When Sam Sheffer, The Verge’s social media editor, launched the site’s Snapchataccount at the end of July last year, he meant it to be a small-scale experiment.
“I only promoted it on my personal Twitter account,” Sheffer told me. “I didn’t make it an official thing that it was our account, I just told my followers, ‘Hey guys, I’m going to be doing this thing. Follow if you want to.’”
How data journalism can improve the world
Open data has the potential to drive positive social change. But getting there is not easy.
In January 2014, Kenyan broadcaster NTV aired a 12-minute, data-driven video about the impact of drought in Turkana, an impoverished, isolated region of northern Kenya.
Even as the Financial Times announces excellent bottom-line numbers, the heat it’s feeling from the diverse and growing competition in business news is palpable.
The FT may be 127 years old and roundly and rightfully respected for its journalism. But it doesn’t even break into the top 25 business news websites, as counted by comScore (see chart below). In the U.S. — which became its largest market a few years ago, surpassing the U.K. — FT.com ranks #44, with 804,000 uniques. Topping the comScore list are three big free business news sites — Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, and Forbes — and re-energized, free offerings like the new Bloomberg.com intensify the battle for readers.
Editor’s note: After two years here at Nieman Lab, Caroline O’Donovan is leaving us for BuzzFeed. We’ll miss her! On the occasion of her departure, she looks back on her time making media about media.
The other day, someone called me at work and asked me, What’s the future of journalism? As calmly and politely as I could, I replied, I don’t know what the future of journalism is.
It’s what qualifies as an age-old debate in the digital media business: Web or native apps? The question isn’t really either/or — for most news outlets, the answer is “both” — but since the iPhone arrived, publishers have debated how much emphasis to put behind publishing on the open web vs. building native app experiences for iOS and Android.
This week’s incendiary claims by Peter Oborne on openDemocracy pose serious challenges not only for the Telegraph but for all news publishers and their readers.
Flickr/Michael Fleshman. Some rights reserved.
Brian Williams’ spectacular fall from grace as one of the most trusted American reporters bears great lessons: journalism’s greats are no longer shielded from scrutiny.
With powerful new social media platforms like Twitter, whispers about inaccuracies are often magnified into shouts. Flickr/mkhmarketing. Some rights reserved.