Digging for dung, unearthing corruption: This South African investigative nonprofit could help take down the president: The latest from Nieman Lab

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Wednesday, January 31, 2018 [Digging for dung, unearthing corruption: This South African investigative nonprofit could help take down the president]( “When you diamond-mine, you basically mess up the resource if you go for the best stuff first.” By Christine Schmidt. [Opinary is building new tools to help news orgs use polls to inform their coverage]( Can a widget’s worth of reader engagement lead to useful data — and maybe even money? “The whole idea is to give readers and communities a voice within journalism.” By Ricardo Bilton. [FactStream debuted live fact-checking with last night’s SOTU. How’d it go?]( What We’re Reading Vox Media / Jim Bankoff [Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff’s memo to employees on the state of digital media →]( “Quality at scale is a hard thing to accomplish, but we have…all of Vox Media’s properties grew their audiences by double-digits year-over-year off big bases: SB Nation (+31%), The Verge (+86%), Polygon (+61%), Vox (+21%), Eater (+26%), Racked (+42%), Curbed (+42%), and Recode (+33%).” Center for Cooperative Media / Dale Blasingame [How USA Today Network’s collaborative journalism project ‘The Wall’ shined a light on border security →]( “In total on its credits page, The Wall lists nearly 130 individuals who contributed to the project, including reporters, photographers, graphic artists, videographers and designers.” The Awl / Silvia Killingsworth [Felix Salmon, “Fusion money,” and floating upward →]( “What became of a ‘genuine attempt to reach a new demographic by a new kind of media company’? What was Fusion in the end? And why, especially if no one could really answer without brand-mediated digital mediasphere jargonspeak, did Felix Salmon stay on, re-upping his cushy contract?” Digiday / Sahil Patel [ABC News has more than 400,000 followers to its Apple News alerts →]( “When it comes to open rates for the alerts, however, Apple News lags ABC News’ own apps. ABC News app alerts have open rates that are consistently in the ‘double digits,’ while on Apple News, its open rates are between 2 and 5 percent, said Colby Smith, VP of ABC News Digital. This is because ABC News can send personalized alerts on its own apps based on user interests, past consumption, location and other factors. This is not an option on Apple News.” Journalism.co.uk / Madalina Ciobanu [How 13 HuffPost international editions worked together to cover pollution in eight languages →]( “There’s a different approach to storytelling in all these countries, so sometimes when we translate a piece, it’s also about contextualizing it to better explain some aspects.” Reuters / Paresh Dave [Google aims to get “diverse perspectives” into search results →]( “The latest changes address queries such as ‘are reptiles good pets,’ Danny Sullivan, Google’s public liaison for search, wrote in the blog post.” Poynter / Kristen Hare [Newsrooms welcome Facebook’s new local news emphasis, but remain wary of its effect →]( “In the course of the past month alone, local publishers noticed that their reach was dropping significantly, then were told outright by Facebook that it might all but disappear, and are now being told that their content will be prioritized in the News Feeds of people in their communities,” said Matt DeRienzo, executive director of LION. Digiday / Max Willens [Publishers eye push notifications in aftermath of Facebook News Feed changes →]( “At CNN, for example, the click-through rate on its app push notifications determines whether to move breaking stories to the top of its homepage or write more stories on a developing story.” The Wrap / Jon Levine [Vice Media fires chief digital officer Chris Germano after sexual misconduct allegations →]( “Germano had previously been suspended following a New York Times report in which two women accused of inappropriate behavior.” Vanity Fair / Maya Kosoff [Mike Cernovich is bidding $500,000 to buy Gawker.com →]( “For the past eighteen months I have assembled a video and audio crew who are talented at creating viral content,” Cernovich writes in the letter, addressed to Gawker bankruptcy plan administrator William Holden. “I also work with a network of independent journalists. Since Gawker has brand recognition, a blog with a high page rank, and two large social media accounts, my team will be able to leverage these properties to continue my journalistic work.” BuzzFeed / Alex Kantrowitz [Twitter is sending more clicks to publishers as Facebook sends less, new data shows →]( “In October 2017, Facebook sent 4.7 visitors to publishers for every one visitor Twitter sent, according to data from SocialFlow, a publishing tool used by approximately 300 major publishers, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Since then, referrals from Facebook declined and those from Twitter rose. This month, Facebook is sending just 2.5 visitors to publisher sites for every one sent by Twitter, essentially cutting the lead in half. SocialFlow’s data spans 10.1 million social posts and 2.8 million clicks.” [Nieman Lab]( / [Fuego]( / [Encyclo]( [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](//niemanlab.us1.list-manage.com/vcard?u=dc756b20ebb9521ec3ad95e4a&id=d68264fd5e)