What it takes to run a metro newspaper in the digital era, according to four top editors

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Monday, April 22, 2024 [What it takes to run a metro newspaper in the digital era, according to four top editors]( “People will pay you to make their lives easier, even when it comes to telling them which burrito to eat.” By Sophie Culpepper. [A new Mozilla report exposes major flaws in social media ad libraries]( What We’re Reading Press Forward [Press Forward announces first open call for funding, with applications launching April 30 →]( “Local news outlets that fill coverage gaps with original reporting – and have a budget under $1 million – will be eligible to apply for Press Forward funding. The Press Forward Open Call on Closing Local Coverage Gaps will provide 100-plus news outlets with an expected $100,000 each in funding, whether they are non-profit or for-profit entities. The funding will be unrestricted, general operating support, allowing the news organizations to spend it as needed to sustain and grow their operations.” Digiday / Krystal Scanlon [Inside X’s latest, desperate attempt to beguile advertisers →]( “Sure, marketers have heard this song before, especially since the social network fell into the eccentric billionaire Elon Musk’s lap about 18 months ago. And yes, the chances of advertisers changing their minds over advertising there are slim to none.” Reporters Without Borders [Russia has begun blocking the Reporters Without Borders website, days ahead of its release of this year’s World Press Freedom Index →]( “The censorship of the entire rsf.org domain site began on 18 April. The Russian authorities took this decision on 15 April without notifying RSF, which has never had a branch in Russia…RSF’s site has joined the more than 1.7 million URLs blocked in Russia, which include the sites of dozens of media outlets.” The Washington Post / Naomi Nix, Michael Scherer, and Jeremy B. Merrill [Big news orgs lost 75% of their Facebook engagement between Q1 2022 and Q1 2024 →]( Plus 58 percent of interactions on Instagram. “Meta spokesperson Dani Lever argued that the changes are a response to user feedback. ‘These changes are intended to impact what people see because that is what they told us they wanted — to see less political content and have more controls,’ she said. ‘This approach builds on years of work and is being applied to everyone.'” Washingtonian / Andrew Beaujon [Why did WAMU close DCist? →]( “The portrait that emerges is of a media organization in the throes of a dramatic reorganization that has tanked employee morale and baffled some faculty members and alumni of American University, which operates WAMU…As one staffer puts it, WAMU has ‘a garbage mess’ on its hands.” The Wrap / Stephanie Kaloi [New York state lawmakers passed a $90 million tax-credit plan for local news →]( “The bipartisan plan offers a statewide total of $30 million in credits each year for three years (a $90 million total commitment) that can be used to cover half of a journalist’s salary, up to $50,000 per year. Publishers are only allowed to use the credits, which are part of the state’s 2025 budget, if they both hire new reporters and keep their current staff.” Press Gazette / Clara Aberneithie [The Cool Down, a climate news site with an optimistic bent, is making big dollars off programmatic ads →]( “The publisher says its current revenue run rate is $5m per year, which it hopes to increase to $12m per year in 2025. [COO Ryan] Alberti said: ‘95% of our revenue so far has been from pure programmatic ads, I mean we didn’t even have a sales team until this month. But that is not our long-term model, our newsletter subscribers are.'” The New York Times / John Koblin [Americans’ new TV habit: Subscribe. Watch. Cancel. Repeat. →]( “More than 29 million — about a quarter of domestic paying streaming subscribers — have canceled three or more services over the last two years, according to Antenna, a subscription research firm. And the numbers are rising fast…a third of them resubscribe to the canceled service within six months, according to Antenna’s research.” The New York Times / Sam Roberts [R.I.P. Terry Anderson, the Beirut AP bureau chief held hostage for six years →]( “The kidnappers, identified as Shia Hezbollah militants of the Islamic Jihad Organization in Lebanon, beat him, blindfolded him and kept him chained in some 20 hideaways for 2,454 days in Beirut, South Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.” The Guardian / Margaret Sullivan [NPR needs a serious critique, not a politically charged parting shot →]( “It took only days from Uri Berliner’s publishing his fiery essay about his employer, NPR, to his suspension, to his resignation in a