While We Weren’t Looking, Snapchat Revolutionized Social Networks

The NYT reporting: 

While Silicon Valley was shunning editing and curation done by humans, and instead relying on computers to spot and disseminate news, Snapchat began hiring producers and reporters to assemble clips into in-depth pieces.The company calls these Live Stories, and they have been transformative, unlike any other news presentation you can find online. Every day, Snapchat offers one or several stories about big and small events happening in the world, including football games, awards shows and serious news.

For instance, this summer, while the rest of the media were engulfed by Hurricane Trump, Snapchat’s news team spent days following the devastating floods in Louisiana. That in itself was unusual, but Snap’s presentation was also groundbreaking: Rather than showing the overhead shots or anchor stand-ups that are conventional on TV news, Snapchat offered video from inside people’s houses, from shelters, from schools. It mixed the macrostory of an impending natural disaster and the government’s response to it with the microtragedies of personal loss, and even the lighter moments of humor and boredom in between.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/technology/while-we-werent-looking-snapchat-revolutionized-social-networks.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_tu_20161202&nl=bits&nl_art=1&nlid=59435537&ref=headline&te=1

Jay Rosen argues for evidence based journalism, against accusation led reporting: 
"If you are evidence-based you lead with the lack of evidence for explosive or insidious charges. That becomes the news. If you are accusation-driven, the news is that certain people are making charges. With the details we may learn that there's no evidence, but the frame in which that discovery is made remains "he said, she said." (See my 2009 post about that.) "
https://storify.com/jayrosen_nyu/evidence-based-vs-accusation-driven-reporting?utm_source=API+Need+to+Know+newsletter&utm_campaign=c681c44bba-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-c681c44bba-31701933

Political journalism changed in 2016

CNN reporting: The traditional model of "he said, she said" journalism, in which news reports simply put both sides of a story against one another, was thrown out the window in favor of a more aggressive journalism that sought to prioritize accuracy over balance.To many journalists, political scientists and media experts, this was a welcome change: It unburdened the American press from false equivalency and made them more responsible stewards of information. To critics, especially on the right side of the political spectrum, the whole endeavor laid bare the innate biases of a coastal, liberal news media.

New Report Looks at Optimal Hashtag Use on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook

Social Media Today reporting:
The commonly stated best practice for hashtags on Twitter has been two, with research showing that engagement drops significantly once any more than two hashtags are used, on average.
...The commonly stated best practice for hashtags on Twitter has been two, with research showing that engagement drops significantly once any more than two hashtags are used, on average.
...TrackMaven found that nine hashtags is the optimal amount for boosting engagement on the platform...

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/new-report-looks-optimal-hashtag-use-twitter-instagram-and-facebook?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%20Weekly%20Roundup:%20Social%20Media%20Today%2010-22-2016&utm_term=Social%20Media%20Today%20Weekender

Why NYT sends push notifications for major stories that are not breaking news

Last month, The New York Times announced it was splitting its push notifications into two categories: breaking news and top stories. Michael Owen explains that while some readers still have an expectation that they’ll only be interrupted for breaking news, NYT has found value in sending alerts for stories other than breaking news: “We’ve discovered that both as a way of amplifying our work and as a way to engage people, and get them into the app, there’s actually a pretty big appetite for things that are not breaking news. We’ve found that many people do want the sort of bread-and-butter New York Times stuff of investigations and major enterprise.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/public-editor/whyd-you-do-that-how-the-times-decides-to-send-news-alerts.html?utm_source=API+Need+to+Know+newsletter&utm_campaign=de7490d456-Need_to_Know_August_26_20168_26_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-de7490d456-31701933

Looking to compete with digital media, Time Inc. will phase out the ‘publisher’ position

API reporting:

You might have heard: Earlier this month, Time Inc. announced “major” executive level changes (Advertising Age), reorganizing its leadership as it looks for “something of a resurgence” (New York Times)

But did you know: The job title “publisher” will soon no longer exist at Time Inc., Keith J. Kelly reports. Instead of publishers, Time Inc. will be divided into four groups, each with an editorial director who will “be charged with finding new ways to work together to grow our audience and our business across brands.” Those four groups include news, sports, lifestyle, and celebrity, entertainment and style. Kelly writes that with the change, Time Inc. is betting that phasing out the “publisher” role will make it easier to compete in the digital media world, without eroding the print base that’s still essential to its revenue.

https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/need-to-know/off-the-top/looking-compete-digital-media-time-inc-will-phase-publisher-position/?utm_source=API+Need+to+Know+newsletter&utm_campaign=de7490d456-Need_to_Know_August_26_20168_26_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-de7490d456-31701933

theguardian reporting

News publishers would have stronger rights to demand payment from digital giants such as Google and Facebook in exchange for using their content, under proposed European rules that are designed to shore up the collapsing revenues of traditional media companies.

