia de Peña Nieto de no haberse beneficiado de una relación especial con Televisa.

Este escándalo y sus consecuencias han motivado, incluso,  que algunas personas hablen de la "Primavera Méxicana", por la influencia de las redes sociales y las organizaciones civiles. (Para más antecendentes, lean sobre Yo Soy 132, un movimiento provocado por este video y este tuit).

La pérdida de confianza en los medios tradicionales genera oportunidades para competir: nuevos medios, nuevas voces, nuevos enfoques. Y es eso lo que ha pasado en México, donde una generación de organizaciones noticiosas exclusivamente digitales han cambiando la forma en que –al menos- algunos mexicanos se han informado acerca del proceso electoral.

"La principal contribución de los medios digitales es que se han atrevido a realizar una cobertura diferente: más reporteo de profundidad y de investigación, y también son más rápidos y flexibles para actualizar las noticias", me dijo Gabriela Warkentin, académica en Comunicaciones de la Universidad Iberoamericana.

El alcance y la proyección de esta nueva generación digital ni siquiera se acercan a las que tiene Televisa, aclaró Warkentin (menos de una tercera parte de los 111 millones de ciudadanos en México tienen acceso a Internet). Sin embargo, el impacto ha sido mayor cuando se trata de cubrir temas que otros medios no toman en cuenta. "Han dado mucho más información y análisis (que los medios tradicionales), lo que al final puede ayudar a los electores en su proceso de decisión de cómo votar,  y eso no es menor cosa", aseguró.

Como ocurrió en Estados Unidos durante los comienzos de la “blogosfera”,  el número de usuarios en la web en México puede ser pequeño comparado con el de los medios tradicionales, pero esos lectores son muchos más activos e influyentes cuando de temas políticos se trata. También son más jóvenes, un grupo que puede ser decisivo en esta elección.

La nueva generación

Animal Político, ADN Político y el sitio de noticias SinEmbargo.com son las jugadores más prominentes en el escenario mediático digital de México. Todos aparecieron en los últimos 18 meses y ya reportan audiencias entre los 900.000 y 1.3 millones de visitantes únicos por mes. (Para contextualizar, el sitio de noticias más visitado en México reporta 2.2 millones de visitantes únicos por mes).

Los editores de estos tres sitios coinciden en que hay una gran demanda de una cobertura política más focalizada en los intereses de las audiencias que en los de los políticos.

"Los medios de comunicación tradicionales en México han perdido credibilidad, y portales como el nuestro han marcado una diferencia," aseveró Alberto Abello, director editorial  de ADN Político. Su sitio produce contenido original pero también agregar contenido producido por otras publicaciones de Grupo Expansión, un conglomerado mediático propiedad de Time Warner y al que pertenece ADN Político.

"Hay periódicos donde el periodismo no es la prioridad porque ellos no dependen de sus lectores. La escandalosa mayoría de los periódicos viven de recursos públicos", me dijo Daniel Moreno, el editor de Animal Político.

Animal Político, SinEmbargo.com, y ADN Político están financiados por inversionistas que, aseguran ellos, no tienen vínculos con ningún partido político y que creen en que la independencia editorial debe ser la base de su negocio. "Si un politico quiere dictarnos el contenido a cambio de darnos publicidad, nosotros no queremos su publicidad. Ser independientes editorialmente puede tener consequencias económicas inmediatas, pero asegura sostenibilidad a largo plazo", agregó Abello.

"Generar ingresos es un tema muy importante y una gran preocupación para los medios digitales", aseguró Warkentin.

Ninguno de los tres medios proporcionó detalles sobre el monto de la inversión inicial, pero los tres aseguraron que cuentan con apoyo económico de sus inversionistas hasta que alcancen el "punto de equilibrio" financiero. En el caso de Animal Político y SinEmbargo.com, eso será "pronto", de acuerdo con sus editores, mientras que ADN Político estima que terminará el año sin pérdidas económicas.

"Somos optimistas de que Animal Político tendrá una larga vida", dijo Moreno. Daniel Eilemberg, presidente de Elephant Publishing, la compañía que respalda Animal Político (y que está ubicada en Miami, Florida), reconoce que la inversión en publicidad online en México todavía está dando sus primeros pasos, pero aclaró que está creciendo rápidamente. (IAB México reportó que la inversión publicitaria online alcanzará $500 millones este año, lo cual significa un aumento de 33 por ciento en comparación con el año pasado. Los mayores anunciantes son la industria automotriz y financiera).

