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Friday, September 29, 2017
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Bunk aims to set history free with a site that doesn’t feel like a textbook“We wondered what it would mean to build a machine that thinks like a historian.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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“Platforms for all ideas.” Russian misinformation for all swing states. Obituaries for all fake news writers.Also: Mark Zuckerberg has regrets, and the Russians’ role as cultural flame-fanners. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
Digiday / Lucia Moses
Facebook loses attention as publishers shift focus to other platforms →
The Huffington Post: “Merely being platform-centric represents an older way of thinking that often doesn't always take into account what the audience is looking for.”
BuzzFeed / Craig Silverman
Publishers overseas are making money by targeting Americans with cheap — and sometimes false — information →
“One surprising area where the impact of this trend is being felt is with Native American news and content. A raft of overseas-based publishers of content about Native Americans continue to forge ahead and experience growth and revenue primarily thanks to Facebook: TheNativePeople.net, for instance, which has two associated Facebook pages with close to half a million fans between them, is run by a man in Kosovo.”
Open News / Hamilton Boardman, Alastair Coote, and Tiff Fehr
Building better story formats for live coverage, from live blogs to mobile alerts →
“Our most recent experiments in live coverage forms are often tied to special events like elections or sports, because they benefit from having a strong data source. Meaningful updates for readers becomes a mix of news, analysis, and significant data changes (updated counts, shifts in momentum, winner calls, etc). Another shared characteristic in these experiments is a focus on mobile.”
First Draft News / Nic Dias and Claire Wardle
10 questions to ask before covering mis- and dis-information →
“When, how and why do we report on rumors and fabricated content?”
Factual Democracy Project
Poll suggests that Americans disapprove of Facebook’s allowing Russian election advertising →
“There’s broad bipartisan agreement that Russia shouldn’t be allowed to buy political ads targeted at American voters.” The poll of 865 registered voters was conducted Sept. 22-25 by Public Policy Polling for Factual Democracy Project.
Medium / Anchor
Social audio app Anchor raises $10M in new series A funding →
Bringing its total amount raised to just under $15 million.
Local News Lab / Nancy Watzman
Lessons from Berkeleyside’s direct public offering →
“We had to learn how to stand up before a crowd, say, ‘You should give us money, write us a check right now.'”
LION Publishers / Matt DeRienzo
How Charlotte Agenda got to $1 million in revenue →
“Almost all of our clients are inbound leads — we don’t even have an official sales person on staff, and nobody is compensated based on commission. We put a ton of resources into producing it, reporting on performance, and customer service. We’ve been able to maintain and expand margins this year, but…I don’t want to become an ad agency with an additional cost of a newsroom, that’s stupid.”
The Guardian / Benjamin Haas
Wall Street Journal stops publishing Asian and European print editions →
“The decision comes after the paper's parent company, News Corp, reported a loss of $643m (£479m) for the most recent fiscal year, which ended on 30 June. That compares to a $235m profit during the previous year. The paper began publishing a separate Asian edition in 1976 and its European edition followed in 1983.”