The media world in general shed more than 830 jobs in a brutal month for media, tech and finance.
When people want to make the case that journalism matters, they often begin with perhaps the most foundational and least controversial idea: that people rely on professionally produced news about public affairs to make decisions that shape the social and democratic wellbeing of communities. And it’s undeniably true. For decades, research has shown that news media play this vital role, for societies and for individuals — that when people follow the news, they are more likely to be informed, vote, engage in their communities, and so on. What’s not to like? Well, apparently a lot, it turns out.
Among other remarks, the organizations’ joint statement said: “Meta – a nearly trillion-dollar company – repeatedly chooses to restrict news content for its users to avoid compensating news producers for the value it gains on their vital journalism. These retaliatory tactics demonstrate Meta’s monopolistic dominance over the advertising marketplace and its ability to dictate how radio and TV broadcasters, newspapers and others can reach audiences online.”
Each year, NiemanLab asks some of the smartest people in journalism and media what they think is coming in the next 12 months. At the end of a trying 2022, here’s what they had to say.
Many stations opt for local content instead of syndicated programming, but doing news isn’t easy.
NBC Bay Area / KNTV today announced in a press release the expansion of its weekday news programming with the addition of a 30-minute newscast at 4:30 p.m., beginning September […]
Exclusives
Meta Platforms said Thursday that most of people “do not come to Facebook for news, and as a business it doesn’t make sense to over invest in areas that don’t align with user preferences.”
News and sports programming are a significant factor in keeping consumers tethered to cable and satellite subscriptions in an era rife with cord-cutting, said Andy Forssell, general manager of HBO Max, while speaking Thursday at an investor conference hosted by Barclays. But the way those formats are presented will likely have to change for streaming viewers, he said.
In an interview as she prepares to step down as news division head, Susan Zirinsky said, “I feel I have given my entire soul into rebuilding this organization.”
Can a fragile media ecosystem survive the pandemic? With the misinformation emanating from the Trump White House, the need for reliable, widely-accessible information and facts is more urgent than ever. Yet the economic shutdown created by the spread of COVID-19 promises to decimate advertising revenue, which could doom more digital news outlets and local newspapers.
In 2017, News Viewing Rose, Sports Fell
Obsession with politics propelled news viewing, already a sizable portion of live and same-day TV universe, to a 12% gain in 2017 compared with 2016. Sports programming, once thought to be impervious, declined 6% last year even when the Rio Olympics are taken out of the year-to-year comparison. The findings are contained in a new report by Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser.
Facebook is working on a new tool that could help drive subscriptions to news organizations that publish articles directly on the online service, an effort to improve the fraught relationship between the social giant and media companies. The tool would be added to Facebook’s Instant Articles product, which allows publishers to post news articles that can be read within Facebook rather than on the publisher’s website.
Borja Echevarría, VP and editor-in-chief for digital at Univision: “It’s impossible to understand the future of this country if you don’t understand it bilingually. It makes no sense for us not to look at both languages.”
The overwhelming trend for TV stations has been to add morning newscasts earlier, not later. However, Sunbeam’s Boston ABC affiliate plans on bucking the trend by adding an hour of news from 9 to 10 a.m. beginning in September 2011.
‘NewsHour’ Embraces New Media Mindset
The long-running PBS newscast made a decision last year to be more aggressive in acquiring news from the field and to provide a full-blown, multimedia news service. To implement the strategy, NewsHour rebuilt and relaunched its website and tore down the walls between its broadcast and online staffers. “We need to be your one-stop shop for very high quality news journalism on a daily basis,” says Simon Marks, associate executive producer. “And we don’t care how you come to us.”
