How can local news help inform voters? Here are a few good examples
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Thursday, September 15, 2022
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How can local news help inform voters? Here are a few good examplesNews organizations can help prepare voters as they head to the polls. By Richard Tofel. |
What We’re Reading
The New Republic / Colin Dickey
The Axios guide to writing well is neither smart nor brief →
"This is a book about boiling your content down to the fewest words possible, but the actual content is entirely up to you. If the authors are constantly exhorting you to ‘Be Smart!’ it's because they themselves cannot teach you smartness in Smart Brevity. You either are or you aren't."
Intelligencer / Shawn McCreesh
Everybody wants a raise at The New York Times →
"Suddenly there's talk — even among the grown-ups in the Washington bureau — about the one thing that could really cause the Times to run aground: a strike … ‘For a newsroom that's been pretty fractious lately, it's remarkable how much this has unified people. I've never seen it this tense or on the cusp before, and I've been here for more than 15 years.'”
Puck / Dylan Byers
Jim VandeHei, co-founder of Politico and Axios, on the “dos and don’ts” of digital media →
“Do realize you will fail if you do not have a firm, realistic plan for how to generate revenue immediately. Do realize you need to nail editorial and revenue and technology and marketing and get all four to work in synchronicity. Do realize superstar talent is hard to find — cherish and spoil the best ones.”
The New Yorker / Bill McKibben
How Vermont’s media helps keep the state together →
“If VTDigger is the meat and potatoes of Vermont news, Seven Days is the hoisin sauce, the charred brussels sprouts, the pint of highly hopped pale ale, the molten chocolate cake.”
Reuters / Filipp Lebedev
Russia revokes independent Novaya Gazeta’s last media license →
“Russia’s Supreme Court in effect banned Novaya Gazeta’s online version, days after a Moscow district court banned Novaya Gazeta’s newspaper and its sister magazine.”
Spotlight PA / Christopher Baxter and Sarah Anne Hughes
How one nonpartisan newsroom plans to cover the 2022 elections →
“Horse race” coverage is out. "Prebunking” — where news orgs educate and empower voters to better recognize lies, instead of chasing down every false claim — is in.
Poynter / Rick Edmonds
Traffic to local news websites has plummeted. What happens now? →
“Regional papers seem to be seeing the worst of it. Lauryn Warnick of Chartbeat told me that for their client base, which also includes magazines and broadcast sites, pageviews were down about 8.6% so far this year compared to the same period in 2021.”
Twitter / Kara Swisher
Financial Times / Olaf Storbeck
Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner used Bild tabloid to criticize Adidas without disclosing that he was the company’s landlord →
“In March and April 2020, Springer's flagship tabloid Bild published more than 20 articles chiding Adidas for a planned rent freeze during the first lockdown…during its campaign, Bild did not disclose that its group chief executive was an affected landlord of Adidas and the source of the initial story.”
Washington Post / Meagan Flynn
The word that won journalists a spelling bee against politicians? “Fartlek” →
“By the end of the night it was The Washington Post's Amy B Wang who emerged victorious, knocking out the reigning champ Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) after correctly spelling the word ‘fartlek’ … Proceeds went to the club's press freedom initiative, which includes efforts to free Austin Tice.”
Prism / Ashton Lattimore
Nonprofit newsroom Prism adopts a four-day workweek →
“As corrosive as the 24-hour news cycle has been to our collective attention spans and the quality of news in our country, it's been just as damaging to the journalists living and reporting on the day-to-day churn of news, much of it complex, difficult, and sometimes even traumatizing. At Prism, we couldn't imagine a better time for our newsroom to explore different ways of showing up in this moment.”
Los Angeles Times / Thomas Curwen
Henry Fuhrmann, LA Times editor and “word nerd” who fought for fairness in grammar, dies →
“No one had really paid too much attention to the hyphen. In matters of race and heritage — as in ‘African-Americans’ or ‘Italian-Americans’ — it was easily overlooked, an innocuous piece of punctuation that seemed to make sense. Henry Fuhrmann thought otherwise.”
Democracy Fund
How we know journalism is good for democracy →
Since 2018, The Democracy Fund has been tracking academic studies that show the impact journalism has on our democracy. They’ve updated their list for Democracy Day.
New York Times / John Koblin
CNN will overhaul its morning show to feature hosts Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow, and Kaitlan Collins →
CNN’s chairman Chris Licht called the revamped show "a mass appeal play." He also told the Times that “ratings are not the top priority. If CNN has a strong journalistic reputation, he can attract blue-chip advertisers.”
TechCrunch / Ingrid Lunden
Adobe will acquire Figma for $20 billion, taking out one of its biggest rivals in digital design →
“Design and prototyping, for individuals and teams, executed in a very streamlined and modern, cloud-based environment, are Figma's product strengths, and it's amassed some 4 million users to date.”
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