Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

When it comes to audience diversity, newsrooms are asking the wrong questions

After hearing from newsrooms disappointed by the overrepresentation of white, older readers in surveys, the Institute of Nonprofit News developed their own tools. By Sam Cholke and Allison Altshule.

Why are journalists are losing their jobs in record numbers? Blame the Trump slump

“A greater sense of normalcy may be good for people’s mental health, but not news profits.” By Danny Hayes.
What We’re Reading
Voice of San Diego / Andrew Donohue
This is the beginning of the end for the San Diego Union-Tribune →
“The buyouts have been staggered, so every now and again, they still get a goodbye email from another colleague. Internally, one newsroom worker said employees estimate that somewhere between 60 and 80 people are left from the 108-person newsroom under Soon-Shiong. Another said the mostly editorial staff meetings that used to have between 100 to120 people now feature 50 to 60. If the newsroom is now at, say, 75 people, that would be just 18 percent of its 2006 size.”
AL.com / Howard Koplowitz
Alabama newspaper publisher and reporter arrested for allegedly printing grand jury secrets →
“The arrests of Atmore News publisher and co-owner Sherry Digmon and Don Fletcher, a reporter at the outlet, stemmed from an Oct. 25 article on an Escambia County Sheriff’s Office investigation into federal COVID-19 funds that were possibly improperly paid to seven former Escambia County School System employees, the newspaper said Saturday on its Facebook page.”
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism / Marina Adami
Seven takeaways on global press freedom from the recent Thomson Reuters Trust Conference →
“[Governments] are getting creative in their tactics to persecute and silence the press, in some cases moving away from ‘traditional’ legal means such as defamation suits. Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, the barrister representing jailed Hong Kong journalist and Apple News founder Jimmy Lai, as well as his son Sebastien Lai, reiterated this point in a panel on protecting journalists against lawfare — a term used to mean legal attacks. ‘This new trend of law being used in a creative way to try to silence the journalists and also to slur the messenger is a new thing we’re seeing,’ she said.”
BBC
BBC World Service will broadcast an Emergency Radio Service for people in Gaza →
“The emergency service — Gaza Daily — will broadcast vital news daily to the people of Gaza during this time of urgent need. It will provide listeners in Gaza with the latest information and developments as well as safety advice on where to access shelter, food and water supplies.”
Washington Post / Taylor Lorenz
Content creators surge past legacy media as news hits a tipping point →
“It’s always uncomfortable for me being in these rooms where there’s so much doom and gloom about journalism and the business of journalism,” said Johnny Harris, “a journalist whose YouTube channel has more than 4 million followers, covers global news and geopolitical conflicts and conducts deep investigations into targets such as the Mormon Church and the flat earther movement.”
The New York TImes / Katie Robertson
The News Media Alliance says AI chatbots rely heavily on news content →
“The group found that the curated data sets used news content five to 100 times more than the generic data set.”
SFGATE / Amanda Bartlett
The wild, weird show that kept the Bay Area up all night →
“Creature Features became the Bay Area’s own wacky kind of Twilight Zone, not only exposing a generation of young horror fans to classics like Night of the Living Dead and Bride of Frankenstein for the first time, but also keeping them in the know on Godzilla and Star Trek conventions in a pre-internet era.”
The New York Times / Katie Robertson and Benjamin Mullin
Condé Nast will cut 5% of its workforce →
The publisher is abandoning plans for an in-house video studio. “Roger Lynch, the chief executive of Condé Nast, told workers in a note on Wednesday morning that the cuts were a response to digital advertising pressures, a decline in social media traffic and shifting audience behaviors, including a move to short-form video.”
Financial Times / Kate Duguid, Joshua Franklin, Ortenca Aliaj, and James Fontanella-Khan
A new investment fund aims to “trade on market-moving news unearthed by its own investigative reporting” →
“In an early message to potential investors, seen by the Financial Times, Horwitz said the investment fund would get ‘unique access’ to articles before they are published. ‘Rather than try to predict or react to events, we time trades on news we break ourselves,’ he wrote, styling the venture as ‘the first trading fund driven by a global publication.'”