Guiding media innovators toward solutions, around the world
CNN en Español, and one of its pioneers, celebrate an anniversary What follows is my translation of Ismael Nafría’s interview of Juan Andrés Muñoz, digital director of CNN en Español, on its 25th anniversary. The original interview, in Spanish, appeared on Nafría’s newsletter, Tendenci@s, on April 11, 2022. I have edited the original for length […]
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And other illusions that are not supported by reliable data There seems to be a natural human tendency to believe that people today are worse than people of previous generations. That people used to be polite and considerate and generous, but now they’re mean and cruel. Just look at all the crime, people say. And […]
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How recent articles have affected my thinking about the future of journalism One of my favorite recent articles was a newsletter post by Dick Tofel, former general manager of the investigative news site ProPublica. He asked the question, Time for local newspapers to go all-local? In other words, should local newspapers stop filling their web […]
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At ISOJ, stories of collaboration on viability, fact-checking, free expression The International Symposium of Online Journalism (ISOJ) has been a showcase of media innovation since its launch in 1999 by Rosental Alves, director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas, Austin. I’ve attended and spoken at several of […]
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Free-spending startups can die in one of two ways: either cancer or heart attack In a recent newsletter, I talked about how misinterpreting audience metrics can mislead digital news publishers into developing ineffective business models. Another common mistake made by digital media entrepreneurs can have catastrophic consequences: it’s to lose track of cash flow and […]
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The help is welcome, but the donor can pull the plug at any time A common stuggle for digital news startups is that they depend on grants to fund operations or to fund special projects chosen by the donor organization. So they suffer the uncertainty of whether they can pay their staff and continue providing […]
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Measuring the wrong thing or using the wrong scale is a formula for failure Numbers don’t lie, but people do. And worst of all, people lie to themselves about what numbers mean. The Big Lie in media metrics for years was the Biggest Number. Media publishers got away with touting their total monthly page views […]
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