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Tuesday, May 12, 2020
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Bookshop, a new startup, is offering publications bigger kickbacks than Amazon (and the thrill of battling Bezos)The pitch is simple. “They get to feel good about themselves. They get to diversify the revenue. And they don’t have to take a financial hit because we’re able to deliver the sales that they want.” By Sarah Scire. |
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Can Pushkin Industries bring the podcast and audiobook audiences together?Plus: The challenges of moving a live show from theater to streaming, new shows for cloistered kids, and the podcast industry gets its first big pandemic-era acquisition. By Nicholas Quah. |
What We’re Reading
Multichannel / John Eggerton
Unions (including WGA East) propose guidelines for news worker safety amid COVID-19 →
Including: “All work that can be done from home should be done from home if the worker so chooses, with proper tech support”; in the newsroom, “basic CDC and OSHA guidelines on social distancing and protective measures should be mandated” including access to PPE; and “Employers should adopt strict contact tracing plans to self-isolate those who may have been exposed.”
Press Gazette / William Turvill
More than half of Politico’s revenue comes from “long-term, premium subscription contracts” →
That would be Politico Pro. “That gives you a lot of stability. And you can plan ahead much more easily than [with] advertising, which as you know can go up and down very easily.”
The Verge / Nick Statt
The number of posts Facebook moderated as hate speech more than doubled in Q1 2020 →
“AI now proactively detects 88.8 percent of the hate speech content we remove, up from 80.2 percent the previous quarter…In the first quarter of 2020, we took action on 9.6 million pieces of content for violating our hate speech policies — an increase of 3.9 million.”
Committee to Protect Journalists
U.S. imposes retaliatory visa restrictions on Chinese journalists →
“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is playing a fool’s game with its decision to restrict journalist visas issued to Chinese citizens during a global pandemic, when the free flow of information is more important than ever.”
Glamour / Mattie Kahn
How Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones approaches self-care →
“The last app I check before bed is Twitter, I think. I spend way too much time on it. Most days it's not rewarding, but it can be. I definitely use it as a reporting tool. I end up coming across a lot of good academic research and just interesting ideas and stories, but it seems like that's getting more and more rare.”
NPR / Austin Horn
A sheriff said a death in the jail was “not news.” This local journalist turned the story into a Pulitzer-winning series →
“I think part of it was an attitude of ‘eh, it’s the Palestine Herald-Press. So what.’ Even though I know they were aware of it and the legislature was aware of it, I think most of the media in Texas, the big dogs, pretty much ignored it. Now they’re paying a little more attention.”
The New York Times / Editorial Board
Ignoring Freedom of Information Act requests during the pandemic damages democracy →
“Taxpayers have a right to know how and where their money is being spent in the efforts to buy ventilators, masks and other essential supplies — and whether agencies are being forthright about their efforts. While the work of government continues, citizens are losing a fundamental right to transparency.”
The Guardian / Adam Gabbatt
Baltimore Sun looks to nonprofit status to stay afloat amid coronavirus threat →
“If Save Our Sun is successful in prizing the Baltimore newspaper from Tribune, its buyers intend to switch the Sun to a nonprofit organization. The effort mirrors that of the Salt Lake Tribune, which transitioned to nonprofit status in 2019.”
What's New In Publishing / FIPP: The Network for Global Media
How an Indian magazine achieved 30% growth in circulation during lockdown: Free vegetable seeds →
“Almost all of the magazine's staff spend hours post publication to glue the seed packets to the magazines. Since the practice started in March, the circulation of the weekly, printed in the city of Kottayam, increased from 190,000 to 247,000 copies.”
CNN / Frank Pallotta
What it’s like to host ESPN’s SportsCenter without sports →
“I just don’t know how long we can continue to trot out, ‘Hey, baseball said they might play in July.’ Okay, cool. ‘Hey, the NBA is going to reopen practice facilities tomorrow.’ I mean it feels like updates on a snail race. These things are moving along — and they ought to, I’m not saying we should be sprinting back to sports — but the daily observation of the snail moving down the road is just that.”
Reuters / Elizabeth Culliford
Twitter will add labels and warnings to some tweets that contain misleading COVID-19 information →
“One of the differences in our approach here is that we're not waiting for a third party to have made a cast-iron decision one way or another.”
WSJ / Keach Hagey and Lindsay Wise
The coming coronavirus legislation is expected to include provisions to aid local newspapers and broadcasters →
“Many local news outlets haven't been able to apply for the Small Business Administration's forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans because of ‘affiliation rules’ that force them to be measured by the size of their parent companies. The new provision to be considered by Congress would waive such rules when it comes to local news outlets.”