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HomePod, death to autoplay, and a smarter Apple News: These are the key Apple updates for publishers
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HomePod, death to autoplay, and a smarter Apple News: These are the key Apple updates for publishers
Apple, like Google, is using its position in the browser market to try to control elements of the advertising market.
By Joshua Benton
The Lenfest Institute’s new local news grant program will take lessons from venture capital
Built around a “venture philanthropy” model, the new programs will offer both significant funding and the test kitchen of its Philadelphia daily newspapers.
By Ricardo Bilton
In Italy, Il Giornale is turning to crowdfunding to help fund its reporting from conflict zones
“We’re a news site so we need to cover these things, but there’s not a lot of money to do everything. So we thought, maybe we could help solve this by using one of the main resources we have — our readers.”
By Ricardo Bilton
Fake news might be the next issue for activist tech-company investors
Plus: Make your own fake Facebook story, “giant man-bats that spent their days collecting fruit and holding animated conversations,” and the AP’s guidelines on fake news.
By Laura Hazard Owen
Solving the crossword puzzle: Rebuilding a print habit on digital devices
“Sometimes, I’ve learned, you have to take opportunity where you least expect it. And in the end that’s what happened to us.”
By John Temple
The Wall Street Journal is killing its What’s News app (but bringing lessons from it to its main app)
The Journal is the latest news organization to build a mobile-first secondary app as a user-interface playground — and then return focus to the core app.
By Joseph Lichterman
Billionaire-supported but looking to expand its coverage, The Intercept also turns to reader memberships
“We’d be happy to see a healthy portion of our budget paid for by the membership program.”
By Shan Wang
The scariest chart in Mary Meeker’s slide deck for newspapers has gotten even a smidge scarier
Since 2011, the amount of time Americans spend with print has dropped about 40 percent. But the amount of ad dollars that go to print has dropped even more.
By Joshua Benton
The New York Times is eliminating the position of public editor; here’s the Sulzberger memo
“Liz will leave The Times on Friday as our last public editor.”
By Laura Hazard Owen
The Boston Globe is getting smarter about digital subscriptions — and tightening up its paywall
“We’ve learned a lot in five years about what the levers are, how we can pull them and what are the tradeoffs. We understand a lot of things better than we used to. The changes are the natural evolution of that understanding.”
By Ricardo Bilton
HomePod, death to autoplay, and a smarter Apple News: These are the key Apple updates for publishers
Apple, like Google, is using its position in the browser market to try to control elements of the advertising market.
By Joshua Benton
The Lenfest Institute’s new local news grant program will take lessons from venture capital
Built around a “venture philanthropy” model, the new programs will offer both significant funding and the test kitchen of its Philadelphia daily newspapers.
In Italy, Il Giornale is turning to crowdfunding to help fund its reporting from conflict zones
“We’re a news site so we need to cover these things, but there’s not a lot of money to do everything. So we thought, maybe we could help solve this by using one of the main resources we have — our readers.”
What We’re Reading
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
In the run up to the U.K. election, May and Corbyn leave local journalists without answers on the campaign trail
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has not done a sit down interview with a local newspaper during the campaign, despite May having done six. Theresa May — who backed Local Newspaper Week last month — has done more interviews, but her interaction with local journalists has included banal responses and tightly stage-managed meetings.
BuzzFeed / Alex Kantrowitz
Cheddar, the “post-cable network,” is coming to cable TV
“The move is intriguing since Cheddar’s mission, until this point, has been to cater to people without cable boxes…This new push into traditional television may be viewed by critics as an admission that the current slew of digital platforms aren’t big enough to support Cheddar’s $83 million valuation.”
Poynter / Benjamin Mullin
Here’s how The New York Times will pick the editors on its new copy desk
“Candidates who apply for the retooled editing jobs will interview with one or more members of a newsroom hiring committee, which will make its choices based on aptitude in a series of skills related to news judgement and technical proficiency.”
BuzzFeed / Ben Smith
Why have a public editor when Twitter will do it for free?
“The public editor has a kind of authority because you’ve been appointed by the institution to do it. So it’s hard to ignore. You’re also in the building, and that makes you hard to ignore. So I think that while you might, there could be lots of criticism of something, and you just, it would be easy to say: ‘Well, of course, there’s always criticism of us, we’re the New York Times, so we’re going to ignore that,’ it’s very hard to ignore the public editor.”
The Washington Post / Margaret Sullivan
Of course Washington is plagued by leaks. That’s a good thing.
“It is not the publishing of these secrets that threatens national security. Publishing these secrets threatens the secret-keepers. It protects the public interest by letting us know what powerful people are doing when they think no one is looking.”
The Washington Post / Erik Wemple
“Every story feels like a fire hydrant — it gets passed from dog to dog, and no one can let it go by without changing a few words”
A particularly piquant description of The New York Times’ editing process, currently undergoing cuts and changes.
Columbia Journalism Review / Brendan Fitzgerald
A nonprofit newsroom rescued its local newspaper; now it wants to expand
“For the Progress, the partnership was a way to sustain its reporting as it faced a nebulous future. For Charlottesville Tomorrow, the partnership meant ‘a seal of credibility,’ says Wheeler.”
BuzzFeed / Charlie Warzel
Twitter’s pro-Trump bot crisis is really a human crisis
“…while the numbers sound substantial, the true effect these bots have on political discourse is still incredibly hard to quantify. And focusing on Twitter’s bot scourge is an enticing but partial explanation for a far more difficult problem.”
ESPN / Rich Cimini
Is this the first newsworthy bit of circular eyewitness video from a pair of Snapchat Spectacles?
Of some sort of dispute involving a couple New York Jets players.
Digiday / Lucinda Southern
Vice UK and The Telegraph join Snapchat Discover ahead of UK election
“The Telegraph, a right-leaning daily broadsheet, will publish at least a 10-snap story at 5 p.m. each day, with an emphasis on election coverage that will be supplemented by sport, lifestyle, entertainment and international news. Discover already has two U.K. tabloid news publishers, The Sun and Daily Mail.”
Nieman Lab is a project to try to help figure out where the news is headed in the Internet age. Sign up for The Digest, our daily email with all the freshest future-of-journalism news.