The measures are part of a series of reforms that the European commission plans to put out to consultation in September. They are designed to strengthen the rights of those who create and invest in original content, from authors and musicians to record labels, broadcasters and publishers.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/25/eu-proposals-could-see-news-publishers-paid-by-google-and-facebook

The Wall Street Journal is changing up its paywall, offering guest passes and expanded link-sharing on social

Niemanlab reporting: Now the Journal is trying to make its paywall neither stricter nor leakier, but bendier. It’s now testing 24-hour guest passes for non-subscribers, an offer that pops up when readers access a story shared by a subscriber or a Journal staffer. (If you don’t enter your email address, you just get to read the one story.) Down the line, the Journal may also be testing other time increments for the guest passes.

http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/08/the-wall-street-journal-is-changing-up-its-paywall-offering-guest-passes-and-expanded-link-sharing-on-social/

5 Steps to Execute Metrics That Matter

Mediashift reprting:
Poorly tracking your metrics is almost worse than not tracking them at all.
http://mediashift.org/2016/07/5-steps-to-execute-metrics-that-matter/?utm_source=API+Need+to+Know+newsletter&utm_campaign=b86e0339ef-Need_to_Know_July_12_20167_12_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-b86e0339ef-31701933

5 reasons why publishers should consider developing a news app

Journalism.co.uk reporting: News apps have not delivered the returns that were promised five years ago to publishers, with news organisations still struggling toentice readers into engaging with them – or even downloading their apps in the first place. ..

But Kaldor argued that this is about to change and listed five developments in technology that are making it more viable for publishers to create apps that work better for their brand and their audiences.1) Content consumption on mobile devices has soaredAs more people continue to search for editorial content on the move, publishers now have more of an opportunity to engage audiences via apps.

https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/5-reasons-why-publishers-should-consider-developing-a-news-app/s2/a637050/

Facebook, Facing Bias Claims, Shows How Editors and Algorithms Guide News

NYT reporting: SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook, the largest social media network, published internal editorial guidelines on Thursday, the company’s latest attempt to rebut accusations that it is politically biased in the news content it shows on the pages of its 1.6 billion users. The 28-page document details how both editors and computer algorithms play roles in the process of picking what should appear in the “Trending Topics” section of users’ Facebook pages.Facebook describes a list of processes it uses to display some of the most popular content across the network, including relying on algorithms to detect up-and-coming news trends as well as a team of editors who, much like a newsroom, direct how those topics are presented and decide what should be displayed to people who regularly use the service.As the guidelines make clear, at practically every point in the process, a human editor is given the leeway to exercise his or her editorial influence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/technology/facebook-guidelines-trending-topics.html?_r=0

theguardian reporting:

“We’re learning that the time people choose to spend reading or watching content they clicked on from News Feed is an important signal that the story was interesting to them,” said software engineer Moshe Blank and research scientist Jie Xu in a post on the company’s website.As a result, the site will now attempt to pick links which have a higher reading time. But don’t think that you’ll have a News Feed filled with 30,000 word New Yorker epics. “We will also be looking at the time spent within a threshold,” the pair said, “so as not to accidentally treat longer articles preferentially.”...The change is the latest example of Facebook tweaking the News Feed in ways that it hopes will encourage users to spend more time on the site. Last summer, it put a similar change in place when it came to posts on the site, promoting the posts which were read for more time even if no links were clicked. And in 2014, it changed the algorithm to penalise “clickbait” – links which users opened then immediately closed. “We learned that this often happened when the article someone clicked on wasn’t what they had expected from the post or the headline,” Blank and Xu wrote.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/22/facebook-algorithm-change-pieces-people-actually-read

'The pageview is antiquated': How Purch is trying to measure true reader impact

digitoday reporting:
Like a lot of publishers, Purch used to measure its success by looking at metrics including pageviews, pageviews per visit and repeat visits over a 30-day period. Now, using a combination of Google Analytics and technology created by its eight-person business intelligence team, Purch devised a score based on three metrics: how far the reader scrolled; if they clicked on the article or page; and most important, did they take an action such as signing up for a newsletter, sharing an article or clicking to buy a product.
http://digiday.com/publishers/pageview-antiquated-purch-trying-measure-true-reader-impact/

