digital news

In many smaller markets, it’s local TV stations’ websites — not newspapers’ sites — that are the dominant digital local news source, according to a new report from the Knight Foundation.

Apple is expanding the number of publishers that can serve ads into their Apple News articles using Google’s DoubleClick for Publishers after testing the option last year, according to five publisher and industry executives. An Apple spokesperson declined to comment on the record. The DFP move lets publishers take the direct-ads sold on their own sites and plug them into Apple’s app. That has the potential to address publishers’ Apple News monetization problems.

The chaos chronicled in the current era of 24-hour coverage on cable and the web is still no match for 1968, when TV brought political assassinations, street riots and a brutal guerrilla war into America’s living rooms. The extraordinary confluence of events riveted the nation and made anchors such as Walter Cronkite more influential than ever, helping to shape the current TV news business. At the same time, the polarizing issues covered in 1968 created a hostility toward the media that reverberates half a century later.

NBC News is launching a new home page for NBCNews.com, the first step in what it says is a “broad redesign” of all of its digital properties, including MSNBC.com, Today.com and its over-the-top video applications. The new homepage launched in beta Thursday afternoon.

Google today announced a multi-pronged News Initiative, which Chief Business Officer Phillipp Schindler described as a way to tie together all the company’s efforts to work with the journalism industry. Google says the News Initiative is focused on three broad goals — strengthening quality journalism, supporting different business models and empowering newsrooms through technological innovation.

After coming under fire for promoting fake news, conspiracy theories, and misinformation around events like the Parkland school shooting, YouTube says it will take a number of steps to fix the problem. But the Google-owned video platform still seems to be trying to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to being a media entity.

While Facebook Watch hasn’t taken off as a revenue source for publishers and the social network has deprioritized publisher content, YouTube offers something of a safe harbor for publishers that want to get into the video business.

The trolls are winning. How do we fix life online without limiting free speech?

Journalists at Tronc’s eight local newsrooms learned the day before Valentine’s that the company is launching big plans to get its editors and reporters pivoting to digital.

Twitter bots are not to blame — people seem to respond more strongly to false information.

Some advertising-technology companies have cut ties with Newsweek Media Group over concerns about fake website traffic, another blow to the company as it contends with a wider fraud investigation.

The deal for SheKnows Media’s network of female-focused sites and the BlogHer conference business is the latest acquisition for Penske Media, which recently bought a controlling stake in the owner of Rolling Stone.

Tegna has appointed Jenni Ryall vice president of digital content. She comes to Tegna from Mashable where she was VP of content strategy. She will report to Adam Ostrow, Tegna’s […]

Facebook will expand its “breaking news” label that’s being tested in the U.S. to more than 50 additional publishers in North America, Latin America, Europe and Australia. If the expansion is successful, Facebook says it may add more publishers.

Walt Disney Co. today named James Pitaro president of ESPN, tapping its consumer products chief to lead the struggling but profitable sports business into a new era of video streaming.

The social network is ending Explore, an experiment in countries like Bolivia and Cambodia where it had separated news and other publishers from its main site.

A Chicago alderman and former Democratic candidate for governor has announced plans to launch One Illinois, a statewide, nonprofit digital news outlet, in April. Billed as nonpartisan, the progressive news site clearly will be aimed at countering the conservative Illinois Policy Institute and Breitbart News, among others.

It’s collaborating with Independent Media’s The Outline on mobile-first storytelling and investigative content across platforms.

CNN President Jeff Zucker has joined the chorus asking tech and ad firms to help monetize news on mobile platforms. “Otherwise, good journalism will go away,” Zucker said in Barcelona.

The newspaper is working with production company Left/Right on what it describes as “an ambitious television news series that seeks to combine the range and authority of Times journalism with immersive storytelling, innovative visuals and best-in-class production values,”

Editor James Bennet promised a re-invention of the paper’s op-eds. It’s put him in the crosshairs.

Non-subscribers visiting WSJ.com now get a score, based on dozens of signals, that indicates how likely they’ll be to subscribe. The paywall tightens or loosens accordingly: “The content you see is the output of the paywall, rather than an input.”

After selling the Los Angeles Times, does the Tronc chairman really want to take on becoming the great consolidator of the American press, conquering once-mighty Gannett? Or will he exit the field — richer, but his ambitions humbled?

USA Today Sports Media Group, a subsidiary of Gannett Co., Mars Reel, a provider of premium coverage of the most exciting athletes and teams in high school basketball, have formed […]

The dual-revenue model of print advertising and home delivery subscriptions that historically sustained newspapers is fading. In its place, newspapers are pursuing new revenue growth through digital subscriptions. A new survey finds the weekly price of digital access for 100 U.S. newspaper sites ranges from $0.46 to $7.85. The median digital subscription price is $2.31 per week.

The national tabloid, Aftonbladet, owned by Scandinavian media giant Schibsted, has amassed 250,000 digital subscribers (at $7-$12 a month) since launching its digital subscriptions program in 2003, a lofty figure given Sweden’s population of 10 million. Aftonbladet made 255 million Swedish krona ($32 million) in profit in 2017, driven by both advertising and subscriptions, according to its latest financials.

A year ago, CNN was positioning itself as ready to take on Vice and BuzzFeed in the digital space. Now, the company is rightsizing as it prepares for AT&T’s embrace. It’s targeting big savings on the digital side, with as many as 50 jobs around the globe scheduled to be eliminated this week, according to people familiar with the matter, who noted the exact number could still be in flux.

Los Angeles Times Publisher and CEO Ross Levinsohn has been cleared of wrongdoing following an investigation into his conduct, and he will move into a new role within the paper’s parent company, chief executive of Tribune Interactive, a business unit that Tronc plans to form following the sale of the Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune to Los Angeles billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong.