A time before Wordle: Newspapers used to hate word puzzles
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Tuesday, February 22, 2022
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A time before Wordle: Newspapers used to hate word puzzles“They get nothing out of it except a primitive sort of mental exercise.” By Louis Anslow. |
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In a bid for new reader revenue, Quartz launches a membership for Africa“Quartz Africa will be aimed not only at readers on the continent, but also readers in the African diaspora and investors and entrepreneurs around the world who are interested in Africa.” By Sarah Scire. |
What We’re Reading
The Atlantic / Jeffrey Goldberg, Adrienne LaFrance, and Denise Wills
Maria Ressa is joining The Atlantic as a contributing writer →
“Ressa, the co-founder and CEO of Rappler, will write for The Atlantic about democracy, press freedom, and the social web.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Lauren Harris
Inside The Marshall Project’s local reporting collaboration in Cleveland →
“The Testify team has worked to ensure that their data is available to the people for whom it matters most: those intimately connected to Cleveland courts. ‘If it is not accessible to residents who are involved in the court system, or who have family members involved, or who have the opportunity to vote in races [for judicial candidates], it's nice, but it's performative in a way.'”
The Washington Post / WashPostPR
The Washington Post has created a new Democracy Team for more election coverage →
“The new Democracy Team will include three newly created reporting positions based in Georgia, Arizona and the Upper Midwest that will cover how local and state officials navigate the politicization of the election process, while also tracking legislative and legal battles over voting rules and access to the polls.”
Twitter / Katie Robertson
The Wall Street Journal will not mandate “a broad office return” →
Staff at the Journal were apparently told that team leaders would figure out “hybrid and flexible” work arrangements for their respective groups.
New York Post / Josh Kosman
Private equity firms Standard General and Apollo acquire local TV giant Tegna →
“Tegna — spun off from newspaper giant Gannett in 2015 as a separate, publicly traded company — operates 64 TV and 2 radio stations across 54 U.S. markets.”
Substack / James Fallows
The New York Times needs a public editor again →
“[In a recent interview with Clare Malone, Dean Baquet] waves off outside critics of the Times's approach to politics: ‘I could care less about the unnuanced voices on Twitter.’ This last dismissal matters because it was on Baquet's watch that the paper abolished its ‘Public Editor’ position, claiming it was no longer necessary because social media would play that same role.”
The Objective / Anissa Durham
Resilience is an unfortunate requirement for emerging journalists of color →
“To be resilient means to overcome difficulties with swiftness. As I start to run out of my resilience, a future in journalism seems less and less feasible.”
Solutions Journalism Network/The Whole Story / Lyndsey Gilpin and Paola Jaramillo
How a bilingual media partnership is meeting local needs in North Carolina →
“Enlace Latino NC and Southerly are producing solutions-oriented stories, resources and events for rural Spanish-speaking communities.”
Study Hall / Zachary Siegel
Life on the drug beat →
“I've been on the drug beat for over five years now, and the experience has turned me into something of a crusader, trying to dislodge drug journalism from the sensational crime vertical and inject (no pun intended) empirical rigor and moral humanity into news coverage.”
The Washington Post / Cat Zakrzewski
Facebook whistleblower alleges executives misled investors about climate, Covid hoaxes in new SEC complaint →
“One complaint alleges that climate change misinformation was prominently available on Facebook and that the company lacked a clear policy on the issue as recently as last year, despite Facebook executives' committing to fight the ‘global crisis’ during earnings calls. A second, companion complaint argues that while Facebook executives were publicly touting their efforts to remove harmful Covid misinformation, internal documents ‘paint a different story.'”
The Guardian / Helen Davidson
Journalists’ group “dismayed” by treatment at Beijing Winter Olympics →
“The FCCC statement listed a number of claims of intimidation, obstruction and harassment, including some that the IOC – widely criticized for granting the Games to a government accused of crimes against humanity – had dismissed as ‘isolated incidents.’"
The Associated Press / Tali Arbel
Howard gets $2 million grant to digitize Black newspaper archive →
“‘We will be able to go back and look at these archives and these newspapers and the way the Black press was covering the world and have a greater understanding of who we are as a society, who we were back then and who we are now.'”
The New Yorker / Clare Malone
CNN’s problems are bigger than Jeff Zucker →
How an upcoming merger at WarnerMedia could upend life at the cable news network.
Axios / Zachary Basu and Sara Fischer
Russian disinformation frenzy seeds groundwork for Ukraine invasion →
“U.S. officials have for weeks stressed that fabricating pretexts for aggression is part of Russia’s “playbook,” and that Kremlin-controlled media will play a key role in whatever justification Putin ultimately cites.”
The Guardian / Johana Bhuiyan
Donald Trump’s social media app launches on Apple store →
“[T]he former president's new social media venture, Truth Social, launched on Apple's App Store on Sunday, rife with errors, malfunctions, and looming questions.”
Scientific American / Tanya Lewis
How the pandemic remade science journalism →
“…one of the hardest lessons many other journalists and I learned while reporting on Covid is that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence — and that even advice from renowned public health authorities should sometimes be questioned.”
Poynter / Amaris Castillo
For Black women journalists, wearing #NaturalHairOnAir is a point of pride and resistance →
“The hashtag #NaturalHairOnAir…brims with pride and resistance, as Black female on-air journalists and meteorologists upload photos of themselves at work, in afros, cornrows, Bantu knots, braids, and more.”
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