How A/B testing became publishers’ go-to traffic builder →

“Abramson said she’s likely not done with journalism, and is working with Steve Brill on a startup whose goal would be to do ‘killer journalism…offering great journalists real money that they can live on.'” —JB

“[Nate] Silver, 36, is tweaking the site to draw more traffic and advertising. Bleacher Report, owned by Time Warner, said last month FiveThirtyEight was struggling to attract both.” —JB

“That’s against a 2013 base of $17.30 billion industrywide in daily print advertising or $23.57 billion including all form of advertising…Gannett’s advertising decline to date (-6.3 percent) roughly matches the industry rate in 2013 (-6.5 percent). So 2014 is proving no better than 2013.” —JB

“At The Denver Post, page views from the end of March until the end of June showed that Facebook accounts for about 3 percent to 6 percent of weekly page views. Twitter accounts for about 1 percent to 2 percent. By far, the biggest driver is direct [visits], while Google accounts for about 18 percent to 21 percent of traffic.” —JB

“Once the sale is completed, Wrapports LLC would continue to publish only the Sun-Times daily tabloid and the Reader free weekly, according to insiders. Tribune Publishing, parent company of the Chicago Tribune and nine other newspapers nationwide, would acquire the Aurora Beacon-News, the Elgin Courier-News, the Lake County News-Sun, the Naperville Sun, the Northwest Indiana Post-Tribune, the SouthtownStar, and the 32 weekly newspapers published by the Pioneer Press.” —JB

“Not quite a one-way publishing megaphone, a “platisher” serves as both an editorial product with a paid staff and a platform where anyone with an Internet connection can self-publish. In Thought Catalog’s case, you could simply e-mail in an article and a producer would post it on the site as soon as a few hours later, without any editing.” —CO

“Years later, in a conversation about Trayvon Martin with another boss, I said something like, ‘Racism is real.’ My white boss came back with an answer that still astonishes me: ‘But you don’t experience racism, right? I mean, you’re attractive and educated — I can’t imagine that you would ever experience racism.'” —CO

This is intended to make hip young people want to work at the German publisher Axel Springer. (Also.) —JB

Someday soon, we will all work for Bloomberg or Fusion. —JB

“They are, in most respects, the best iPads ever made. But for average users, they represent only a modest evolutionary improvement over last year’s models, not the kind of big change that the first iPad Air or the Retina display iPad mini did last year.” —JB

“Bradlee roamed the building, prodding the production and advertising departments as well as the newsroom. He wanted to make things much better — now. He wasn’t always right, but he helped Kay get a far better understanding of where the Post’s problems lay.” —JB

“Sitting in the back of the room with me and few others, Ben would ask us to look over everyone in front of us, asking “Who do you think won’t be here next year?” Ben’s guesses were always right.” —JB

More Ben Bradlee pieces: Washington Post obit, New York Times obit, Time remembrance, Obama statement, WaPo roundup. —JB

“‘They said I would never go to China and I did,’ Nixon declared. ‘They said I would never call Ben Bradlee’s house, and I just have.'” —JB

“Jack Kennedy was many things when he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 1961: a glamorous figure, the youngest man ever elected to the office, the first Catholic president. He was also my friend.” —JB

A video tribute. —JB

“He was in his 90s, but he still looked like Ben Bradlee. He still sounded like Ben Bradlee. He reminded you that you were in a house built by your betters, that this was a place where real journalism got done, where legends still roamed. “ —JB

“His rakish persona was the real thing, seemed sprung from his marrow, as though somebody in his noble ancestral line had bedded (one of his favorite words) a pirate or gunslinger.” —JB