Intentando nuevas cosas

El impacto de los medios digitales no es reconocidos por todos en México. Guillermo Osorno, un experimentado periodista director de la revista Gatopardo y columnista del diario El Universal, dice que "la cobertura digital ha adquirido más importancia durante esta campaña, pero no diría que los periodistas están marcando una diferencia en la Internet".

Leon Krauze, otro periodista mexicano y columnista de SinEmbargo.com, manifestó que los nuevos medios están dirigidos por reconocidos periodistas con amplia experiencia en radio y televisión. "Yo no creo que haya un periodismo digital innovador en México", dijo. Sin embargo, él agregó que la mera presencia de más medios es refrescante. "Es el principio de un fenómeno que está aquí para quedarse".

Animal Político, SinEmbargo.com y ADN Político han tratado de innovar a su manera. Una serie de ejemplos:

  • Animal Político pidió a sus usuarios que enviaran preguntas para los candidatos como parte del proyecto 10 Preguntas, que utilizó la plataforma de Personal Democracy Forum;  uno puede ver las preguntas y las respuestas de la mayoría de los candidatos aquí. "Animal Político ha hecho un gran trabajando usando las redes sociales, no solo para distribuir sus contenidos sino también para monitorear lo que la audiencia quiere y para descubrir historias que no se han cubierto", explicó Warkentin.
  • ADN Político ofrece Encuesta de Encuestas, que reúne todas las encuestas que se han realizado y le permite a los usuarios interactuar con los datos, a través de visualizaciones, comparando la información entre diferentes casas encuestadoras y variables.
  • SinEmbargo.com introdujo las columnas de opinión en video. "Tienen tantos hits como las columnas escritas. Ha sido un cambio de paradigma en los medios mexicanos", aseguró el director de contenido del sitio, Alejandro Páez Varela. SinEmbargo.com también utilizó gráficos interactivos para visualizar declaraciones controversiales, errores y aciertos de los candidatos durante la campaña.

Con el día de elecciones a la vuelta de la esquina, los tres sitios están concentrados en dar la major cobertura el domingo. Sin embargo, el mayor reto empezará el lunes, cuando tengan que pensar en respuestas a la misma pregunta que se hacen los sitios de cobertura politica en Estados Unidos: ¿Cómo mantenemos el interés –y los ingresos- una vez que termine el ciclo electoral? Eilemberg de Animal Político dice que espera expandirse de nuevas maneras, como organizando eventos y "sindicalizando" el contenido.

"Es por eso que también estamos pensando en diversificar nuestras fuentes de ingresos", concluyó.

Fotografía de Andrés Manuel López Obrador en una actividad de campaña por  Rosa Menkman y  fotografía de un graffiti anti-PRI por Randal Sheppard utilizadas bajo una licencia Creative Commons.

#Realtalk for the j-school graduate on the first five years of your career

Posted: 29 Jun 2012 08:30 AM PDT

I’ve spent most of my own admittedly short journalism career mentoring the younger writers and editors coming up behind me — especially those who graduated from journalism school, which seems to instill a false sense of preparedness that dissipates about two weeks into the first post-graduate internship. I end up repeating myself a lot. Now that I find myself without a staff editor job for the first time in years, it seems like a good time to share these few lessons with the wider world. Plus, there’s nothing like a professional shakeup to make you think back on your career choices.

Write something short every day. Don’t wait for an invitation to write for a major publication. Or even a minor one. Invest time and energy in the spaces you control: your blog and Twitter account. (I’m assuming you already have both of these things because you are no fool.) Use them to dash off quick opinions and keep track of things you’re interested in exploring at greater length. This won’t prevent you from pitching these ideas to paying outlets or combining them into bigger projects — it’ll prepare you to do exactly that. When you apply for a job or pitch a freelance piece, editors will google you. Until you’ve got a lot of great clips (which will take a while), you want them to be able to find your awesome idea. You want them to be able to, at the very least, see what other publications you read and what kind of thinker you are. This is because…

Your ideas matter more than your prose. Sorry to crush your illusions, but it is possible to succeed in journalism without being a great writer (*cough* editing *cough*). It is not possible to succeed without having great ideas. For many editors, knockout prose is a bonus, not a requirement for making an assignment.

