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May 6, 2014 media notes: consumers and newspaper slant; Lara Logan and CBS' bind; new service and authentic images

5/6/2014

For Tuesday, May 6, 2014, here are some media stories of note:

What determines a newspaper's slant? The owner? More likely, the community, says a study by economists Mathew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro. If a paper serves a liberal community, it is bound to be liberal; a conservative community gets a conservative paper, they found. The New York Times' new data and context feature, The Upshot, reports on the study today.
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Since she fronted an errant report on the Benghazi compound attack, 60 Minutes' Lara Logan has been off the air. Joe Hagan of New York Magazine writes about the dilemma for CBS with one of its marquee journalists. Hagan, in particular, wonders if she is too toxic to ever return to the newsmagazine.
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A new image hosting service, Izitru, gives journalists new tools to authenticate an image, or at least to reduce the likelihood of a doctored image. It can distinguish how an original JPEG might have been manipulated through successive handoffs. Craig Silverman writes on the service for Poynter.

April 10, 2014 media notes: study on Twitter, Facebook and TV; Turkey keeps ban on YouTube; last US press council closes

4/10/2014

For Thursday, April 10, 2014, here are some media stories of note:

A new study by the Nielsen-financed Council for Research Excellence suggests our enthusiasm about the interplay of social media and the television is still a bit overblown. A survey indicates that people aren't using Facebook and Twitter often when they're viewing TV, and those who are using those platforms are posting about something other than what they're viewing. Vindu Goel, writing for The New York Times, concludes that Twitter and Facebook wield little influence on TV.
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Court ruling or no court ruling, the Turkish telecommunications authority is refusing to lift its ban on YouTube in the country. The court has ruled that the ban breaches human rights, but the government and its regulator insist YouTube postings of illicit recordings from secret security talks is part of a "dirty campaign" to topple the government.
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Craig Silverman, writing for Poynter, notes the closure next month of the last U.S. state press council. The Washington Press Council, overseen for more than a decade by John Hamer, will close when he retires in May. There is no word from its board on what will emerge in its place.

media notes 10.08.13

10/8/2013

For Tuesday, October 8, 2013, here are some media stories of note:

The British privy council has decided the best course of action on press regulation is inaction for the time being. It is punting the decision down the field for a few weeks. The industry is divided on self-regulation and is balking at government efforts to create a royal charter with oversight measures. The recent Leveson inquiry into press practices sought new procedures to deal with public complaints about journalism, but to date the industry and government have not found common ground.

Craig Silverman, writing for Poynter, looks at new research that suggests the presence of a fact-checking body (or even the spectre of one) might have an impact on the accuracy of statements by politicians. Two political scientists are studying the effects of alerting politicians that a fact-checking outfit (like PolitiFact) was setting up in certain states and subsequent behaviour. The "effects of a fact-checking threat" appear palpable.

Lucia Moses, writing for AdWeek, examines the new Sports Illustrated approach to a paywall on its content. If you want to read something free, you have to bear with a 30-second advertisement in advance. It is a limited offering at the moment, mainly to test initial response with a selection of stories, but it is examining whether time or money mean more to its readers.

media notes 07.08.13

7/8/2013

Here are some media stories of note for Monday, July 8, 2013:

The newspaper, or at least its content and services in print or digital form, continues to be in demand among millennials. Recent research in the United States indicated 57 per cent of those under 30 are reading the print or digital work of a newspaper weekly. NetNewsCheck writes about the trust in the newspaper content, even though in many cases it is consumed through mobile or online platforms.

Eliza Kern, writing for paidContent, examines the approach LinkedIn takes to content (lots of it, designed to stimulate repeat consumption among a relatively small user base of 225 million) and how that yields important data that serves its other functions of career advertisements and premium membership fees.

Craig Silverman, writing for Poynter, looks at new research that helped identify with 97-per-cent certainty false images on Twitter. The research, in looking at the way fake content spreads and our susceptibility to it, identifies best practices for verification. It is expected there will soon by automated ways to determine authenticity of imagery.

media notes 05.29.13

5/29/2013

Some media stories of note for Wednesday, May 29, 2013:

Matthew Cooper, writing in The National Journal, argues that a new shield law for journalists in the U.S. is only a portion of what's needed. Unless prosecutors stop pursuing reporters, the law has little effect. This is one area where custom trumps statute, Cooper writes, and where prosecutors have options they simply don't use. Unless they desist, he says the shield law will prove ineffective at preventing journalistic chill.

