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Wednesday, June 24, 2020
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It’s time to change the way the media reports on protests. Here are some ideas.“People kept sharing these videos that were coming up and it was unambiguous what was going on. We weren’t looking at a stream of videos of violence erupting or clashes breaking out. We were looking at cops, attacking people.” By Kendra Pierre-Louis. |
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Newsonomics: Bloomberg’s Justin Smith is investing in news when everyone else is cutting“You want to move your business and your model to the place on the media chessboard where the dollars are going to be going” — the TV money that will follow audiences to streaming. By Ken Doctor. |
What We’re Reading
The Information / Tom Dotan
Scripps is trying to sell its podcast company Stitcher to raise cash →
“…in an apparent effort to cash in on a surge of interest in the podcasting industry from companies such as Spotify and satellite radio giant Sirius XM…It is one of Scripps' fastest-growing businesses, thanks to growth in podcast audiences. But Scripps is under financial pressure in the wake of big TV station acquisitions last year and the pandemic-triggered ad downturn.”
Journalism Institute / Holly Butcher Grant
“There is no pipeline problem”: Robert Hernandez on newsroom diversity →
“J-schools across the country have trained and prepared talented, diverse voices ready to work in our industry, but they are often overlooked when hiring. The classic problem that the hiring manager goes with A) ‘we can't find any’, which is B.S., or B) using the false ‘good fit’ model, which is based on the hiring manager's comfort. If they do get hired – often via a fellowship rather than a full-time job for some reason – the experiences I routinely hear about within the newsroom is problematic. From micro-aggressions to straight-up racism, it is no wonder why journalists of color don't stay in our industry.”
Los Angeles Times
The L.A. Times is hiring a senior editor for talent and culture →
The job entails “overseeing internship, Metpro and staff development programs; help facilitate recruitment; and lead various retention, training and career development efforts.” The posting for the masthead-level position went up one day after Black journalists at the Times wrote an open letter to owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong and executive editor Norman Pearlstine about the racism they’ve faced at the newspaper.
The Media Nut / Josh Sternberg
Why publisher content studios are set up to fail →
“As one media company leader told me, one of the problems of sponsored content is that the expectations of the deal will be a ‘home run.’ Editorial operations pump out hundreds of pieces of content per day. And not every one hits. So say you're a media company and of the 100 stories you publish, 15 of them get tons of traffic. That's a great rate for editorial. For advertisers who buy content programs, it's a disaster.”
Poynter / Rick Edmonds
Print replicas, the ugly ducklings of digital news, have suddenly become strategic →
“Even without heavy promotion, they have proven surprisingly popular with some readers…they have recently become central to the audience approach of several newspapers, notably The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Tampa Bay Times.”
NPR / David Folkenflik
The Trump appointee who canned execs at the U.S. Agency for Global Media is being sued →
Steve Bannon ally Michael Pack “informed the heads of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the Open Technology Fund that they were fired, effective immediately” and “disbanded their separate bipartisan advisory boards and replaced them with five Trump administration political appointees and an attorney who works for a Christian legal defense and advocacy group.”
The Boston Globe / Diti Kohli
The president of Northeastern U. hasn’t given an interview to the school’s student paper in 7 years →
Northeastern’s PR flak said, implausibly, that they don’t give interviews to The Huntington News because “there's a constant requirement for a correction after almost every story we read” and “stories are frequently inaccurate.” (These are his school’s own journalism students he’s talking about!) Here’s more on the president and his “carefully crafted image.”
The Guardian / Daniel Hurst
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is cutting 250 jobs →
“…the cuts would include about 70 positions in the news section, with plans to reduce the number of original episodes of Australian Story and Foreign Correspondent that are produced each year…all current affairs teams would contribute to the required savings, including some proposed changes to roles in the Investigative Reporting Team.”
Native American Journalists Association
NAJA, NABJ, NAHJ, AAJA, and SPJ demand an end to racialized mascots in media →
“This discontinuance should include clear policy development and implementation, that clarifies the harm they cause, and the practical editorial methods to avoid their use on all platforms…The socially responsible remedy to this grave injustice is to cease any further dissemination of sports mascots, nicknames and logos.”
The Washington Post / Ben Strauss
Bleacher Report’s CEO is out after being pressed by staff about diversity →
“His exit is the culmination of weeks of turmoil at Bleacher Report in which employees held virtual meetings with leadership, raising concerns about what they described as a toxic culture that valued a black editorial voice but did not develop black talent inside the company.”
Axios / Sara Fischer
The New York Times lays off 68 people, mostly in advertising →
None among journalists, though. “[CEO Mark] Thompson and [COO Meredith] Levien concede that while the cuts are driven by the pandemic, they also ‘reflect long-term trends in our business and are fully consistent with the company's strategy.'”