If you read something you love, ask yourself, “Why’s this so good?” Then read it again.

Fake it ’til you make it. I mean, don’t lie on your resume, but feel free to be a little…aspirational in your description of yourself on your personal site and in your Twitter bio. Do you obsessively follow tech news and want to write for Wired, but pay the bills by writing up community meetings for a suburban newspaper? Change your bio to “Reporter at Podunk Daily and freelance tech writer.” Then write about tech on your personal platforms, where you’ll develop ideas and build credibility. Never describe yourself as an “aspiring” anything.

Write every piece three times. And I don’t mean three drafts. I mean you should be pitching and writing every idea, with three similar but not identical angles, for three different outlets. This is a bit of journalistic advice that an older dude-journo passed along to a young dude-journo I know, who passed it along to me, and I’ve since imparted it to lots of other people. The only person who’s paying attention to your entire body of work is your mom. You will be the only ones who notice the close-but-not-overlapping theses. Warning, though: Don’t just cut and paste!

Read good articles twice. If you read something you love, ask yourself, “Why’s this so good?” Then read it again. One of the most valuable exercises in journalism school is picking apart pieces by established journalists to figure out how they did it. It’s harder to keep doing this once you’re out of school. I like to go through my Instapaper archive every once in awhile and re-read the things I’ve liked. (What? You’re not using Instapaper or Readability or a similar app? Remedy that immediately.)

Make a list of places you want to work (or want your writing to appear), people you want to work with, and milestones you want to hit within the next five years. Don’t think you’ll accomplish these in any sort of order, but do use this list to shape the small-bore decisions you make. Because your career, like your life, is made up of a lot of little decisions — not just which of two jobs to accept.

Email the people who have the job you want tomorrow. Assistant editors and blog editors and up-and-coming freelance writers are going to have career advice that is way more relevant to your life than wisdom from 20-year veterans. (Their advice is valuable too! Just…different.) When you reach out to these young-ish journalists, don’t just ask them to coffee or for general “advice.” Send concrete questions: How did you hear about the job you have now? What sorts of interview questions were you asked? What do you wish you had known five years ago? Which publications are you paying attention to? Why? Keep in touch.

Read the publications you want to write for. Read them religiously.

This is a small industry, and if you’re doing it right, jobs and networks will bleed seamlessly into one another.

Learn to write headlines, even if you don’t want to be an editor. Headline writing is about distilling complicated ideas and selling what’s sexy about a piece. This is also called, “being good at Twitter” or “effective pitching.” Practice this by writing a headline for every piece you want to write. Set high standards for every post title on your personal blog. You’ll get better at it, I promise.

Be an early adopter. Mess around with new reading apps, new blogging platforms, new social media sites. You don’t have to use all of these things every day, but you need to be familiar with them. One of your main selling points as a newbie journalist is that you’re “hip” to the “Internet sites” and “gadgets” that “the young people” are using today. Deliver on that stereotype. And while you’re at it, learn a lesson that your journalistic elders have largely failed to grasp: Evolution is a lifestyle, not a conference you attend once a year. Keep at it.

Know that “colleague” is a lifetime affiliation. Let go of the idea that you’ll work with one set of people, then work with another set when you switch jobs. This is a small industry, and if you’re doing it right, jobs and networks will bleed seamlessly into one another. The negative way of putting this is, “Don’t burn bridges,” but the positive way of putting it is that every journalist is your coworker.

Practice horizontal loyalty. Prioritize your relationships with people who are at a similar stage in their career. Yeah, it’s helpful to befriend accomplished older journalists, but it’s really the relationships with people on your level that will sustain you. Include all types of media people in your network, not just writers. Send your ideas and drafts to these people. Retweet each other. Connect each other. Collaborate on a short-lived but hilarious Tumblr, or apply for a reporting grant together, or put together a panel. Make awesome stuff now. Don’t wait your turn.

Image from Dave Herholz used under a Creative Commons license.