Craig Silverman, writing for Poynter, identifies three key areas that would be useful for journalists (and the public) in the absence of a correction tool for Twitter. He says it's a good idea to develop an understanding of best practices and to widely distribute them. He believes there are tools to use for verification and to enable those best practices. And he argues that there is value in finding ground to cooperate in so-called breaking news.

Mashable reports (on an eMarketer report about a Brightroll study) that suggests advertising executives believe online videos are just as or even more effective than television advertising in reaching audiences. Those surveyed also believe video ads are more effective than other forms of online advertising. Research indicates that video advertising spending will grow substantially this year.

media notes 23.04.13

4/23/2013

Some media notes for Tuesday, April 23, 2013:

Jack Shafer, writing for Reuters, defends the mistake. He notes that journalism has been making errors big and small forever, although he also observes that corrections and retractions don't happen the way they could. The difference now is the audience's ability to help correct the record and "talk back" to the press, making the second draft of history much better.

Frédéric Filoux, writing for his weekly Monday Note, wonders what the fuss is about with sponsored editorial content, also known as native advertising. He says the controversy is a "festival of fake naivety and misplaced indignation." Editorial content has often been there to flatter the advertising that surrounds it, he says. That being said, he also believes the site's editor, and not its chief revenue officer, should be the one to decide if that advertising crosses the line.

Ombudsmen often determine when the line is crossed, and the Washington Post drew criticism when it recently discontinued the role and replaced it with a readers' representative. Craig Silverman, writing for Poynter, profiles Doug Feaver and how his job will differ. Feaver came out of retirement to take the part-time role, which ostensibly answers readers of the paper and its site. His first column noted the disappearance of the Print button on the site, something that restored once he identified the complaint. But he's not there to serve as an ombudsman, he notes.

A follow-up: An amendment to legislation proposes that smaller blogs (those with fewer than 10 employees and two million pounds in revenue each year) will be exempt from the harsh penalties if they do not join the new press regulator under the royal charter governing media in the country. The Editors Weblog notes this is a welcome relief for organizations that would have been subject to the penalties originally devised for large companies.

media notes 05.04.13

4/5/2013

Media stories of note for Friday, April 5, 2013:

Craig Silverman, writing for Poynter. org, notes the development of an industry handbook to deal with issues of plagiarism and fabrication. It was created by 14 news organizations, 10 associations and 10 institutions. Essentially it uses truth as a guide and calls for the "golden rule" in attribution, among other things.

Tracie Powell, writing for Columbia Journalism Review, argues that the next Federal Communications Commission chair is going to have a significant impact on journalism. Apart from concentration issues, the FCC will be looking at broadband, broadcast diversity, and transparency in political advertising.

Jeff Israely, who has been chronicling his adventure in starting a media site for the Nieman Journalism Lab, argues that it's a myth people are not paying for news. He wants to delete the term "subsidy" to describe the support for news. Rather, he notes, there is reason to be optimistic that people are paying, and will pay, for news.

media notes 08.03.13

3/8/2013

Some media stories of note for Friday, March 8, 2013:

The overhaul of Facebook's news feed began to emerge Thursday and the seeming aim is to generate a personal newspaper of sorts, with a hierarchical display based on what users focus on most. Wired.com notes there are opportunities for media if users focus on published content, and The New Yorker notes it aims to show us all we want to see and none of what we don't. but Facebook has left it flexible enough that users may simply focus on what their friends are saying.

The Washington Post, which ended its ombudsman role last week, has appointed its first readers' representative in the newsroom to field public complaints and write periodically about how they are addressed. Doug Feaver is a veteran Post newsroom journalist and will be assisted by Alison Coglianese, who worked for the ombudsman's office previously. Feaver will blog for washingtonpost.com and contribute newspaper columns as needed.

Craig Silverman, writing for Poynter, says "bring on the robots." He identifies ways in which machines will be able to improve accuracy and standards in newsrooms, whether through fact-checking, extracting data to produce timelines, identifying typographical errors, detecting plagiarism and fabrication, or even gathering information through drones.