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Thursday, April 30, 2020
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Reluctant managers, fewer resources, and inertia contribute to the sorry state of security in journalism“This is what it is to do journalism in tech — in an online world. It's time to put the typewriters down and fire up the VPN and get out there and do your job.” By Sarah Scire. |
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The New York Times’ morning email newsletter is getting an official “host and anchor”Can any of the lessons of The Daily’s success be carried over into your inbox? By Joshua Benton. |
What We’re Reading
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is sharing its own database of U.S. nursing homes hit by coronavirus →
“For weeks, the federal government and most states did not publicly report the names of facilities. By culling local news reports, health department data and recently released lists from states — and comparing that information with federal data on nursing homes from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — The Post was able to identify more than 2,700 infected nursing homes. That is more than 1 in 6 nationwide.”
MediaPost / Sara Guaglione
As part of its efforts to reach new audiences, The Wall Street Journal is launching a personal finance site →
“The interactive micro-site is divided into five topics: stimulus money, student loans, mortgages, unemployment and taxes…WSJ Money lives in front of the paywall.”
The Dispatch / Steve Hayes
The Dispatch had expected to make the largest share of its revenue from events →
“Those events were the biggest single revenue line in our 2020 budget and they aren't happening, so those projections now go to zero…That's the bad news. But there's good news, too, thanks to many of you..Our original estimates projected 4,200 paying members at the end of 2020 and, as of today, we're approaching 11,000 and growing steadily.”
ProPublica / Dick Tofel
How ProPublica thinks about presenting local stories to a national audience →
“Before we publish, our audience team, led by senior editor Meg Marco, considers how any local story fits into a larger context (national, global, historical, topical) and which aspects speak to existing reader concerns. We craft headlines and social media content, and seek distribution outlets that will emphasize this context, helping introduce the story to a wider audience.”
The Guardian / Jim Waterson
The Guardian reports a surge in reader support →
“There were 821,000 readers making regular monthly contributions at the end of March, up a quarter over the last year … About half of the regular contributors are from outside the UK, aided by growing numbers of readers in Australia, the US and across Europe.”
New York Post / Keith J. Kelly
Curbed is being merged into New York magazine →
“According to an internal memo from Vox Media publisher Melissa Bell and Haskell obtained by Media Ink, ‘We believe this sets Curbed…on a path that's editorially ambitious while also more sustainable as a business.'”
Brookings / Marc Faddoul
COVID-19 is triggering a massive experiment in algorithmic content moderation →
“Platforms, journalists and researchers are all disproportionately focusing their attention on content moderation in the U.S. and in certain European markets, while the situation is much worse in many other countries. Good data on geographical differences in content moderation is scarce, but COVID-related misinformation appears to be worse outside the United States.”
Google / Fazal Ashfaq
Google News Initiative picks 18 news organizations from 11 Asia Pacific countries to split $2.3 million →
“Gaon Connection in India is building an ‘insights platform’ to capture the opinions and preferences of rural communities. Three local news providers in Korea — the Busan Daily, Maeil Daily and Gangwon Daily — are collaborating to gather real-time insights that will help them create customized experiences for their readers.”
The Daily Beast / Maxwell Tani and Lachlan Cartwright
Saying coronavirus has “drastically disrupted” business, the New York Post announces more than a dozen layoffs →
“‘The paper is dying,’ said one staffer who was axed…The publication plans to freeze all new hiring, cut and even eliminate most freelance budgets, and lay off staff. And while the publisher said that he planned on bringing back furloughed staff after several months, he said he could not guarantee further layoffs in the near future.”
Roll Call / Doug Sword
Some House Democrats are looking to help McClatchy and some other newspapers by changing pension rules →
“The Democratic bill would give newspaper companies 30 years to fix their underfunded pension plans rather than the seven years other companies get, freeing up cash flow that would otherwise need to be committed to their pension plans.”
MediaPost / Melynda Fuller
McClatchy launches a text-to-speech feature for 30 outlets →
“Prior to the newsrooms-wide launch, the AI-powered feature was tested by the Sacramento Bee and the News & Observer in Raleigh for three months…Time spent on each site increased by 168%, story page views went up 89% and visits per user increased by 95%.”
Digiday / Max Willens
Publishers look to cheap Facebook ads to increase subscriptions →
“An executive at one publisher said that their subscriber acquisition costs have fallen by to as little as one third of what they had been at the beginning of March…In the first half of April, the cost of acquiring a newsletter subscriber through Facebook fell from 75 cents to 25 cents, thanks to a combination of lower CPMs and significantly higher clickthrough rates, an executive at a second news publisher said.”