What kind of stories are best at turning local news readers into subscribers? It’s hard news, not the soft stuff
▪ An analysis of billions of visits to a metro newspaper’s website finds that entertainment and sports stories might generate lots of pageviews, but it’s topics like government, transportation, and health that get people to pull out their credit cards.
With its new season, the podcast Scene on Radio takes on the news ➚
Tansa is pioneering a new model for investigative journalism in Japan
▪ “We need more media outlets like Tansa to be established — competing as rivals where necessary, but collaborating to invigorate journalism.”
The Minnesota Star Tribune will cut 15% of its staff — and may become a nonprofit ➚
These 16 new journalism jobs could help publishers “future-proof” their newsrooms
▪ Your next gig: “Senior editor, AI innovation”? Or “podcast social video editor”? Or “editorial director, newsroom engineering”?
How a veteran video games journalist went solo and built a sustainable business ➚
“Fueled by facts and receipts,” Sylvia Salazar explains U.S. politics for Latino audiences
▪ A Colombian engineer–turned–creator is building a loyal audience through bilingual explainers about American politics for Latinos.
With Monitor Local, The Maine Monitor expands to civic news — written by local residents — for rural counties
▪ The investigative nonprofit newsroom’s local reporting initiative relies on freelance correspondents to fill local news gaps in downeast and western Maine.
“You’ll need journalism so distinctive it has its own gravity”: New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger on how news organizations can stand up to AI companies ➚
Think the media’s biased against you? You probably think misinformation is too
▪ A new study finds that the same motivated reasoning and partisan instincts that make people see bias in mainstream news also shape how they perceive “fake news.”
A battle of the Stars looms in D.C.’s shifting media scene ➚
Micropayments for news have failed everywhere. Can they succeed in Kenya?
▪ Two big newspapers are leveraging mobile payments to offer day passes and access to articles for small prices. Is it working?
The emerging AI content licensing market puts news publishers in a “double bind,” a new report warns ➚
The Economist launches a dedicated ChatGPT app
▪ The app retrieves and visualizes polling data from The Economist’s Trump approval rating tracker.
Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country ➚
You couldn’t create a more anti-news internet if you tried
▪ What can behavioral economics add to the story of news decline?
As goes CBS Radio News, so goes the idea that news media should serve the public interest
▪ That the airwaves should be defined by more than a quest for profit was once a bipartisan view.
More than 340 local news outlets are limiting the Internet Archive’s access to their journalism
▪ McClatchy, Advance Local, Tribune Publishing and other major newspaper chains are restricting the nonprofit’s archiving bots.
James Murdoch buys up half of Vox Media, grabbing New York and podcasts, but leaving The Verge and SB Nation
▪ Is he buying The Hundred and leaving Vaulter behind?
Tech journalist Joanna Stern on leaving the Wall Street Journal and moving on to New Things
▪ “We’ve been describing it as tech journalism for humans who like fun.”