blaze of bad-faith glory. ‘You knew the martyrdom was coming,’ was how journalist Issac Bailey put it. And that’s a shame, because every news organization — National Public Radio included — could benefit from more self-scrutiny, more openness to criticism, more willingness to change.” The Verge / Allison Johnson [The future of AI gadgets is just…phones →]( “I love a gadget, but guys, I lived through the era of camera companies trying to convince us that we all needed to carry a compact camera and our phones everywhere. Phones won. Phones already come with powerful processors, decent heat dissipation, and sophisticated wireless connectivity. An AI gadget that operates independently from your phone has to figure all of that out.” The Washington Post / Will Sommer [Are some reporters putting Trump jurors at risk? →]( “The members of the jury are meant to be anonymous. But that effort has been undermined, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said from the bench, by media reports that mentioned potentially identifiable information about the jurors — ranging from their physical appearances to their occupations.” The Washington Post / Amber Ferguson [A history of CNN’s Laura Coates, who calmly narrated a self-immolation →]( “As police and paramedics rushed to the scene, as some people screamed and others stood in stunned silence, Coates launched seamlessly into a narration of the horror, her authoritative cadence never faltering.” The New York Times / Charlie Smart [Where jurors in Trump’s hush-money trial say they get their news →]( New York Post 1, Truth Social 1, New York Daily News 0. Jacobin / Ben Burgis [The Long Beach Post is union busting in broad daylight →]( “We’re talking about a newsroom where every single eligible worker signed a union card, where the effort enjoys widespread community support, and where the illegality of management’s tactics has been on full display. Even still, the Post’s workers have been on strike for almost a month and victory hasn’t yet been achieved.” The Verge / Emma Roth [Twitter alternative Post News is shutting down →]( “The publisher-focused platform is going away after less than two years.” Axios / Sara Fischer [CalMatters has acquired The Markup →]( “The Markup will continue to operate independently under the CalMatters brand, but there are already conversations underway about ways to align the brands’ products and resources over time, said CalMatters CEO Neil Chase.” Bloomberg / Souhail Karam [Tunisia jailed a journalist for criticizing the president on social media →]( “A first instance court sentenced Mohamed Boughalleb, 60, to six months in prison after a civil servant sued him for a social-media post questioning government spending on travel… Some 20 Tunisian reporters are currently facing trial for charges linked to their work, [Tunisian press union SNJT] says.” The New York Times / Jessica Testa [What is a magazine now? →]( “‘I believe it’s my responsibility to, like, make sure that young people still dream of being journalists,’ [Highsnobiety editor-in-chief Willa Bennett] said. ‘We just need to keep iterating and continuing to stretch what it means.'” The City / Gwynne Hogan and Tazbia Fatima [Columbia, home to a top journalism school, blocks reporters from campus as dozens of students are arrested →]( “In an email sent out Thursday afternoon to all Columbia students, faculty and staff, President Minouche Shafik said she had authorized the NYPD to enter the university — even as reporters were blocked from entering the campus to cover the arrests. “ Mother Jones / Alissa Quart [Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Bittman Project launch effort to reimagine recipes for “tough times” →]( “We wanted to try to address all of these issues through some recipes that try to get at the complexity, cost, and conscience involved in making our meals. And we wanted to do that while avoiding the pitfalls of condescending cooking initiatives like the ‘Blue Apron-style’ SNAP proposal of the Trump administration.” NPR / Kelly McBride [NPR’s public editor examines claims of bias over “the relentless focus on Gaza” →]( “There’s more coverage of Gaza because there’s more suffering in Gaza, because the story is changing daily in Gaza, because the humanitarian crisis is in Gaza and because the deaths of so many journalists in Gaza and the refusal of the IDF to let reporters travel freely in Gaza make documenting the complete story difficult, if not impossible.” [Nieman Lab]( / [Fuego]( [Twitter]( / [Facebook]( [View email in browser]( [Unsubscribe]( You are receiving this daily newsletter because you signed up for for it at www.niemanlab.org. Nieman Journalism Lab Harvard University 1 Francis Ave.Cambridge, MA 02138 [Add us to your address book](