This Week in Review: News Corp. breaks up, and CNN and Fox News’ breaking-news gaffe

Posted: 29 Jun 2012 06:53 AM PDT

News Corp. undertakes historic split: In a move that’s been predicted for at least a year or two, News Corp. took a drastic step this week to try to contain the damage from its phone hacking/bribery scandal, splitting its news and entertainment properties into separate companies. Its news company will include all of its newspapers in Britain, the U.S., and Australia as well as its Dow Jones newswire and book publisher HarperCollins; the entertainment company will include 20th Century Fox, the Fox TV channel, Fox News, other cable channels, and BSkyB and other satellite TV properties. The Murdoch family will retain about a 40 percent share in both companies.

Wall Street loved the idea, with News Corp.’s shares jumping at the news that the company was discussing a split. The reason, as The New York Times’ Dealbook explained, is that it could free News Corp. from what’s known as the “Murdoch discount” — the depressed value of the company because of Rupert Murdoch’s influence. Splitting news and entertainment, the thinking goes, frees entertainment to make more money without being weighed down by the newspaper division.

That, said Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review, might harm the newspapers just as it helps the entertainment properties. The Guardian’s Michael Wolff contended that the newspapers will lose the upside of being tied to the entertainment side, but keep the downside of being tied to Murdoch. As Reuters’ Felix Salmon put it, “Up until now, Murdoch has never really needed to worry very much about his newspapers' profitability, because the rest of his empire was throwing off such enormous profits. That's going to change.” According to Ad Age, though, News Corp.’s papers might do better on Wall Street than many others.

Murdoch said the split wasn’t related to the phone hacking scandal, but pretty much everyone else found that claim preposterous. As Paul Sawers of The Next Web put it, the cracks from the scandal had spread too far. More specifically, according to the Guardian’s Roy Greenslade, this allows News Corp. to invest in the properties it finds profitable (entertainment/BSkyB), and dump the liabilities (British newspapers). Here at the Lab, Ken Doctor said the split will work out quite well for the Murdochs — investors will be happier, and Rupert can still play newspaperman while clearing the way for further entertainment domination.

As for what the move means more specifically, paidContent’s Staci Kramer has a good rundown of what it means for each division, and she and the Guardian also looked at who might head up each company. Mathew Ingram of GigaOM urged News Corp. to let the content flow freely across platforms, though Murdoch said his newspapers would be pushed even harder to charge for news online.

A Supreme breaking news error: The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act on Thursday was the occasion for one of the biggest media gaffes of the year, as CNN and Fox News both initially reported erroneously that the act’s individual mandate had been found unconstitutional. Both networks issued statements, though only CNN — whose mistake was more prominently displayed and took longer to correct — could be construed as apologizing. Fox claimed it “reported the facts, as they came in,” a statement with which both Poynter’s Andrew Beaujon and the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple took issue. (Wemple also objected to CNN’s explanation of its error.)

The reaction against CNN in particular was quick and relentless: AP reporters were even ordered to stop taunting via social media. Within CNN, as well, the error was anonymously described to BuzzFeed as “shameful,” “outrageous,” and “humiliating.” Rem Rieder of the American Journalism Review said it was a terribly timed stumble for the struggling CNN, and Wemple admonished, “Someone needs to tell CNN: There is no such thing as fashioning a scoop over something that's released to the public.”

Others put the blame within a broader context: The Huffington Post’s Jason Linkins described it as a “There but for the grace of God go I” situation for journalists, which was the kind of approach Reuters’ Jack Shafer also took. The American Copy Editors Society’s Charles Apple called it the product of a too-fast media cycle meeting the constantly changing nature of breaking news.

Other news orgs reinforced that emphasis on speed: A Washington Post profile on SCOTUSblog, the top destination for instance Supreme Court analysis, noted the site’s obsession with getting the news first. Meanwhile, mainstream news orgs fought over who broke the story first (Andrew Beaujon’s answer: it depends), and Rem Rieder said that issue is not only unimportant, but harmful to good journalism.

Flipboard and Pulse’s models compete for publishers: The New York Times extended its online pay plan this week to include the aggregation app Fipboard, allowing subscribers to access all the Times’ content there, while limiting nonsubscribers’ access to a few free articles. At All Things D, Peter Kafka pointed out that this is the first time the Flipboard has gotten a major publisher to give it full access to its content there, as well as the first time the Times has given out full access to its content through another platform.

