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Tuesday, May 26, 2020
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A window into one newsroom’s diversity opens, but an industry-wide door shuts (for now)The New York Times’ report comes on the heels of a dispiriting announcement from the American Society of News Editors that the group would be pausing its annual census. By Sarah Scire. |
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When you leave a company, can you take your podcast with you? Here’s how one team did itPlus: More thoughts on Joe Rogan and Spotify, the BBC releases its annual plan, and Spotify is reportedly going after podcasts again. By Nicholas Quah. |
What We’re Reading
Courier Newsroom / Tim Burke
11 local TV stations pushed the same Amazon-scripted segment →
“The package — you can view the script Amazon provided to news stations here — was produced by Amazon spokesperson Todd Walker. Only one station, Toledo ABC affiliate WTVG, acknowledged that Walker was an Amazon employee, not a news reporter, and that the content had come from Amazon.”
The New York Times / Concepción de León
J.K. Rowling begins publishing “The Ickabog,” for children in lockdown →
“‘The Ickabog’ will be published in 34 installments starting on Tuesday, with one installment released every weekday until July 10. It will be targeted to readers ages 7 to 9 and published as a book in November.”
The Wall Street Journal / Jeff Horwitz and Deepa Seetharaman
Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive →
“Another concern…was that some proposed changes would have disproportionately affected conservative users and publishers, at a time when the company faced accusations from the right of political bias.”
Axios / Sara Fischer
Amazon wants to invest in local podcasts like news and sports →
“It wants to explore short-form audio content that can be surfaced when users ask Alexa for information about topics like news and sports.”
New York Times / Clinton Cargill
The New York Times remembered the 100,000 lives lost to coronavirus by pulling from local newspaper coverage →
The New York Times was able to pull together its commemoration of 100,000 coronavirus deaths, which took up the entire front page on Sunday, by pulling from 250 local newspapers. A Times managing editor cited the project as an example of why “local journalism matters, now more than ever.”
Digiday / Lucinda Southern
So far, publishers are keeping subscribers gained during the coronavirus crisis →
“Publishers including Bloomberg, The New York Times and The Guardian anecdotally say they are seeing signs of stronger retention rates from subscribers who have signed up since February and March.” That said, discounted trial periods mean it’s too early to say that these subscribers are less likely to churn than others.
Los Angeles Times / Kurtis Lee
The Oklahoma Eagle, a black-owned weekly newspaper, has kept the memory of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre alive →
The two white papers in town — the Tulsa World and the now-defunct Tulsa Tribune — mostly ignored the massacre, which destroyed African American-owned businesses, killed 300 black people, and forced thousands more to flee.
The Guardian / Charlotte Graham-McLay
Stuff, New Zealand’s largest media website, has plans for a staff ownership model →
Sinead Boucher, a former journalist and editor with Stuff announced on Monday that she had acquired the company, for one dollar. "Having a stake in our future I think will be really energising for all of us, to direct our own destiny and not a company that's owned by an international parent who we're never going to be front and centre of their strategy and their concerns."
Pulitzer Center
In statement on equality, The Pulitzer Center says they will “deliberately seek to support” reporting projects, newsrooms, and journalists that reflect diversity of audiences →
“The Pulitzer Center acknowledges that there are societal structures that uplift and empower certain groups based on their intersecting identities and experiences, while at the same time marginalizing and erasing others; we acknowledge that these inequities were developed over time and have continuing, lasting impact.”
New York Times / Katie Thomas and Denise Grady
The pandemic has made journalists reconsider how they cover vaccine updates after companies like Moderna are accused of profiting →
A stock sale stirred concerns about whether Moderna had sought to jack up the price of its stock offering with the news of a preliminary trial, which was widely reported by news organizations earlier that day. "It's a crazy, speculative environment, because the pandemic has caused people to want to believe that there's going to be a miracle cure in a miracle time frame."
Monday Note / Frederic Filloux
The upcoming journalism school overhaul →
“What kind of future is this? How can we reasonably ask a young adult to incur a huge student debt along with such bleak prospects?”