Recode’s annual media conference, Code Media, took place in California on February 13 and 14, and featured speakers like The Washington Post’s Marty Baron and Stratechery’s Ben Thompson. You can find links to watch video of each of the panels in the posts here, but among the highlights for journalism folks:
— Fake news watch: Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of software and services, declared that tech companies have to take responsibility for fake news: “Since the majority of news is being read through devices and services through devices, I think we all have a responsibility for it.” Apple’s worked to keep fake news off Apple News. (Cue also briefly mentioned podcasts, as Nick Quah noted yesterday.) Facebook’s VP of partnerships Dan Rose, meanwhile, repeated things the company’s said before: It’s “just getting started” tackling fake news, launching projects like this one. (Rose also skirted the question of whether Facebook is a media company: It’s a platform “where people discover a lot of media content,” never mind that many of them also think of it as a news outlet.) Philip Schindler, Google’s chief business officer, noted that “it’s often very hard to draw the line…between fake news and bad journalism.”
"If people want to share stories that have been disputed as fake news that is their prerogative." Dan Rose #facebook #codemedia
— Laurie Keith (@lauriekeith) February 14, 2017
#codemedia moderator: Isn't FB a media company?
Dan Rose: "We understand it's not as simple as saying we're just a technology company."— Patience Haggin (@patiencehaggin) February 14, 2017
and there it is. @karaswisher asks Google about 85% of growth in industry going to Google and Facebook. Answer was complete crap. #codemedia https://t.co/O7pYdrtgMP
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) February 15, 2017
— Marty Baron, editor at The Washington Post, said the paper needs proof that Trump knows he’s lying before it will call a lie a lie. “We should call things false when they’re false. Lie suggests you knew the person knew it was false. If we have evidence of that, we would use that term.” (That’s similar to the position outlined by Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker in a recent media panel at Harvard.)
Ideal modern journalist? @PostBaron's thoughts #codemedia pic.twitter.com/tAFGQ3osHZ
— Saba Hamedy (@saba_h) February 14, 2017
Baron: The internet has been a mess for media, but the most important, fundamental gift it has to offer “is free distribution.” #codemedia
— Tess Townsend (@Tess_Townsend) February 14, 2017
— Ben Thompson of Stratechery on his successful subscription model: “People underestimate the scale of the internet. Certainly I work hard, but the amount of work I’m doing today is the exact same amount of work I was doing three years ago. The only difference is my income is 100 times higher. And it’s because that $10 scales, and it scales very, very well.”
Find panel videos and coverage here.
