國際傳媒新聞：2018/10/05~2018/10/11
Khashoggi’s disappearance shows the importance of ethical reporting on hostages
“But my experience as the family member of a hostage and, later in life, as the friend of someone who was kidnapped and beheaded by the Islamic State in Syria, informs the way I watch news coverage of kidnappings—particularly those involving journalists. …Thirty years later, our hyperactive news cycle has all but obliterated the systematic, careful consideration of consequences when publishing news. At no point has that been more evident than over the past week, with some coverage of Khashoggi’s kidnapping.”
COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW / SULOME ANDERSON / OCT 11
“The time will come when [The New York Times] is a digital-only news organization,” A.G. Sulzberger says
“During the conversation, the three men upon whose shoulders the future of the institution rests—Sulzberger as publisher, Dolnick as a senior newsroom figure bringing Times journalism to new platforms, and Perpich as a crucial lieutenant on the business side—spoke honestly about the pressures and opportunities facing their business. ‘Advertising will never be enough to pay for quality journalism,’ said Sulzberger, referring to the Times’s digital-subscription model. ‘Our pivot to saying that we need to have a direct relationship with consumers . . . has been essential.’”
VANITY FAIR / JOE POMPEO / OCT 11
Fact-checking Trump’s healthcare op-ed in USA Today: “Almost every sentence contained a misleading statement or falsehood”
“Many of these are claims we have already debunked. Presumably, the president is aware of our fact checks — he even links to two — but chose to ignore the facts in service of a campaign-style op-ed.”
WASHINGTON POST / GLENN KESSLER / OCT 11
Jamal Khashoggi was working on launching a pro-democracy and human rights group before he entered the Saudi consulate
“The group, called Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), was incorporated in the state of Delaware as a tax-exempt organization in January of this year, according to documentation reviewed by The Daily Beast. According to a statement of core principles, the group would aim to provide ‘a counter narrative in the Arab world and the West to Arab Spring skeptics.’ Its members also planned to advocate to corporate leaders, policymakers, journalists, and think tanks on behalf of democracy in the Middle East.”
THE DAILY BEAST / BETSY WOODRUFF / OCT 11
Expected continued media consolidation, 21st Century Fox’s vice chair says
“Carey’s comments come on the heels of Comcast’s $40 billion takeover of Sky Media, which is just the latest in a torrent of mergers and acquisitions across the media sector. Comcast successfully outbid 21st Century Fox for the Sky assets in an auction that pitted two of the largest U.S. media companies against one another. Carey painted 21st Century Fox as a winner in the transaction.”
CNBC / CHLOE AIELLO / OCT 11
Johnston Press, one of the U.K.’s biggest newspaper publishers, is deep in debt and putting itself up for sale
“The company, which owns more than 200 local and regional titles including the Yorkshire Post, The Scotsman and national daily the i, announced the move to shareholders this morning…it is likely that some rival publishers may bid only for certain assets, potentially paving the way for the 251-year-old company to be broken up.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE / PAUL LINFORD / OCT 11
Here are some free chapters from “Practical R for Mass Communication and Journalism”
Good for anyone wanting to integrate a little data skill into their journalism toolbox. The full book is out next month.
SHARON MACHLIS / OCT 11
The woman behind that media bias chart you’ve probably seen is crowdfunding it now
“[Vanessa] Otero has big plans for scaling her technology and media ranking capability to eventually provide it as real-time tool for any organization with a need to know about news source quality and bias.”
AD FONTES MEDIA / OCT 10
The University of Florida is launching a Consortium on Trust in Media and Technology
“The CTMT…will bring together technologists and social scientists – working in areas such as communications, anthropology, psychology, political science and law – to develop creative solutions to restoring trust. The goal is to assemble a core group of at least 100 scholars, graduate students and educators…”
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA / OCT 10
How The New York Times uses T-shirt discounts and tours to drive subscriptions
“The Times knows people won’t subscribe just because they got 15 percent off a T-shirt or trip. But the express hope is that something like the trip experience will make them feel more connected to the Times.”
DIGIDAY / LUCIA MOSES / OCT 10
An argument that The New York Times’ Trump tax story “bombed”
“Even though the Times aggregated this piece for slow readers, produced clever video takes on the material and reprinted the original as a special section of the Sunday paper, the story has all but melted from sight.”
POLITICO / JACK SHAFER / OCT 10
Drone journalism’s battle for airspace
“McClatchy has 43 licensed drone pilots on staff, and CNN — which boasts nearly 30 drone pilots — launched a new unit, CNN AIR (which stands for ‘aerial imagery and reporting’), based around drone coverage.”
COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW / TRAVIS FOX / OCT 10
The Brazilian election offered a window into WhatsApp’s wild, sometimes fact-free world
“What we do know is that people trust the information they see in a WhatsApp group and are more likely to read every message that comes into the platform.”
BUZZFEED NEWS / RYAN BRODERICK / OCT 10
The New York Times is eliminating courtesy titles (Mr., Ms., etc.) in its pop culture coverage
Compare: “Mr. Costello” vs. just plain “Costello.”
TWITTER / JAMES PONIEWOZIK / OCT 9
The great disconnect: How journalists at local and national outlets are evolving different skill sets
“When I meet with these aspiring journalists in New Orleans, I lay out their options: Compete for one of the few local news jobs against people who have internships and deep resumes, or move to New York or Washington, where there’s a relative abundance of entry-level jobs.”
NIEMAN REPORTS / STEVE MYERS / OCT 9
Sports journalists battle for relevancy
“For now, old and new sports media coexist, albeit uncomfortably at times. But, long term, how will serious sports journalism survive when entertainment dressed up as journalism is the only proven way to subsidize work that matters?”
NIEMAN REPORTS / J. BRADY MCCOLLOUGH / OCT 9
The planet is on a fast track to destruction. The media must cover this like it’s the only story that matters
“In short, when it comes to climate change, we — the media, the public, the world — need radical transformation, and we need it now. Just as the smartest minds in earth science have issued their warning, the best minds in media should be giving sustained attention to how to tell this most important story in a way that will creates change.”
WASHINGTON POST / MARGARET SULLIVAN / OCT 9
How China’s biggest social network fights fake news
“Here’s how the mini program works: The front page shows a feed of articles that have been debunked recently, with a search box at the top where you can search for terms and see if there are any debunked articles related to it. The second section (‘Related to Me’) compiles all the fake news articles that you have either read or shared. The last section shows the number of articles debunked and who the fact checkers are.”
ABACUS NEWS / XINMEI SHEN / OCT 9
MIT and Qatari scientists are training computers to detect fake news sites
“When presented with a new news outlet, the system was roughly 65 percent accurate at detecting whether it has a high, medium, or low level of factuality and 70 percent accurate at detecting whether it leans to the left, right, or center.”
FAST COMPANY / STEVEN MELENDEZ / OCT 9
Journalist Jamal Kashoggi has reportedly been killed inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey; President Erdogan demands Saudis prove he left their consulate alive
“Turkish officials have said they believe Khashoggi, 59, a critic of the Saudi leadership and a contributor to The Washington Post’s Global Opinions section, was killed by a team of 15 Saudis flown in specifically to carry out the attack. Saudi authorities have called the allegation ‘baseless.’”
WASHINGTON POST / ERIN CUNNINGHAM AND KAREEM FAHIM / OCT 9
Brett Kavanaugh and the information terrorists trying to reshape America
“This is an operational unit of information terrorists helping to transform the way Americans consume news in the age of Trump—some of the central nodes that give order to the information deluge and around which bot armies and human amplification networks can be organized, wiped out, reconstituted, and armed for attack.”
WIRED / MOLLY MCKEW / OCT 9
Smaller media outlets are reducing or scrapping Facebook promotion over new ad rules
“It’s just weird how it flags things as political sometimes and not other times. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.”
COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW / MATHEW INGRAM / OCT 5
Slate editor-in-chief Julia Turner is moving to the LA Times
“The opportunities ahead for the Los Angeles Times and its culture coverage are enormous,” said Turner.
LOS ANGELES TIMES / OCT 5
Report for America set out to give local news a boost. Here’s how it’s going.
“At the beginning of this year, Chicago-native Carlos Ballesteros, 25, was unhappily ‘farming clicks,’ he says, as a member of Newsweek’s digital team in Manhattan. He quit when he saw the Chicago Sun-Times had been selected as a Report for America outlet. Today he reports from Chicago’s South and West sides—including from the neighborhood where he grew up and where his grandmother first landed when she immigrated to the US from Mexico in the 1960s.”
COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REPORT / ANDREW MCCORMICK / OCT 5
Going it solo: The complicated financial lives of freelancers
“I almost can’t have fun anymore because there’s always something that I should be doing — writing an article or finding a pitch.”
NPR.ORG / YUKI NOGUCHI / OCT 5
The New York Times is launching “The Argument,” a podcast by opinion columnists Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg, and David Leonhardt
“This show will be different from most other political podcasts in one major way: Ross, Michelle and David often disagree — about a lot of things. They are not going to shy away from those disagreements because candid conversation between people who see the world very differently is essential.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY / OCT 5
