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.

Poynter / Angela Fu

The Desert News is making money with a free monthly print digest of its best journalism →

“The free publication amasses the Deseret News’s best journalism from its various platforms and is delivered to 120,000 homes around Salt Lake City once a month. The Digest launched in September and has been profitable since October, publisher Burke Olsen said.”

What else we were reading on February 14

The New York Times / Dwight Garner

What was The Village Voice? →

“For many oddballs and lefties and malcontents out in America’s hinterlands (I was among them), finding their first copy of The Voice was more than eye-opening. Here was a dispatch from another, better planet. There was nothing else like it. It drove many to go into journalism, or to move to New York, or both.” —SS

The Times of London / William Turvill

The Guardian is braced for layoffs as online ad drought hits U.K. publishers →

“Guardian staff were told last week the Scott Trust, the charitable organization that owns the newspaper and its sister title the Observer, considers the current financial predicament as ‘beyond acceptable or sustainable.'” As digital ad sales have become less reliable, the Guardian has sought to bulk up digital reader revenue and the company announced in January it had raised a record amount of reader revenue in the United States. —SS

Axios / Sara Fischer

Messenger founder says he’s considering severance pay for laid off employees →

“Many” of The Messenger’s employees “had severance payments guaranteed in their contracts…The Messenger has already been sued in a class-action lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York by former employees a day after the company shuttered, claiming [The Messenger founder and CEO Jimmy Finkelstein] violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which requires large employers to give advance notice of major layoffs.” —LO

TheWrap / Natalie Korach

Daily Beast media newsletter is “likely dead” after editor-at-large departs →

“The Daily Beast put its scoop-driven media newsletter Confider on hiatus on Monday just weeks after editor at large Lachlan Cartwright — who steered the newsletter — departed the outlet.”

Current / Tyler Falk

Why NPR’s new podcast strategist sees opportunity after a turbulent year for the network →

“We grew up with a really unhealthy reliance on advertising and sponsorship. And that’s part of what put NPR through the last year that it had.”

Reuters

Most influencers fail to admit to advertising as required under EU law, study finds →

“The screening of 576 influencers showed that nearly all (97%) of them posted commercial content, but only 20% systematically indicated that it was advertising, the European Commission said it a statement.”

Reynolds Journalism Institute / Emily Lytle

How to work with a local artist to design merch for your newsroom →

“Fort Worth Report expects to make a $6 profit on each shirt after paying a base cost per shirt of $18.99 and selling for $24.99 on Spreadshirt. Saco Bay News also used Spreadshirt, making between $6.50 and $7 on each shirt sold for $26.99.”

Digiday / Sara Guaglione

Why New York Magazine’s The Cut is expanding at a time when many media companies are cutting costs →

“The Cut is expanding this year, adding four full-time editorial staff, verticals and inventory as it chases new and existing advertiser dollars.”

NPR / David Folkenflik

Journalists turn to picket lines as the news business ails →

Under president Jon Schleuss, the NewsGuild-CWA has “adopted an aggressive stance.” “When we were organizing at the L.A. Times and building the union we never thought we would go on strike,” Schleuss told NPR. “Now it’s completely changed. We realized that withholding our labor is essential to making sure that the boss knows that we have a seat at the table and we have a voice and we have a lot of collective power.”

Vanity Fair / Charlotte Klein

Forget A1. The most coveted “front pages” of The New York Times are now The Daily and its flagship newsletter The Morning →

“’Occasionally, ‘The Morning’ is responsible for more than half of an article’s online audience,’ [David] Leonhardt told me, with recent examples including Wirecutter advice on black tights and a politics story on how the cold weather was affecting the Iowa campaigns. But Leonhardt’s approach has raised questions about how the paper distinguishes between analysis and opinion—and whether Leonhardt, an institutional star, has more latitude than others to toe that line.” —SS

The New York Times / Kevin Roose

The year AI chatbots were tamed →

“My column [about a rogue AI] was probably the most consequential thing I’ll ever write — both in terms of the attention it got (wall-to-wall news coverage, mentions in congressional hearings, even a craft beer named Sydney Loves Kevin) and how the trajectory of A.I. development changed … I even heard that engineers at one tech company listed ‘don’t break up Kevin Roose’s marriage’ as their top priority for a coming A.I. release.” —SC