Автор: mediamedia

📝 JOURNALISM: “Unlawful interference”. No regrets for prediction on midterms. Guilty to conspiracy to foreign collusion by calling for sanctions on Beijing and Hong Kong.
#mediaweek, vol.3

1️⃣ UK police review finds the arrest of four journalists covering Just Stop Oil protests in November could be “unlawful interference” in freedom of expression / PressGazette

2️⃣ Reporters Without Borders sues French media regulator Arcom for letting satellite operator Eutelsat continue to broadcast three Russian channels / Bloomberg

3️⃣ UK government refuses a measure that would have given judges the power to dismiss legal cases brought against journalists if the judges found them to be strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP) / Guardian

4️⃣ None of the major US media outlets that predicted a “red wave” at the midterms regret the prediction or seem to be holding discussions on improving the coverage / Washington Post

5️⃣ Six ex-Apple Daily staff, including its EIC and publisher, plead guilty to conspiracy to foreign collusion by calling for sanctions on Beijing and Hong Kong / DW

💰 MEDIABUSINESS: Shrinking of Buzzfeed. India is the third podcast market. Who are the Smiths?
#mediaweek, vol.2

1️⃣ Detailed report on Buzzfeed from PressGazette. For example, time spent on its content dropped every quarter since Q3 2021, costs remain greater than revenues / PressGazette

2️⃣ Podcast network Luminary launches in India, which PwC says is the third largest podcast consumer market at 56.7M monthly listeners / Variety

3️⃣ Some investors raise concerns that a merger with Fox would undervalue News Corp. And they are ready to vote against merger / NYT

4️⃣ Substack sees an opportunity in Twitter’s chaos and offer the authors Bestseller badges (like a blue mark on Twitter) / Poynter

5️⃣ The Athletic plans to double its coverage of professional women’s sports through a multiyear partnership with Google / Axios

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Longread: A profile of Justin Smith and Ben Smith — the founders of new media Semafor. Poiltico founder Robert Allbritton calls Semafor “Axios for FT people” / CJR

💣 TOP OF THE WEEK: The fall of crypto exchange FTX is a big media story as well.
#mediaweek, vol.1

What’s going on: The third largest crypto trader’s platform FTX collapsed a couple of weeks ago. Sam Bankman-Fried (the founder of FTX) was a hero, but became a zero in a day. Almost $1 billon of FTX clients funds missed. And it appears that nobody expected this.

Why it is matter: The problem is — nobody expected the collapse, almost everyone was pretty sure (or ambivalent) about FTX. Media wrote about Bankman-Fried, made a profile of him and his product. And missed everything.

What’s now: Media are going to deal with this news.

— Amazon and Rousso brothers plan to shoot an eight-episode limited series about FTX fall next spring.
— The author of «Moneyball» Michael Lewis are going to sign a deal with Apple about his book, covering FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried.
— The Information and Vice Media will do the documentary about FTX. «SBF and the End of Silicon Valley» will be delivered in Q2 2023.

The news about FTX gave birth to a lot of stories:

— In May 2022 Elon Musk wanted Bankman-Fried to add $100 millions to help him to buy Twitter. And now Kara Swicher calls Elon Musk «my greatest disappointment».
— New media of ex-Bloomberg media CEO Justin Smith — Semafor is under the fire for staying mum about whether it will return the now-bankrupt crypto firm’s money.
— In late September, the Sequoia Capital website published a long, meandering profile of Sam Bankman-Fried called «Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex — And Maybe You Should Too». And no correction has been made after the FTX collapse.

What’s next: It’s complicated. Because someone wrote that FTX scam is not the end of crypto. But someone wrote that the crypto bubble is already bursting. But in terms of media this story is a great opportunity. It is even bigger then story of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes (sentenced to prison «with a minimum security» for 11 years).

💡 WEEKEND NEWS. Bob Iger comes back as Disney CEO. BBC ignored open ceremony of World Cup. Elon Musk has reinstated Donald Trump. A «license to kill» from Biden.

