Lately Google is spending a lot of time — and money — trying to convince journalists it wants to be friends.
In recent months, they’ve introduced Accelerated Mobile Pages, the recently launched Google News Lab, and team-ups with companies like The New York Times on virtual reality projects using Google Cardboard. (Not to mention theGoogle Journalism Fellows, one of whom is hosted here at Nieman Lab each summer.)
In McSweeney’s, Vijith Assar writes about the increasingly pernicious use of the passive voice in the media and how it may have developed, one small step at a time, from:
Vice’s digital media sites are going silent for two hours on Wednesday to protest the detention of Mohammed Ismael Rasool, who is currently being held in Turkey on charges of assisting terrorists.
Despite his grandiose claims to having served as “an outside paramilitary special operations officer” for the CIA from 1973 to 2000, Wayne Simmons was really a shlub who’d once done a brief military intelligence stint. (more…)
What it means to be a mobile editor, as told by mobile editors themselves
“Mobile editor” is a role that didn’t even exist at most news organizations just a few years ago — at least not the multifaceted, multi-team, multi-platform, multi-everything roles that we sometimes see today. “The role of the mobile editor is defined by motion,” The Wall Street Journal’s executive mobile editor David Hosaid it describing the position. “Motion and change — not just in the news, but in the technology, the tools, the tasks, the roles, and the workflows. It’s a job of constant evolution, of daily disruption.”
5 of the best social media tools that help newsrooms find and share content
As the march of technology (and the death of the traditional newsroom) continues, digital publishers and journalists (like us!) need to continue to adapt to stay ahead of the game and successfully grow audiences. Here, we’ve got some of the best social media tools a digital newsroom can use to to find, source and promote stories by harnessing the power of the mass of publicly available data. What follows is a short list of tools that we’ve either used in the past, use currently or are definitely keeping an eye on for the future. No single tool is going to make…
Many publishers’ digital revenues have been on an upward swing in recent years — but it’s not enough to fill the gaps left by print. According to eMarketer, global digital ad spending in 2015 is expected to reach $170.17 billion. Global mobile ad spending globally should hit $69 billion this year.
Arrest and Prison Time for Journalists and Bloggers over Facebook Posts in Lebanon
A chart by Jordanian satirist Wael Shateely criticising the crackdown on freedom of speech in the region. The quotes read: “It’s best to keep quiet,” “Oppress yourself before you are oppressed,” “Leave responsibility to the officials,” and “Enlightened thoughts cause headaches.” source: www.sha3teely.com
Matthew Keys, an ex-Reuters employee, has been found guilty of aiding members of Anonymous so they could hack his former employer
How to become a games journalist
Advice for young journalists looking to enter the games industry … read more
How the Reveal Project aims to help journalists verify eyewitness media
The initiative, co-funded by the European Commission, is doing research and development work into the different aspects of verifying materials from social media … read more
App for journalists: Live in Five, for streaming live video to YouTube
Turn your smartphone into a live broadcasting device with this free app… read more
Google launches Accelerated Mobile Pages for a ‘faster, open mobile web’
The open source initiative will be a collaborative effort between Google, a group of European publishers and technology companies … read more
It was a quiet manifesto — an 11-page document that unofficially serves as The New York Times’ follow-up to the much dissected Innovation Report of May 2014. (Nieman Lab’s story about the Innovation Report is the most popular story in its history.)
Look at the signatures at the bottom of this new Times document and you can see the impact of a year’s changes. CEO Mark Thompson, now moving into his fourth year at the company, has built his own team, and the 10 signatories inked their futures in what we’ll call the 2020 memo. Editor Dean Baquet, chief revenue officer Meredith Levien, and executive vice president for digital products Kinsey Wilson were among those laying out “Our Path Forward,” first in writing, and now in a series of sessions in the Times building with hundreds of staffers.
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