 |
Friday, October 13, 2017
 |
The New York Times released new staff social media guidelines, so phew, thankfully that’s settled“In social media posts, our journalists must not express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates, make offensive comments or do anything else that undercuts The Times's journalistic reputation.” By Joshua Benton. |
 |
Even smart people are shockingly bad at analyzing sources online. This might be an actual solution.Plus: Facebook is just fixing a bug (right!), labeling fake news seems to work, and lawmakers will release the Russia ads. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
The New York Times / Audrey Carlsen
Quiz: What does Facebook consider hate speech? →
“White men are a**holes”? Hate speech. “Poor black people should still sit at the back of the bus”? Not hate speech.
Kate Keib, Camila Espina, Yen-I Lee, Bartosz W. Wojdynski, Dongwon Choi & Hyejin Bang
Stories shared with positive images get clicked and shared more →
“The results suggest higher levels of emotion, higher intention to share, and higher intention to click when participants viewed positive images, compared to posts with no images, which stands in contrast with previous research that advocates for the prominent role of negative emotions and events in audience predilections for news, the ensuing emotional arousal, and the social sharing it prompts.”
The Atlantic / Alexis C. Madrigal
What Facebook did to American Democracy →
“The truth is that while many reporters knew some things that were going on on Facebook, no one knew everything that was going on on Facebook, not even Facebook. And so, during the most significant shift in the technology of politics since the television, the first draft of history is filled with undecipherable whorls and empty pages. Meanwhile, the 2018 midterms loom.”
TechCrunch / Josh Constine
Publishers will now be able to post to Facebook Stories →
Along with other #brands. “Facebook said it was encouraged by how Instagram users have embraced Stories from public figures and brands like fashion companies. It expects to see lots of ‘behind-the-scenes’ looks inside companies and the polished marketing campaigns that end up in the traditional Facebook feed.”
BuzzFeed
Financial Times insiders think it’s running a ‘beauty contest’ to find its next editor →
"The beauty contest doesn’t matter… How long do you keep the FT in daily print?” said an industry insider familiar with operations at the FT. “The weekend FT will live forever but there is a chance that the paper will only be getting published on one, two, or three days rather soon."
First Draft News / Eoghan mac Suibhne
“The German election did not turn out to be the disinformation battleground some predicted” →
“Those waiting for drama were to be disappointed. Bundestag Leaks never had any meaningful impact. Nor did any overwhelming social media campaign emerge to challenge Germany's media, its electorate or our fact-checking and verification team at the Correctiv office in Berlin.”
Politico / Michael Calderone
Dean Baquet: “I’ve spent full days policing our social media” →
“Baquet said his view is that Times journalists ‘should not be able to say anything on social media that they cannot say’ in the pages of the Times or across its various platforms…the Times is ‘going to come up with a tougher policy.'”
Politico / Josh Meyer
Twitter deleted data potentially crucial to Russia probes →
“Twitter's aggressively pro-consumer privacy policies…generally dictate that once any user revises or deletes their tweets, paid promotions or entire accounts, the company itself must do so as well.” (Maybe we need a Politwoops for geopolitical disinformation campaigns.)
JSource / Shrinkhala Dawadi
The University of Toronto’s student newspaper launches a Chinese-language edition →
Currently, the Chinese-language subsite is translated by students. Going forward, The Varsity hopes to be able to publish original articles written in Chinese: "We want to get to the point where we have reporters writing in Chinese, reporting on issues that really pertain to the international Chinese community on campus, like tuition costs and student governance. The broader long-term goal (is) that we want to engage international students, or Chinese students in general, into student journalism."
The Wall Street Journal / Benjamin Mullin
Your brand, explained: Vox starts selling explainers to advertisers →
“The explainers, which include descriptions of fantasy football and ice cream's effect on the brain, are designed to satisfy marketers who are hungry for video content to carry their messages across social media networks and elsewhere…creative directors at companies like Vox Media are putting a similar emphasis on video within their branded content studios.”
Wired / Erin Griffith
Memo to Facebook: How to tell if you’re a media company →
“To help Facebook executives who may be confused, we compiled this helpful guide: Are you the country's largest source of news? Do you sell ads against content? Do you commission publishers and content providers to make original content for you to distribute?”
Storythings / Matt Locke
Announcing the Science Syndication Network →
“With the support of the Gates Foundation, we're working with five public-impact publications to focus specifically on the problem of distribution and syndication…over the next 2 years, we're running four six-month long experiments to improve the reach and impact of our stories, particularly stories on global health security.”