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Wednesday, October 18, 2017
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“Fierce urgency of now”: This year-long project aims to fill the gap on inequality reporting in Memphis“Memphis is a microcosm of what’s going on in a lot of urban centers around the country. It’s an extreme example of what happens when things go wrong and and aren’t fixed for a long time.” By Shan Wang. |
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Matter’s first post-election class: a focus on inclusion, activism, and even securityIn the Trump era, Matter says its mission to build a “more informed, empathetic, and inclusive society” is more vital than ever. By Ricardo Bilton. |
What We’re Reading
The New York Times / Daisuke Wakabayashi and Linda Qiu
Google serves fake news ads in an unlikely place: fact-checking sites →
“The fake publishers used Google's AdWords system to place the advertisements on websites that fit their broad parameters, though it's unclear if they specifically targeted the fact-checking sites. But that Google's systems were able to place fake news ads on websites dedicated to truth-squadding reflects how the internet search giant continues to be used to spread misinformation.”
Knight Foundation
A Charlotte public radio station is experimenting with new content and audience engagement through NPR One →
“WFAE in Charlotte will use NPR One to deliver new local content, and utilize fresh local voices to report on topics of civic concern. The station will hire an on-demand producer to implement these innovative efforts. It will also develop podcasts, uncover unique, untold stories and create content to serve diverse audiences. The community will be invited to submit ideas for topics and stories (the station received $100,000 from the Knight Foundation to carry out the project).”
Nytimes / Marcelle Hopkins
A look at the tools and techniques The New York Times is using to produce its VR videos →
Marcelle Hopkins, deputy video editor and co-director of virtual reality at The Times seemed more excited about the potential for augmented reality: “I'm ready for a pair of glasses that uses light field technology to integrate interactive digital information in the real world around me. I want Google Maps to draw directions on the street in front of me. I want Netflix to project a movie on my living room wall. I want AccuWeather to show me today's highs and lows on my coat closet door. I want NYT Cooking to put recipe demos on my countertop.”
Shorenstein Center
Shorenstein releases a whitepaper and tool to help news orgs better understand their email audiences →
“Using open source techniques from other fields, data scientists are able to provide a more complete picture of an organization's readers and viewers. The Shorenstein Center Notebooks (written in Python and available on GitHub as a free, open-source tool) take a first step at demonstrating new ways to analyze list composition and performance in order to help editors and publishers ask and answer more nuanced questions.”
POLITICO / Steven Shepard
Poll: 46 percent think media make up stories about Trump →
Views are also highly partisan: 76 percent of Republican voters think the news media invent stories about Trump and his administration, while one-in-five Democrats think the same.
Pew Research Center / Elizabeth Grieco
In Trump’s first 100 days, news stories citing his tweets were more likely to be negative →
“Just over half of stories that had a tweet from Trump (54%) had a negative assessment, 12 percentage points higher than stories that did not contain any of his tweets (42%).”
Digiday / Jessica Davies
Why Google and Facebook won’t be defined as media in the UK →
“This is a case of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and applying 20th-century mentality to 21st-century business models," said Paul Mead, executive chairman of media agency VCCP Media.
Poynter / Rick Edmonds
Retail blues worsen, hitting newspaper print advertising hard →
“Bankruptcies and store closings are beginning to have even more of a bite, said McClatchy CEO Craig Forman.
Bloomberg.com / Benjamin Elgin
Facebook and Google helped anti-refugee campaign in swing states →
“Unlike Russian efforts to secretly influence the 2016 election via social media, this American-led campaign was aided by direct collaboration with employees of Facebook and Google. They helped target the ads to more efficiently reach the intended audiences, according to internal reports from the ad agency that ran the campaign, as well as five people involved with the efforts.”