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Monday, June 22, 2020
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Journalists know news and opinion are separate, but readers often can’t tell the differenceIn 18th- and 19th-century newspapers, news and opinion intermingled. The 20th century brought separation — but also confusion for audiences. By Kevin Lerner. |
What We’re Reading
Chalkbeat / Bene Cipolla
Students will “takeover” Chalkbeat this week →
“We are handing the mic over to young people, thanks to the 300 submissions we received in response to a callout asking how protests and conversations about racism are affecting them.”
The Verge / Ashley Carman
Spotify is testing interactive podcast ads so you never have to remember a promo code again →
An example of the revenue possible when podcast listening moves from open platforms into the walled garden of a single app.
The Information / Martin Peers
Cable companies are seeing a spike in cord-cutters during the pandemic →
“Comcast is bracing to lose 750,000 TV subscribers in the second quarter, nearly 4% of the total,” up from 388,000 in Q1.
AP
AP photographer John Bompengo has died of COVID-19 →
“Bompengo had contributed to AP since 2004, including coverage of the Ebola outbreak in northern Congo, in 2018. He also worked for the U.N.-backed news service, Radio Okapi…’He had an incredible knack at navigating around the often chaotic streets of Kinshasa at the worst of times, and to pacify the most angry crowds, ensuring our safety.'”
Poynter / Rick Edmonds
Gannett is back down to one CEO →
Paul Bascobert, the operating CEO, is out, with corporate CEO Mike Reed taking over his responsibilities. Fun fact: While Reed is CEO of Gannett — a publicly traded company — his salary and compensation are secret because he’s technically not a Gannett employee; officially, he works for the private equity firm Fortress.
New York
To create its cover, New York magazine pasted portraits of Mayor Bill de Blasio around the city and let New Yorkers weigh in →
“Photographer Marcus Russell Price then documented the responses to the posters over the course of four days. ‘The process of watching people discover and interact with the posters almost became addictive,’ says Price of the project, noting that the posters seemed to function the way a community bulletin board might.”
MIT Technology Review / Will Douglas Heavenarchive page
Detecting deepfakes is hard. Facebook has released a database to better teach AI how to spot them. →
“To train AIs to spot manipulated videos, it is releasing the largest ever data set of deepfakes—more than 100,000 clips produced using 3,426 actors and a range of existing face-swapping techniques … ‘Deepfakes are currently not a big issue,’ says Facebook's CTO, Mike Schroepfer. ‘But the lesson I learned the hard way over last couple years is not to be caught flat-footed. I want to be really prepared for a lot of bad stuff that never happens rather than the other way around.'”
Nieman Reports / Charlotte Alfred
Nonprofits are helping to pair refugee journalists with media outlets in Europe →
"He was really a gift to us — he opened so many doors for us that we hadn't had access to before. It's important that Tarek is not just a translator or facilitating access. He is a very good journalist and he's doing journalistic work for us."
Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt
UK’s Telegraph will stop publishing branded content →
Telegraph chief executive Nick Hugh told staff that the plan had been to move away from branded content in 2021, but this was moved up thanks to Covid-19’s impact on the advertising market. The newspaper will refocus on long-term ad partnerships “that tie in with its subscription-focused strategy.”
HuffPost / Hayley Miller
The Tennessean will investigate how an Islamophobic ad by a Christian doomsday cult was published in its Sunday edition →
The Tennessean is the state's most widely circulated daily newspaper. “The Ministry of Future For America” doomsday group made false accusations about Muslims and called Trump the “final president of the USA” in the full-page ad.