‼️ Bob Iger will come back and replace Bob Chapek as Disney CEO. «The Board has concluded that as Disney embarks on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation, Bob Iger is uniquely situated to lead the Company through this pivotal period» / THR

👍 BBC ignored the entire open ceremony of World Cup in Qatar in favour of a broadcast criticising the treatment of migrant workers, highlighting corruption at Fifa and discussing the ban on homosexuality in Qatar. And that was just in the opening two minutes / Guardian

🆘 Elon Musk has reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account after users on the social media platform voted by a slim majority to lift a ban on the former US president (51% vs 48%). «The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei» / Elon Musk

🤔 Kara Swisher told on CNN that Twitter “absolutely” could collapse under Elon Musk’s leadership / Mediaite

😲 Washington Post slams the White House decision to grant immunity to Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jamal Khashoggi’s case. The newspaper called the immunity — «license to kill» / Washington Post twitter

💁🏻‍♂️ Times group managing editor Craig Tregurtha is stepping down as group managing editor of The Times and Sunday Times after 10 years in the role and leaving News UK after 25 years / Press Gazette

📊 Data and analytics platform DoubleVerify: Global digital content consumption continues to soar —55% of people report spending more time each day consuming content now than they did pre-pandemic / WNIP

🇨🇦 Parliamentary hearings for Canada’s Online News Act (aka «Techs, pay for using our news and giving us the traffic») restarted on Friday, where the committee was expected to begin clause-by-clause consideration / CJR

🔬 All the most important news from the week November 14-18 in 5 big issues of MediaWeek:

1. Top of the week — Protocol (aka «Politico for Tech») shuttered on Tuesday.

2. Mediabusiness — Podcasting is profitable, Forbes could cost ~$800M, Morning Brew is laying off.

3. Journalism — US are going to investigate reporter’s death in Palestine, NPR opens Kyiv bureau, Facebook won’t fact-check Trump.

4. Cases — Bloomberg Media is using AI to translate its video. German daily newspaper plays games with the audience. Footballco wants to earn money on FIFA World Cup

5. Analytics and Opinions — Young Americans do not like FM radio. How to earn on newsletters. Social media marketing trends for 2023.

On Monday there will be a short issue of Weekend News, and next Friday — MediaWeek.

Have a nice weekend! @mediamedia_en

🤔 ANALYTICS AND OPINIONS: Young Americans do not like FM radio. How to earn on newsletters. Social media marketing trends for 2023.
#mediaweek, vol.5

1️⃣ A new study shows more young Americans are listening to news, podcasts, and audiobooks than ever. Nearly all of that growth comes from listening on digital devices like phones, computers, smart speakers, and internet-connected TVs — and not AM/FM radio / Nieman Lab

2️⃣ Podcasts and newsletters: 5 similarities and 1 huge difference: Both podcasts and newsletters are very individual media. Hosts are a big draw in podcasts and newsletters. Podcasts and newsletters creating superfans. The rest is in WNIP / WNIP

3️⃣ In a survey conducted by WAN-IFRA earlier this year, 82% of publishers said they planned to launch at least one newsletter in 2022, 66% were looking at launching between one and five, and 12% were considering more than 10. And how do the plan to build engagement and grow revenue? / WNIP

4️⃣ 50% increased open rates with a real person as a sender. The case of Dennik / The Fix

5️⃣ Hootsuite unveils top social media marketing trends for 2023: Google, who? Social search optimisation emerges as a make-or-break skill for marketers / Hootsuite

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Opinion: «It is only by ignoring the torrent of low-quality information that people can focus on applying critical search skills to the remaining now-manageable pool of potentially relevant information» / Joshua Benton for Nieman Lab

💡 CASES: Bloomberg Media is using AI to translate its video. German daily newspaper plays games with the audience. Footballco wants to earn money on FIFA World Cup.
#mediaweek, vol.4

1️⃣ Bloomberg Media is using artificial intelligence (AI) to translate and “localise” its video content for Spanish-speaking audiences in the US and Latin America. They use Papercup, which was founded in 2017. Papercup is already a partner of Sky News and Insider, and previously worked on a project with the BBC Africa Eye team. Clients of Papercup upload their videos on to the service, choose a target language and then receive a translated version / Press Gazette

2️⃣ Der Tagesspiegel, one of the most popular German daily newspapers, has built an immersive, in-person game with the hopes that players walk away with an understanding of how their local governments work (and possibly pique their interest in participating in the real thing). As part of its local news coverage, Tagesspiegel has 12 daily newsletters; one per district in Berlin. In a city with roughly 3.5 million residents, Tagesspiegel has between 300,000 and 400,000 subscribers across the dozen newsletters / Nieman Lab

