Some midterm polls were on target, but finding which pollsters to believe can be tough

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Tuesday, November 22, 2022 [Some midterm polls were on target, but finding which pollsters to believe can be tough]( The outcomes confirmed anew that election polling is an uneven and high-risk pursuit. By W. Joseph Campbell. What We’re Reading The New Yorker / Kyle Chayka [What fleeing Twitter users will — and won’t — find on Mastodon →]( “We don’t yet know what an Internet with less virality would look like, or whether it would be as compelling as what came before.” Press Gazette / Bron Maher [The two-year-old Substack-based Manchester [U.K.] Mill is now profitable →]( “The outlet, which publishes through newsletter platform Substack, now has 27,000 people in Greater Manchester on its email list and 1,600 paying subscribers. Meanwhile, its sister newsletters, the Liverpool Post and Sheffield Tribune, have reached 650 and 900 paying subscribers, respectively.” A Media Operator / Jacob Cohen Donnelly [We can’t depend on platforms anymore →]( “Please, for the love of everything, do not get me started on Mastodon. This is not going to become a new source of traffic for anyone.” Adweek / Mark Stenberg [How the Harvard Business Review, at 100, turned its own business into a case study →]( “Since launching a tiered subscription offering in 2019, the 116-person outlet has accumulated roughly 116,000 digital subscribers, more than one-third of its total subscriber base of 328,000 paying readers.” TechCrunch / Ivan Mehta [Indian social network Koo is gaining popularity in Brazil while facing moderation challenges →]( “…Local media reports pointed out that many users have already created fake profiles impersonating politicians like former president Jair Bolsonaro. The report noted that users have made profiles in the name of right-wing activist Carla Zambelli, who has been banned from all social media platforms. Koo’s own handles on Twitter are not verified, so it is easy to come across an impersonating account with thousands of followers and mistake it for an official account.” The Verge / Colin Lecher [The Markup found that tax filing websites have been sending users’ financial information to Facebook →]( “The data, sent through widely used code called the Meta Pixel, includes not only information like names and email addresses but often even more detailed information, including data on users’ income, filing status, refund amounts, and dependents’ college scholarship amounts.” Deutsche Welle / AFP [Apple Daily reporters plead guilty to collusion →]( “A group of senior publishers and journalists at the Apple Daily — a pro-democracy tabloid in Hong Kong — pleaded guilty to foreign collusion in a landmark case where the China-imposed national security law was used against a news organization and its staff.” Vanity Fair / Tom Kludt [“What the hell are we all doing here?”: Journalists are confronting moral dilemmas and coverage quirks at the Qatar World Cup →]( “It feels sort of like a country that’s being unboxed for a World Cup.” Bloomberg / Austin Carr [Elon Musk is running Twitter like a failing newspaper business →]( “Seen through a different lens, Musk is just the latest wannabe media mogul torturing his new plaything. Here in the news business, this is all perfectly normal. A controversial new owner of a once-mighty media empire who imposes draconian cost reductions, staff ultimatums and incessantly shifting priorities? These are the hallmarks of a classic leveraged buyout.” Axios / Sara Fischer [The Athletic will double its women’s sports coverage →]( “In addition to written articles, the Google deal will provide support for the expansion of women’s sports-focused podcasts and newsletters.” The New York Times / Joe Bernstein [Poynter is “in talks” to take over the Mastodon journa.host server →]( “Frequent topics on journa.host include the deficiencies of Twitter (hate-filled, attention-addled, ruled by an impulsive billionaire), the deficiencies of Mastodon (hard to use, lacking a quote-retweet function, boring), and journalists’ ambivalence about the transition.” Twitter / Eric Zuckerman [Eric Zuckerman, who was Twitter’s head of U.S. news partnerships, has left the company →]( Zuckerman had been at Twitter for seven years. [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](