What We’re Reading

We keep an eye out for the most interesting stories about Labby subjects: digital media, startups, the web, journalism, strategy, and more.

BuzzFeed News / Megha Rajagopalan

Facebook failed to delete 93 percent of posts containing speech violating its own rules in India →

“But Equality Labs, a South Asian American advocacy group focusing on technology and human rights, said Facebook had made little progress on these issues in India — home to some 300 million Facebook users — including during India’s 2019 general election. The report’s authors, who studied 1,000 posts over the past year, stated that widespread doxxing of activists and journalists takes place on the platform.”

What else we were reading on June 13

Reuters / Jonathan Stempel

Tribune Co’s former executives reach a $200M settlement stemming from 2007 →

“Zell took Tribune private in an $8.2 billion buyout in December 2007 that saddled the Chicago-based owner of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun and WGN superstation with too much debt.”

CJR / Emily Tamkin

Here’s CJR’s first public editor piece, on CNN hosting Trump talking points →

“Guilfoyle has not worked as an economist. She has not crafted foreign or immigration policy. She is not an expert on Central America. What possible value, I wondered, were CNN’s viewers getting from watching Guilfoyle speak about this subject? If Cuomo wanted Trump talking points, couldn’t he have just played a clip of Trump himself?”

The Verge / Ashley Carman

All that’s missing is weather and traffic: Spotify has a new driver-friendly news and music playlist →

Still, 81 percent of Americans recently said they’ve listened to an AM/FM radio in their cars in the past month, versus 28 percent for online radio.

Knight First Amendment Institute

More than 200 researchers sign on to support a safe harbor for research on Facebook →

“The letter of support comes in the midst of ongoing negotiations between the Knight Institute and Facebook about the safe-harbor proposal. The Knight Institute sent a letter to the tech giant in August 2018 urging it to amend its terms of service to create ‘a safe harbor for certain kinds of journalism and research while appropriately protecting the privacy of Facebook’s users and the integrity of Facebook’s platform.'”

AdWeek / Sara Jerde

Here’s what Bustle Digital Group has planned for Mic’s relaunch →

Shanté Cosme, former executive editor of Complex Media, is Mic’s new executive editor. Mic will be tackling more social justice issues, events, and branded content.

Digiday / Kerry Flynn

Publishers have been playing more with Twitch and maybe even making money off of it →

“As the Amazon-owned live video platform grows its sales team, publishers like The Washington Post, Cheddar and BuzzFeed have invested in creating specific shows catered to the platform over the last year. Publishers said Twitch is useful not only as a way to grow audience numbers but also to learn from a community that’s quite active in the comments. Publishers also can benefit from Twitch’s direct monetization options including in-stream ads and subscriptions.”

Medium / Jennifer Brandel

Hearken and the Membership Puzzle Project are building a citizens agenda for 2020 coverage →

“This is not putting out one questionnaire that goes to 500 people, and calling it audience involvement. This means planning ahead, bringing the public into the process of your journalism and story production, evaluating the success of your outreach efforts to reach new audiences, establishing real metrics so you can determine where you’re succeeding and what to adjust.”

Twitter / Yoel Roth

If you want to research state-backed fake Twitter accounts, here’s a giant corpus of data about them →

“By making this data open and accessible, we seek to empower researchers, journalists, governments, and members of the public to deepen their understanding of critical issues impacting the integrity of public conversation online, particularly around elections.”

FiveThirtyEight / Jay Boice and Gus Wezerek

How good are FiveThirtyEight forecasts? →

“Until now we’ve been spotty about letting you know whether our predictions were any good, sometimes leaving that task to other publications. With this project, we’ve created a single place where we hope you’ll come back as we add future forecasts and help keep us honest.”

FRONTLINE

Need some funding and guidance for your local newsroom’s investigation? Frontline wants to help →

“Through the Local Journalism Project, FRONTLINE will partner with reporters affiliated with local print, television, radio, or digital news organizations to carry out in-depth investigative projects on subjects of local relevance. The initiative will support four to five such projects annually over the next four years. Applications are now being accepted.”

Reuters / Douglas Busvine

Business Insider and eMarketer are merging →

“The news comes as private-equity house KKR readies an offer to buy out minority shareholders in Axel Springer for 63 euros a share, supporting its main owners who want to take the company private and pursue long-term growth.”

Digiday / Aditi Sangal

The New York Times’ deputy off-platform editor Millie Tran on platforms and private sharing →

“BuzzFeed is really great at executing. They launch fast, learn quickly and pivot. The New York Times is good at long-term strategic planning, slower to execute but very thoughtful when they do.”