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As ever, lots to dig into in this year’s Digital News Report. We’ll probably be referring back to it right up until the publication of the next one. One of the key stats that stood out to journalism teacher and analyst Adam Tinworth was the tricky task of balancing the need to be on social platforms with the challenge of keeping up with those platforms’ changes and relative worth:
“That means you’re going to need a multi-skilled audience team. You can’t just fall back on Facebook and Twitter — and you will have to be creative in finding ways of bringing people back to your main product from challenging platforms like the ‘gram, TikTok and messaging apps.”
An unexpected consequence of the report’s publication this year has been the accusations from media founder and Nobel laureate Maria Resser that ‘the report, funded in part by Google, fails to take into account the impact of disinformation campaigns, particularly in countries where governments use their powers to attack free media”.
TalkTV is in trouble. One of its best-performing presenters, Mike Graham – who you might know best for humiliating himself in a row with Insulate Britain – has had to apologise to a migrants’ charity for making ridiculous unsubstantiated claims. It’s not the first ridiculous claim he’s made for clickbait reasons either. Look, the fact that TalkTV keeps this idiot on the payroll tells you everything you need to know about its fact-lite approach to news.
Well, it’s not the worst idea in the world, as you can probably tell from the fact that Google itself proposed something similar in the face of anti-competition claims. The EU has basically accused Google of running an advertising monopoly, which even its most ardent defenders would have to say it’s at least close to. Given all the EU’s moves towards tech regulation lately, we might be heading towards a splinternet sooner rather than later.
The ongoing row about reddit’s API changes has been prolonged, after a leaked memo from its CEO fanned the flames. The lesson for media executives is this – always, always, always, always, always, always just assume that your internal memos are going to be external within minutes. For a good explanation of the mooted changes to the ‘front page of the internet’, click here.
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