Media industry news you may have missed while you were busy
testing edibles.
We’ve got two week’s worth of links to catch up on, but first, some Sponsored Content:
Today is the last day to apply for a scholarship to join us in Nashville, which gets you free admission plus up to $500 in travel/hotel expenses, leaving extra money for you to spend on hot chicken and bourbon. The fact that you’re interested in the news industry enough to willingly spend a portion of your Friday reading this means that you 1) Occasionally make questionable life choices, and 2) Are probably a pretty good candidate for a scholarship. So go on and apply now, and while you are doing that, we’ll be over here aggregating links.
- “Mobile is eating the world, and most news organizations make only a pittance off it.” Joshua Benton on the scariest chart for newspapers.
- Facebook explains why organic reach is decreasing:
As Facebook has grown and mobile has made it easier for brands and users alike to post to Facebook, the sheer number of posts created and shared on the platform has drastically risen. The byproduct of this growth has been less user attention on individual posts, though. Boland’s explanation frames decreased organic reach as a supply and demand issue: Since there’s a fixed amount of space in users’ news feeds (consumption demand) and an abundance of posts (supply), it only stands that not every post will make into a user’s news feed. The explanation makes sense but it also implies that organic reach will continue to fall as Facebook continues to grow. Some marketers fear that organic reach will eventually hit zero, making Facebook an entirely pay to play ad platform.
- CJR’s Ryan Chittum on reader revenue and the great newspaper ad bubble.
- “Blame journalists for lame journalism, not social media, Internet, or the ‘economy of journalism,'” says Erik Wemple.
- Amy Westervelt says “content” is the “best/saddest story of how fucked up media is today.”
- Why LadyBits is leaving Medium.
- What we can learn from the scroll behavior of internet users.
- This week’s best story tag: “When you finally meet God she will make you defend your Chartbeat.”
- The journalism industry hasn’t been very good at developing good managers.
- Ken Doctor says Aaron Kushner is swerving the OC Register all over the freeway.
- Longform journalism startup Byliner is in trouble and says its future is unclear.
- How internet comments shape perceptions of sites’ quality—and affect traffic.
- How the recession affected jobs in newsrooms and publishing.
- How minority employment at newspapers has stalled.
- How to get more girls into coding.
- Procter & Gamble aims to buy 70% of digital ads programmatically by the end of the year.
- Corey Hutchins makes a case for Voxsplaining the local news.
- And finally, stop sharing that photo of “antisocial” newspaper readers, says former City Pages editor Kevin Hoffman:
What you are seeing in that picture of “antisocial” people reading newspapers is actually an eminently social activity: citizens keeping themselves informed so they can participate in the civic discourse of their community.
Jason Zaragoza knows you’re wondering when the AAN Awards finalists will be announced, and the answer is: June 16.
