Guiding media innovators toward solutions, around the world
And the reasons why those lies make us blind to the true opportunities we have. Lie No. 1. The news we produce is valuable. The Truth: Not really, at least in economic terms. Once we publish the news, everyone has access to it. For example, take the headline, “Michael Jackson is dead.” The first news […]
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Freelance writers need to think like entrepreneurs One of the lessons we are learning from the corona virus is that the news is a commodity. Nearly everything you want to know about this disease is available online free, everywhere, all the time. In the language of economists, this kind of news product has little “exchange […]
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Reputable news sites reporting on the corona virus are being blacklisted by advertisers worried about “brand safety“. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that publishers are losing ad revenue because some advertisers are avoiding any sites that report on the corona virus. This blacklisting occurs even with public-service news or innocuous lifestyle pieces such […]
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The $2.2 trillion Coronavirus economic rescue package contains some elements that could and should benefit journalists and their media organizations. As Ken Doctor points out in Nieman Lab, the package gives incentives to news publishers both large and small to maintain their payrolls. Publishers and broadcasters with fewer than 1,000 employees are eligible for $350 […]
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The Associated Press and other news organizations have been using robots for several years to produce routine articles on finance and sports. Long before that, automated weather reports were being used by news agencies. All three of these types of reporting rely on structured databases with ample historical information that can be transformed into text. […]
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Note to readers: I wrote this blog post in November 2018, but it seems relevant today. Lots of people distrust the news media and lots of people distrust the government. And I am not just talking about the U.S. but Spain, the U.K., Italy, etc., etc., etc. This blog post started out as an explanation […]
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There is a place in hell where bad people go. In this place they are forced to watch PowerPoint presentations. But in the special place for the really bad people, a devil doesn’t just show the slides but reads them aloud, every word. Not long ago I attended a typical academic conference. Several dozen professors […]
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