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Friday, May 22, 2020
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The Atlantic’s layoffs may sound the death knell for two media revenue hopes: Video and in-person events“In one week in March, maybe two, the ground fell out from under live events.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
Chicago Tribune / Robert Channick
Tribune Publishing shareholders have elected 2 Alden Global Capital representatives to the board, and Alden is barred from raising its Tribune stake until June 30 →
“Alden, which has a track record of sweeping layoffs at its newspaper properties, took a 32% stake in Tribune Publishing in November, mostly through buying former nonexecutive chairman Michael Ferro's holdings. In total, Alden purchased 11.5 million shares of Tribune Publishing for $145.4 million. The two Alden representatives, Dana Goldsmith Needleman and Christopher Minnetian, were added to the newspaper company's board in December, expanding it to eight members, but Alden was restricted from increasing its stake in the company to more than 33% until June 30.”
FiveThirtyEight / Kaleigh Rogers
How bad is the COVID-19 misinformation epidemic? →
“Research on coronavirus misinformation is largely limited to public opinion surveys and preprint research that has yet to be peer-reviewed. But when we compare those preliminary findings to research on the 2016 election, they suggest that more people are seeing — and believing — misinformation now, and it may have something to do with the challenge of understanding a new disease.”
London Review of Soups / Hussein Kesvani
The post covid-19 media landscape is going to be “way worse and more online” →
“…Just as media outlets had to adapt to mobile technology and Twitter, thwarting off doomsday predictions to build a more digitally orientated news economy, Media outlets will also get out of this slump. That, within the next decade, we might lose digital culture reporter jobs, but we'll gain investigative journalists who can use TikTok in quirky ways, so it'll all be okay. More, the prediction that sites like Patreon, and its equivalents, will pave the way for a renaissance in independent journalism, where the fans, the viewers, and the people most invested in the real objective truth, can directly support a creator, rather than an institution with corporate backing, or propped up by offshore trusts filled with Old Money.”
BuzzFeed News / Jane Lytvynenko, Ryan Broderick, and Craig Silverman
These are the fake experts pushing pseudoscience and conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic →
BuzzFeed News is keeping a running list of the most prominent people “who have pushed what scientists and professional fact-checkers have found to be demonstrably false claims about the outbreak — and who they really are.” It’s also keeping track of real experts whose quotes have been distorted or taken out of context.
Slate Magazine / Ashley Feinberg
Is Ben Smith’s column about Ronan Farrow too good to be true? →
“An examination of his Ronan Farrow column reveals a shakiness in his indictment. Had Smith taken a more rigorous approach to presenting his findings, he would have undermined his own argument. So instead, Smith chose to perform broad-mindedness, sacrificing accuracy for some vague, centrist perception of fairness. And in doing so, he opened the door for Matt Lauer to build on Smith's own debatable representations, granting Lauer the legitimacy bestowed by the Times in the process.”
Vanity Fair / Joe Pompeo
We might be getting a show about Gawker’s glory days →
“Apple TV+, now building up its arsenal in the streaming wars, is in the early stages of developing a series about Gawker, several people familiar with the project told [Joe Pompeo]. The show was conceived and pitched by two former Gawker staffers, Max Read and Cord Jefferson, who have been working on scripts for the past couple of months with a writers room that apparently includes some other Gawker alumni.”
CNN / Hadas Gold
The State Department is asking Americans working for Chinese media to share personal details →
U.S. employees of the Chinese state TV network CGTN have until Monday to fill out the five-page “State Department OFM (Office of Foreign Missions) Questionnaire,” which asks for personal information and details about partners, children, roommates, and previous work history. The State Department said that information is required of anyone who works for a “foreign mission,” like an embassy or a consulate.
The Washington Post / Margaret Sullivan
How ’60 Minutes’ survived CBS upheaval to become ‘the Tony Fauci of newsmagazines’ →
“In an era where much of media is selling junk bonds to the public, Tom Bettag, a former executive producer, said, "60 Minutes" is like Treasury bills: solid and reliable.”
NextTV / Alan Wolk
Is CBSN the future of TV news? →
“CBSN, CBS News's free OTT app, has been launching local news feeds for all its owned and operated stations. The local broadcasts live as channels within the greater CBS News app and feature the kind of in-depth local reporting people want to see right now…The service is currently limited to CBS's owned and operated stations and thus leaves out a ton of non-O&O local affiliates, which, by law, make up 61% of the stations running CBS prime-time programming.”
The Guardian / Mark Sweney
U.K. national newspaper print sales are plunging because of the coronavirus lockdown →
“The Financial Times and the i newspaper reported the biggest decline in circulation, down 39% and 38%, respectively. The decline of circulation of the i was exacerbated by the cessation of the distribution of bulks, free copies, to locations including airports, gyms and railway stations.”
Reynolds Journalism Institute / Slone Salerno, Vivian Wang, Elliot Bauman, and Sarai Vega
Expandable audio journalism lets listeners take control →
“We see and hear the news everywhere, so much so that about 66 percent of Americans feel overwhelmed by the amount of news, according to Pew Research. Turning traditional audio stories into an interactive experience allows the audience to feel a sense of control again — to feel like they are the deciders in what they want to hear at that moment.”
The Hollywood Reporter / Lesley Goldberg
John Krasinski’s ‘Some Good News’ sells to ViacomCBS after a massive bidding war →
“…Krasinski initially resisted the urge to sell the series, despite a wave of incoming calls from a wide variety of suitors. Krasinski’s team received a flood of incoming calls following SGN’s viral first episode. Suitors included broadcast networks and streaming services. His original plan was to continue to make SGN for the free and wide audience that YouTube provided.”