What one journalism school learned after taking over a rural weekly newspaper

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Thursday, July 27, 2023 [What one journalism school learned after taking over a rural weekly newspaper]( In the first 18 months, The Oglethorpe Echo added digital products, won awards, tripled advertising, and doubled subscriptions. An unmitigated success, right? It’s a bit more complicated than that. By Amanda Bright. [How one NPR podcast set in India preserves the use of Hindi]( What We’re Reading The Washington Post / Naomi Nix, Carolyn Y. Johnson and Cat Zakrzewski [Social media doesn’t fuel political polarization, according to new research →]( “The first results of that research show that [Meta’s] platforms play a critical role in funneling users to partisan information with which they are likely to agree. But the results cast doubt on assumptions that the strategies Meta could use to discourage virality and engagement on its social networks would substantially affect people’s political beliefs.” The Guardian / Elisabeth Ribbans [The Guardian’s editorial code has been updated – here’s what to expect →]( “The latest code is the most comprehensive to date, expanding on existing sections, such as right of reply, and elsewhere introducing new guidance, notably on artificial intelligence.” The Hollywood Reporter / Alex Weprin [This startup wants to create an AI-generated CNN →]( “Founded by producer and director Scott Zabielski (Tosh.0, The Jim Jefferies Show) and tech entrepreneur Adam Mosam, Channel 1 will launch this year with a 30-minute weekly show made available through a FAST channel, though the ambition is to produce newscasts customized for every user (Mosam says that next year they intend to produce between 500 and 1,000 segments daily) accessible via an ad-supported app or video platform.” Press release / Deep South Today Union [Deep South Today has unionized with NABET-CWA →]( “Deep South Today is the first Mississippi-based news organization to unionize. It also follows Mississippi Today’s first Pulitzer Prize in May, and the opening of its sister newsroom in New Orleans, Verite, in 2022.” Pew Research Center / Shradha Dinesh and Meltem Odabaş [8 facts about Americans and Twitter as it rebrands to X →]( “Following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, most highly active users continued to use the platform but posted less frequently, on average, according to a Center analysis of public tweets posted between January 2022 and April 2023.” The New York Times / Paul Mozur, Adam Satariano and Aaron Krolik [Russia’s online censorship has soared 30-fold during Ukraine war →]( “To compile its findings, Citizen Lab analyzed more than 300 court orders from the Russian government against Vkontakte, one of the country’s largest social media sites, demanding that it remove accounts, posts, videos and other content. Before the war, Russia’s government issued internet takedown orders to Vkontakte, known as VK, once every 50 days on average. After the conflict began, that number jumped to nearly once a day, according to Citizen Lab.” Poynter / Anya Schiffrin and Courtney Radsch [News publishers declare global principles for bargaining with Big Tech →]( “Even if publishers obtain collective bargaining rights, they don’t have a clear valuation of their product. Just how valuable is news on Google or Facebook? Should that value be determined by an economic assessment of the marginal benefits of referral traffic versus substitution traffic? And what data do policymakers, much less publishers, have in order to make such decisions?” Associated Press / Leah Willingham [Residents are at a loss after newspaper that bound community together shuts in declining coal county →]( “Because many older residents don’t use the internet, they are missing crucial information the newspaper would have reported on. A pandemic-era meal service for seniors was cut, and there was no easy way to inform residents. People who relied on the obituaries have struggled keeping up with loved ones’ deaths. ‘Now when people die, a lot of people don’t even realize they’re dead,’ said Deputy Magistrate Court Clerk Virginia Dickerson, 79, while on a break outside her office, watching coal trucks lumber by. Dickerson, who delivered the paper when she was growing up, said losing the paper was like ‘losing a family member.'” Press Gazette / Jim Edwards [The Independent drops ad “clutter” as revenue growth continues →]( “Page load speed is one of the often-abused measures in the news business, with many digital newsrooms historically favouring maximum ad load in the belief that maximum revenue will follow. The problem is that the more ad units you have, the slower the pages load. Readers sometimes give up and click away before a page is complete – and Google punishes websites whose pages load slowly.” The Verge / Makena Kelly [Elizabeth Warren and Lindsey Graham want to build a new agency to police Big Tech →]( “On the privacy front, the agency would guarantee users the right to know when companies collect their data. It would also limit targeted advertising, restricting it to data collected from user activity on-platform and leaving out information from outside services.” The Atlantic / Helen Lewis [The wrath of Goodreads →]( “If Amazon will not put the resources into controlling the wrath of Goodreads, then what fairness requires here is a strong taboo: Do not review a book you haven’t read. We should stigmatize uninformed opinions the way we stigmatize clipping your nails on public transport, talking with your mouth full, or claiming that your peacock is a service animal.” The Rebooting, Substack / Brian Morrissey [The pivot to events →]( “Events wouldn’t be attractive without the favorable economics. The margins on well-run events are high. They can be up to 75%. They’re possibly ‘the highest profit business models adjacent to journalism,’ as [Semafor CEO Justin Smith] puts it. And they’re a business not dependent on who has the best data to micro-target. Better to find areas where you’re not competing with Google, Facebook, TikTok, retail media and so on.” Axios / Sara Fischer [Entertainment and streaming giants team up to fight local broadcasters over distribution rules →]( “The last time the Federal Communications Commission took a hard look at the issue was nearly 10 years ago. The local broadcasters are now ramping up their push for the FCC and Congress to revisit the rule and modernize it. The programming companies and streamers want to keep the rule intact…The regulatory provision being debated forces traditional live TV providers, like cable and satellite firms, to negotiate directly with local broadcasters for distribution. Because streamers are not defined the same way as traditional video distributors, they are not subject to that rule.” The New York Times / Ryan Mac [Elon Musk’s quixotic quest to turn X into an “everything app” →]( “In Silicon Valley, the pursuit of an everything app has come up time and again as tech leaders have strained to expand their digital empires. Mr. Zuckerberg tried it. So did Dara Khosrowshahi, the chief executive of Uber. Evan Spiegel, the head of Snap, said he wanted to go for it, too. Yet those efforts fell short, with the tech executives unable to replicate the magic that has abounded in Asia with ‘super apps’ like China’s WeChat, Japan’s Line and South Korea’s KakaoTalk. U.S. tech giants have instead run into cultural differences, regulatory scrutiny and a splintered financial system that has made the quest to build such apps more difficult.” [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](