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Thursday, July 9, 2020
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Giving thanks isn’t just for Turkey Day: It’s also a way to retain your usersA new study of behavior on Wikipedia finds that thanking new users for their good work makes them more likely to stick around — and to thank others, too. By Joshua Benton. |
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The Startups Lab bootcamp by LION and the Google News Initiative aims to train news entrepreneurs“Journalists are natural skeptics, except when it comes to their own idea about their business plan.” By Hanaa' Tameez. |
What We’re Reading
Pew Research Center / Mark Jurkowitz
Younger adults differ from older ones in perceptions of news about Covid-19 and George Floyd protests →
“Adults under age 30 offer the most critical evaluation of the media regarding the George Floyd demonstrations and coronavirus outbreak.”
Chicago Reporter / Asraa Mustufa
Chicago Police Department shuts down its arrest API used by journalists and researchers →
“The Chicago Reporter used the API last month to analyze police tactics during local mass protests following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. CPD had released figures stating that the majority of arrests made on the weekend of May 29 were for criminal conduct related to looting, not protesting. But by using CPD's own data from the arrest API, we found the opposite to be true: the majority of civil unrest-related arrests made that weekend had been for offenses related to protesting … Within a day of our publishing this analysis, CPD removed access to the API for all users.”
Poynter / Kristen Hare
What’s the infection rate where I live? How many people are in hospitals? What is there even to do? These local news projects offer answers. →
“Matt Stempeck, formerly of MIT's Media Lab, pitched the idea of building a guide to all the digital events popping up while venues were closed due to the pandemic. He was inspired by the old scrolling screens you used to see on the TV Guide network and Prevue Channel. The vision was a list of channels, each devoted to a different interest area, from sports to arts to politics etc., populated with links to ‘platform-agnostic livestreams from around the Internet.'”
The New York Times / Charlie Warzel
Behind Facebook’s civil rights audit with Rashad Robinson →
“I had to really explain that looters and shooters post to Mark on two separate occasions. And I had to say, ‘This conversation right here is the problem with you all not having any expertise in race.'”
NPR.org / David Folkenflik
Trump appointee will not extend visas for foreign journalists working for Voice of America in the U.S. →
“The foreign journalists are particularly valued for their language skills, which are crucial to VOA’s mission as an international broadcaster.” Previously, U.S. Agency for Global Media chief Michael Pack, a conservative filmmaker who has worked closely with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, fired the heads of four federally funded agencies that produce news and information for international audiences in a purge that has raised concerns about editorial meddling.
Digiday / Steven Perlberg
Protocol is having trouble defining its mission and has cut investigative reporting →
“Former staffers said that [Tim] Grieve's lack of tech journalism experience at times set him at odds with his own staff. Objectives other than access became elusive, and it was tough for employees to discern what defined a Protocol story. Plans for an investigative reporting team, for instance, were shelved after the hires had been made. When the layoffs hit, the two would-be investigative reporters were cut, and their editor later left to return to a promotion at his prior employer.”
The Verge / Nick Statt
Quibi reportedly lost 92 percent of early users after their free trials expired →
“Quibi has struggled both to find a hit among its mobile-centric shows and gain traction with its desired younger, TikTok-loving demographic, despite the surge in screen time during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
New York Times / Michael M. Grynbaum
Joy Reid will anchor a new nightly show on MSNBC →
The last Black woman to anchor an American evening news program was Gwen Ifill, who co-anchored “PBS NewsHour” until shortly before her death in 2016. “Ms. Reid has a big online fan base — search the hashtag #reiders — and interacts with critics and supporters on Twitter, a realm where Mr. Matthews rarely engaged.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Jon Allsop
The fight for Covid-19 data, and what the press can do with it →
“We would do well to conceive of testing as a freedom of information issue, as well as a scientific one. And we would do well to make officials answer to specific performance benchmarks, rather than generalized outrage.”
The Atlantic / Ed Yong
The pandemic experts are not okay →
“It feels like writing 'Bad things are about to happen' on a napkin and then setting the napkin on fire.”
WAN-IFRA / Elizabeth Shilpa
How to amplify the voice of women in newsrooms in a post-COVID world →
“We started with op-eds and now we are moving to the business section, which is usually more unbalanced than other sections. Sometimes you don’t realize how many men you choose. This way articles are better, richer, they have more sources. For us, it’s really working well.”
Current / Julie Halpert
Newsrooms ramp up audience engagement tactics for coronavirus coverage →
“With the political divisions and judgments people were making about masks, Hubbard recognized how important it would be to pose questions that would elicit the broadest possible responses from the community. Asking only about the experience of wearing a mask would mean many people would feel excluded and not respond, she said. As a public broadcaster in a red state, Hubbard knows that many potential listeners perceive NPR as left-leaning. ‘If we can tear that down just through our questions, we've gone a long way,’ she said.”