Do news organizations call racist things racist now? It’s still a mixed bag
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Tuesday, October 11, 2022
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Do news organizations call racist things racist now? It’s still a mixed bagSaying Democrats want to give African Americans money as thanks for all the crimes they’ve committed against white people — is that racist? Or still just “racially charged”? By Joshua Benton. |
What We’re Reading
Financial Times / Alex Barker and Alistair Gray
U.K. publisher Reach blames the queen’s death for a big drop in ad revenue →
“In the first sign of how the mourning period affected UK media groups, Reach said print advertising plummeted almost a third while digital revenues fell 8 per cent during September, the month of the funeral. The hiatus in advertising was the latest financial setback for Reach, which was hit by a strike early last month before it struck a pay deal with staff to avert further industrial action.”
The Verge / Richard Lawler
CNN has ended its big NFT project Vault by CNN →
Vault by CNN lasted 16 times as long as CNN+
The Washington Post / Philip Bump
How much of right-wing opposition to vaccination was Fox News’s fault? →
“In places where vaccine uptake was lower — which correlates to support for President Donald Trump in the 2020 general election — Republicans died at a much higher rate than they did before the pandemic, a gap that primarily emerged in the months after the vaccine became widely available.”
Puck / Matthew Belloni
The dark legacy of Nikki Finke →
“Finke presented herself as a no-bullshit reporter who kept Hollywood moguls honest, and we all found her copy completely irresistible. But she perverted the profession by blackmailing sources, often targeting the weak, and weaponizing the internet to push her bile — and her own agenda.”
The New York Times / John Koblin and Benjamin Mullin
Is there a future for late-night talk shows? →
“Streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have taken a crack at talk shows, but with little success. The shows — whether through an opening monologue or an interview with a celebrity who has a movie premiering soon — depend on topicality, something that has not quite translated to streaming.”
Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt
How Tortoise podcasts became the most profitable part of the “slow news” startup →
(Maybe not the absolute best sign for a subscription-driven business?) “Former Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones president [Katie] Vanneck-Smith told the Publisher Podcast Summit in London on Wednesday that although Tortoise began life in 2019 by focusing on articles that could take 25 to 30 minutes to read, they realised ‘it wasn't working’ because people were only spending about four minutes with them on average.”
The New York Times / Katie Robertson
News on America’s statehouses, but with a twist: all 50 at once →
“What happens in Sacramento or Albany or Austin today happens in 25 states next year and then federally after that.”
The New York Times / Ryan Mac, Sheera Frenkel, and Kevin Roose
Skepticism, confusion, frustration: Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse struggles →
“Some Meta employees have complained about frequent strategy shifts that seem tied to Mr. Zuckerberg's whims rather than a cohesive plan.”
The New York Times / Kashmir Hill
Kashmir Hill spent a ton of time in Facebook’s Metaverse, pray for her →
“When I revealed I was recording, people would sometimes shout, ‘She's a fed!’ and run away.”
The Guardian / Amanda Meade
The case of Lachlan Murdoch v. Crikey trial could test a new defamation defense in Australia →
“‘It is either true or untrue that Rupert Murdoch, members of the Murdoch family who control these global media conglomerates and Lachlan Murdoch have not disavowed the lies about the US presidential election,’ Hodge said.”
The Fix / Veronica Snoj
Five ways independent news media get around censorship in Russia →
“One of the most widespread ways to circumvent censorship are mirrors, site replicas that have different URL addresses than the original website but host identical content. Links to mirrors can be found in most Telegram channels of Russian independent media outlets and usually follow the phrase ‘read without VPN [virtual private network].'”
The Washington Post / Sarah Ellison
How a Las Vegas newsroom set out to solve a colleague’s killing →
“Over four breakneck days of relentless reporting, the staff of the Review-Journal would essentially crack the case, delving into [Jeff] German's old reporting and doing their own on-the-ground detective work to identify a surprising suspect, who is now behind bars, facing murder charges. ‘If this had happened to one of us,’ David Ferrara, an editor and writer, told The Washington Post, ‘Jeff would have worked his tail off on every aspect of it. That was part of the reaction: Let's do the best we can, because he would have done that for us.'”
Press Gazette / William Turvill
A new Canadian law could force Google and Facebook to pay news media $329 million a year →
“The total…would cover around 30% of publishers' editorial costs, a report from the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) said. Canada looks set to become the second country after Australia to pass a law forcing certain digital platforms to negotiate cash-for-content deals with news publishers.
The New York Times / Richard Sandomir
Al Primo, who created the “eyewitness news” style of local TV, is dead at 87 →
“In a format that he developed in Philadelphia, brought to New York City and then helped spread nationwide, Mr. Primo strove to make his news teams seem like on-air families that viewers could relate to at 6 and 11 o'clock. He did away with the staid, usually white anchorman delivering the news and switched to two anchors, often a man and a woman. He sent reporters into the field (after learning that he did not have to pay them extra if they left their newsroom desks) and assigned them to beats, as newspapers do.”
The Guardian / Daniel Hurst
Would journalists at foreign-owned outlets in Australia face jail for exposing war crimes? →
“[Australia’s] broadly worded laws ‘have the capacity to criminalise legitimate journalism’ and should be amended to protect public interest reporting, according to a press freedom policy paper published by the University of Queensland (UQ).”
Press Gazette / Tom Harper
How News Corp sacrificed journalists’ sources to save the company →
“In 2011, the owner of the News of the World (News Corp) made the unprecedented decision to hand over millions of internal emails to the Met Police identifying sources paid for information by journalists…In his new book Broken Yard, former journalist Tom Harper investigates failings at the Met Police and sheds new light on actions by News Corp which many journalists still see as a shameful betrayal of journalistic values.”
The Guardian / Rebecca Ratcliffe
CNN “deeply regrets” the distress caused by its report on Thailand nursery killings →
“…after its footage of the building's blood-stained floor sparked a police investigation and a debate over how the media should cover such tragedies…Allegations the team entered without permission emerged after an image, shared on social media, showed the journalists climbing over a small wall and police tape to exit the nursery.”
New York / Olivia Nuzzi
Maggie Haberman and Olivia Nuzzi on covering Trump →
“It's not just that you're the shrink. You're the longtime shrink. You are the keeper of context — no one needs to brief you on a decade-plus of drama in order to help you understand the current situation. It's like when you go to find a new shrink and you have to spend all of this time giving your spiel, it's exhausting. The longtime shrink doesn't require that, and that is deeply appealing to the person sitting in the chair. I guess this is just an argument for beat reporting.”
The Washington Post / Ben Strauss
At The Athletic and New York Times, a marriage with promise and tension →
“Times sportswriters had worried to higher-ups that Athletic reporters, potential competitors, had been introducing themselves as Times journalists. One Athletic staffer, who had snapped a photo in front of the Times building in Manhattan and called it his new office, was asked to take it down.”
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