Forget the link tax. Focus on one key metric to “save local news”

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Thursday, November 30, 2023 [Forget the link tax. Focus on one key metric to “save local news”]( “You need Google to stay in this. Otherwise, it devastates the entire industry.” By Ken Doctor. [So who are the consistent news avoiders?]( “No single variable is more predictive of whether someone consistently avoids news than their level of interest in politics and civic affairs.” By Benjamin Toff, Ruth Palmer and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. What We’re Reading Rest of World / Russell Brandom [The war in Gaza is reshaping moderation rules →]( “In a recent talk with the Atlantic Council, a member of Meta’s independent Oversight Board gave new details about the weeks immediately following the October 7 attacks. As part of its arrangement with Meta, the Board receives appeals from the company or its users when a moderation decision is believed to be false, or simply raises issues the company can’t resolve. But in the three weeks after the attacks, the board received 20 times more appeals than usual, according to board member Julie Owono.” The Wall Street Journal / Salvador Rodriguez, Sam Schechner, and Meghan Bobrowsky [Threads to launch in Europe in December →]( “The launch represents Threads’ largest market expansion since its debut in July and signals the social-media company’s commitment to the microblogging service, which rivals that of Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter.” NPR / David Folkenflik [NPR names new podcast chief as network seeks to regain footing in a crowded field →]( “People who are looking for news and information on topics are just facing a really confusing mix,” said veteran audio executive Collin Campbell. “You can’t sort between the output of a group of journalists that have the goods and have the boots on the ground, and a bunch of people [simply] talking about it. We have to really look at ways to stand out and show what we do and how we do it.” (See: [Are public media podcasts facing a “Moneyball” moment?]( Poynter / Deborah Caldwell [“Local media must reclaim the religion beat” →]( “Religious folks haven’t gone away. They are still the engines of community awareness, activism and political organization.” The Washington Post / Taylor Lorenz [Substack is rolling out a suite of new video creation and editing tools →]( “The focus on video signifies a shift in Substack’s business model — and a sign that the platform may now be forced to compete for talent with video-focused social media behemoths like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. It also puts Substack in direct competition with platforms like Patreon that allow users to charge subscriptions for a wide variety of content formats.” Semafor / Max Tani [MSNBC cancels Mehdi Hasan’s show →]( “Hasan will become an on-camera analyst and fill-in host. The network plans to expand host Ayman Mohyeldin’s weekend program to two hours to replace Hasan’s show.” The Verge / Jacob Kastrenakes and Mila Sato [Elon Musk tells advertisers: “Go fuck yourself” →]( “I hope they stop. Don’t advertise,” Musk told interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin. “If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is.” Grist / Rachel Glickhouse [Grist releases new dataset on U.S. tribal jails to journalists and the public →]( “We now have the exact locations of all U.S. tribal jails and detention centers, information that, to our knowledge, has never been made public before.” The New York Times / David Sanger [Henry Kissinger always tended to his image, even when it came to his obituary →]( “He wrote voluminous memoirs for the same reason Churchill did: He wanted be the first to cast his role in the best possible light, omitting almost all of its ugliest moments. His mistake was living so long that reams of his old memos and diplomatic cables were declassified, including those that revealed his most vicious acts. Yet one could not help but admire how he thought constantly about the new challenges that did not fit the world he once knew.” Substack / Richard J. Tofel [A hard look at news sustainability, and what’s required from both newsrooms and funders →]( “From the point of view of the news ecosystem (or of funders and others concerned about it), a focus on building sustainable newsrooms should significantly help set the funding agenda, including in ways that are not occurring right now, at least in my view.” Pew Research Center / Michael Lipka and Elisa Shearer [Audiences are declining for traditional news media in the U.S. – with some exceptions →]( “Overall, digital traffic to newspapers’ websites is declining. The average monthly number of unique visitors to the websites of the country’s top 50 newspapers (based on circulation, and including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post) declined 20% to under 9 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, down from over 11 million in the same period in 2021, according to Comscore data. The length of the average visit to these sites is also falling – to just under a minute and a half in the last quarter of 2022.” The Guardian / Rob LeDonne [“Almost like election night”: behind the scenes of Spotify Wrapped →]( “Wrapped, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2024, has come a long way in the intervening years. ‘It started as a marketing campaign without any type of digital component,’ says [Spotify head of global marketing experience Louisa] Ferguson of what was originally called Year In Music. ‘Then it expanded with an external microsite, and the following year we took it in-app.’ Since then it’s experienced ‘exponential growth.'” Press Gazette / Dominic Ponsford [Uncertain times have been good for Dow Jones, a rare 2023 publishing success story →]( “News Corp’s US financial news division has just reported the best quarter financially since Rupert Murdoch bought Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal for $5bn in 2007.” Discourse Blog / Jack Crosbie [The ghosts of websites past →]( “If you browse around the sea of media properties long enough you will find many floating hulks of publications gone by, drifting listlessly as ghost ships or manned by a skeleton-crew of raiders who have repurposed them to trawl for the diminishing returns of SEO traffic or ecommerce kickbacks.” [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. 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