Kafka also wondered if Flipboard access is really going to add much for Times subscribers, since they already have access to the Times on just about any device they could want. On the other hand, GigaOM’s Mathew Ingram liked the idea as a way to acknowledge new ways users are getting news while maintaining control over the pay plan. Jeff Sonderman of Poynter had a few notes for other news orgs, pointing out the Times’ statistic that 20 percent of its readers use aggregation apps and suggesting that this might be a good option for smaller news orgs that can’t afford their own extensive app development. And TechCrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis weighed in with an angry, drunk anti-Times post.

At the same time, though, Conde Nast’s Wired and The New Yorker announced they’re stepping back from Flipboard, giving up selling ads and pulling most of their content. Publishers told Mashable’s Lauren Indvik it’s just easier (and more profitable) to sell ads on their site once Flipboard takes its cut, and paidContent’s Jeff John Roberts said Flipboard may need to reconsider its revenue-sharing arrangement with publishers.

In addition, a day after the Times announced its Flipboard pay plan, the Wall Street Journal announced a similar plan with one of Flipboard’s competitors, Pulse. The Journal’s move was part of a strategy shift by Pulse toward paid subscriptions that the company expects to launch it into profitability. Ingram of GigaOM compared Pulse’s subscription-based model (which involves subscription revenue sharing and Flipboard’s ad-based model — though both are “competing with their publishing clients even as they try to serve them.”

Is BuzzFeed stealing ideas?: BuzzFeed, one of the most popular viral content sites on the web, got some scrutiny this week that raised questions in the ongoing discussion about the validity of online aggregation practices. Slate’s Farhad Manjoo looked behind the curtain at where BuzzFeed gets the material for its most popular viral posts and found they mostly come from Reddit, with attribution (possibly systematically) stripped. Philip Bump of Grist said Manjoo didn’t go far enough in his critique, saying that BuzzFeed isn’t just aggregating but stealing ideas. Gawker’s Adrian Chen found much more blatant plagiarism at BuzzFeed, though he pinned some of the blame on the Internet’s love of context-free images and text.

But The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson pushed back against the BuzzFeed criticism, comparing their raiding Reddit to movie studios grabbing ideas from bestselling books. “BuzzFeed is a hit-maker making hits the only way reliable hits can be made: By figuring out what’s already popular and tweaking them to make something new,” he wrote. Poynter’s Jeff Sonderman also drew some lessons for journalists from a couple of BuzzFeed’s recent popular posts, concluding that one key to taking things viral is to make readers feel something (preferably something positive).

Reading roundup: A few other smaller stories going on in the background this week:

— Google formally unveiled a number of new products at a press event this week — a streaming media device called the Nexus Q (powered by other Android devices on the same network); a $199 tablet called the Nexus 7; its much-anticipated augmented-reality glasses, Google Glass; and a tablet app for Google+, among a few other things. For some analysis, here’s All Things D on the Nexus Q and Google Glass.

— This week in paywalls: The Chicago Tribune’s redesigned website will require registration for some content, a mechanism designed to transition to paid subscriptions. (It’s also including some content from the Economist and Forbes in that plan.) U-T San Diego also launched a metered pay plan, and The New York Times will begin charging for crossword puzzles even outside of its subscriptions. Meanwhile, Gannett said its circulation is down but revenue is up at its paywalled papers, and Steve Outing argued against the metered model.

— Two thought-provoking pieces on reinventing journalism, from different perspectives: The Online Journalism Review’s Robert Niles on how to reboot newspapers by breaking up the chains, and Technology Review’s Christopher Mims on the red flags in many proposals to reinvent journalism (abandoning the news story, lack of knowledge of the business model, vagueness about the medium).

— Finally, some great pieces here at the Lab this week: An interesting post by Jonathan Stray on how our perception plays into news bias, Clay Shirky on the importance of Gawker’s innovation in commenting, and Adrienne LaFrance’s illuminating postmortem on The New York Times’ involvement with NYU’s The Local.

Obama “Dewey Defeats Truman” photo illustration by Gary He.
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