3️⃣ How to monetize FIFA World Cup? Have a look at Footballco‘s strategy. It has acquired three more football publications in the years since it was sold by Dazn. And that will help them to earn ads money. That’s simple. But also they develop print magazine Mundial that they bought early 2022. Now it has more then 25 000 subscribers. Another way to earn money — is subscription. Footballco wants to almost double the price — to £60 by adding more things to that subscription package / Digiday

📝 JOURNALISM: US are going to investigate reporter’s death in Palestine, NPR opens Kyiv bureau, Facebook won’t fact-check Trump.
#mediaweek, vol.3

1️⃣ US DOJ opened an investigation into the fatal shooting of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Oficial Israel calls the probe a “grave mistake”. Abu Akleh’s supporters accuse Israel of intentionally killing the 51-year-old / AP

2️⃣ NPR News plans to open a Kyiv bureau led by international correspondent Joanna Kakissis for more “consistency and depth” in covering the war / Radio Ink

3️⃣ Steven Ginsberg, a longtime editor at The Washington Post, will start as editor of sport news media The Athletic in January / NYT

4️⃣ The Boston Globe announces NPR SVP for News Nancy Barnes will be its next editor, succeeding Brian McGrory on February 1 to become the first woman in the role / Boston Globe

5️⃣ Facebook’s fact-checkers will need to stop fact-checking former President Donald Trump following the announcement that he is running for president. Because “political speech is ineligible for fact-checking” / CNN

💰 MEDIABUSINESS: Podcasting is profitable, Forbes could cost ~$800M, Morning Brew is laying off.
#mediaweek, vol.2

1️⃣ The consortium in exclusive talks to buy Forbes Media includes investment firms GSV Ventures and SUN Group (India), and the deal would value Forbes at ~$800M. By the way, SUN Group has been in talks with Forbes about a potential deal for years / Axios

2️⃣ The editor of the UK’s Tortoise says podcasting is profitable for the slow news publisher and the “bedrock of everything we do”, despite huge investment costs / Press Gazette

3️⃣ Kelsey Darragh, former staffer of BuzzFeed doing a documentary about BuzzFeed. The filmmaker say they plan to track BuzzFeed’s “rapid ascent and dominance in the early days of viral video,” but it’s not all clicks and soaring traffic / Variety

4️⃣ Newsletter Morning Brew is laying off 14% of its staff. CEO Austin Rief says the cuts are due to “a lot of fear and uncertainty” in the economy which is spooking advertisers / Max Tani

5️⃣ The Financial Times launched Fashion Matters, a weekly newsletter on the intersection of business, culture, politics and style. FT fashion editor Lauren Indvik will be the editor of the new project. She was the founding editor-in-chief of Vogue Business / FT

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Interview: Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner on expanding Politico to foreign capitals by adding 100-150 staff (and nothing about Protocol that was closed this week) / NY Magazine

🫠 TOP OF THE WEEK: Protocol (aka «Politico for Tech») shuttered on Tuesday.
#mediaweek, vol.1

What’s going on: Protocol, that was launched by former Politico owner and publisher Robert Allbritton in February 2020, shuttered this week and going to lay off dozens of staffers. The news organization ceased publishing on its website on Thursday. Flagship newsletter, Source Code, will continue publishing for several more weeks, but all other newsletters stoped.The site’s roughly 60 staffers will be let go after Dec. 16 and will be eligible for eight weeks of severance.

What is Protocol: As Allbritton said, Protocol is like a Politico but about the technologies. «We start completely from the scratch, we do not enter the market with something ready-to-use. No one in the technomedia world talks about this topic in terms of people, power and politics». He wanted to replicate Politico’s successful model for the technology industry.

Tim Grieve (Protocol EIC) wrote in the welcome letter back in 2020: «We’ll focus on the people, power and politics of tech, with no agenda and just one goal: to arm decision-makers in tech, business and public policy with the unbiased, fact-based news and analysis they need to navigate a world in rapid change».

The problems of new media started from the very beginning — just after 2,5 months the owner of Protocol fired 13 persons (including journalists).

In August 2021 Axel Springer bought Politico and Protocol as well. That acquisition resulted in Protocol, which had operated independently, being folded into Politico Media Group. Protocol will again fall significantly short of revenue goals in 2022. And the outlook for next year looked grim, given the worsening economy and battering the technology industry has endured in recent months.

What’s next: Nothing. But something is going to change in Politico. Politico will beef up its tech coverage. And without Protocol Politico US and EU will combine to form one operational company with a single executive team. Claire Boussagol, CEO of Politico Europe, will leave the company.