For Thursday, February 6, 2014, here are some media stories of note:
Marc Andreesen, the investor and creator of Netscape, started Tweeting his views on the future of news Thursday. He is an optimist about the business, bullish about the undoing of monopolies on content, and cognizant of how all media businesses are now competing with each other and building back strength through a much wider audience. He doesn't think much of local reporting and believes investigative work can be easily financed through crowdfunding. Mathew Ingram of Gigaom packages his Tweets and analyzes them.
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Robinson Meyer, writing for The Atlantic, examines the phenomenal impact of Facebook referrals on the website traffic for news. He suggests Facebook's connection is now the largest factor for journalism online. He also suggests search engine optimization is less important and makes less commercial sense because Google is getting better at finding your content. He questions whether the new Ezra Klein-led news organization is going to benefit by its SEO-friendly approach when that matters less now than social media referrals.
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Hamza Shaban, writing for The New Yorker, looks at a new book decrying the state of financial journalism, The Watchdog That Didn't Bark by Dean Starkman. The book examines the cozy relationship between reporters and those they cover, their mistaken forecasts, their asleep-at-the-wheel handling of impending economic problems, and the necessity to strengthen their work to serve the public. It worries that the public interest will wither --- and with it, important reporting.
Marc Andreesen, the investor and creator of Netscape, started Tweeting his views on the future of news Thursday. He is an optimist about the business, bullish about the undoing of monopolies on content, and cognizant of how all media businesses are now competing with each other and building back strength through a much wider audience. He doesn't think much of local reporting and believes investigative work can be easily financed through crowdfunding. Mathew Ingram of Gigaom packages his Tweets and analyzes them.
***
Robinson Meyer, writing for The Atlantic, examines the phenomenal impact of Facebook referrals on the website traffic for news. He suggests Facebook's connection is now the largest factor for journalism online. He also suggests search engine optimization is less important and makes less commercial sense because Google is getting better at finding your content. He questions whether the new Ezra Klein-led news organization is going to benefit by its SEO-friendly approach when that matters less now than social media referrals.
***
Hamza Shaban, writing for The New Yorker, looks at a new book decrying the state of financial journalism, The Watchdog That Didn't Bark by Dean Starkman. The book examines the cozy relationship between reporters and those they cover, their mistaken forecasts, their asleep-at-the-wheel handling of impending economic problems, and the necessity to strengthen their work to serve the public. It worries that the public interest will wither --- and with it, important reporting.