100th Pulitzer prizes announced

Poynter reporting:

The AP won the gold medal in public service for its investigation series entitled "Seafood from Slaves" about the Southeast Asian fishing industry. The series helped secure the freedom for more than 2,000 slaves. It is the 52nd Pulitzer won by the AP.The Washington Post was recognized for its enterprise work on police shootings in the United States. The Post won the Pulitzer for "Fatal Force," a project that detailed the number of deadly police shootings throughout the country last year."Fatal Force" created a database detailing the 990 people who were shot dead by police in 2015.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/18/media/pulitzer-prizes-2016/index.html

Don't miss: Five key insights into online video consumption habits

the mediabriefing reporting:

The Online Video Forecasts claim that just over half (52.7 percent) of all video will be consumed on mobile devices in 2016, while Ooyala's latest Global Video Index demonstrated that 46 percent of all video plays in Q4 2015 were on mobile devices.And Statista predictions demonstrate that the number of people in the US who are consuming video on mobile devices is set to increase still further in the US alone, let alone the emerging markets:

https://www.themediabriefing.com/article/don-t-miss-key-insights-into-newspaper-subscription-models-in-the-us

Key insights into newspaper subscription models in the US

themediabriefing reporting: Metered models are, by some margin, the most popular digital subscription system used by American news publishers. “Of the 98 newspapers we looked at, 62 papers used meters,” Williams observed, “which is nearly three times as many as those [21 papers] not requiring a digital subscription.”In contrast, just three titles – The Wall Street Journal, Honolulu Star-Advertiser and Newsday -  used a hard paywall, where a subscription is needed to access most content on the website. The other 12 papers that Williams analysed harness a freemium offering, which means that most of the content is available for free, with only “premium” material requiring payment.
https://www.themediabriefing.com/article/key-insights-into-newspaper-subscription-models-in-the-us

'Not the dinosaurs of print': Funding journalism in the digital age

journalism.co reporting:

Jane Singer, professor of journalism innovation at City University, noted that as well as the free titles, the 'elite' press, such as The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and the Guardian, will survive as long as its approach changes towards favouring more longform content such as analysis and interpretation."There is an elite audience that will continue to want a print product, but it is becoming much more like a magazine – the format is changing," said Singer.The Times has just significantly updated the way in which it delivers online journalism on its website and smartphone apps.These new products favour in-depth analysis rather than "the flim-flam of passing news" which can be found online elsewhere."What we don't want to do is knock out the kind of quality journalism that we produce in favour of quick wire stories which, frankly, you could find updated somewhere else," said Sarah Baxter, deputy editor of The Sunday Times, speaking on the panel.The digital platforms still include global breaking news, but focus on providing more longform content, updating in editions around 9am, 12pm and 6pm when there is a spike in readers.https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/-not-the-dinosaurs-of-print-funding-journalism-in-the-digital-age/s2/a624426/

For France's Libération, Facebook Instant Articles drives a 30 percent increase in time spent

digiday reporting:
As an experiment, French political publisher Libération has spent the last two months publishing each of its 150 daily articles to Facebook Instant Articles. It turns out, people like reading articles there...
According to Facebook’s analytics, the time spent on articles has increased 33 percent to 4 minutes 40 seconds. Grangier ventures this could be because readers prefer the format of Instant Articles, or because pages load faster so they stick around for longer.
http://digiday.com/publishers/facebook-instant-articles-leads-30-percent-increase-time-spent-liberation/

How Fortune draws from 5,000 outside contributors

digiday reporting:
Lest it repeat the mistakes of others, Fortune solicits and edits the opinion pieces itself, using a team of five. The expert advice comes from invitation-only communities of people whom Fortune has put on an editorial list like Most Powerful Women or have attended one of its conferences. Of the 120 posts a day that get published on Fortune.com, only about seven are contributed. At Harvard Business Review, by contrast, the vast majority of the site’s content comes from outside contributors.
Fortune’s approach naturally limits its ability to grow its audience. Fortune had 11 million unique visitors in February, up 33 percent over a year ago. But it still lags other business news sites, including Forbes at 40 million, Business Insider at 46 million and Yahoo Finance at 78 million.
http://digiday.com/publishers/fortune-hopes-avoid-platform-publishing-pitfalls/