This week we talk to Jim Bilton of Wessenden Marketing, who does research around media supply chains. He tells us about how the pandemic has impacted newspaper and magazine retail, about who might be left standing after the dust settles and how they will need to reboot their distribution strategies.
In the news roundup the team does a deep dive into the latest Digital News Report, examine whether social media platforms are finally getting it right around hate speech, and overuse the term ‘mushy middle’. This episode is dedicated to Dead Kennedys.
Key stories:
- Reuters Digital News Report 2020
- How and Why People are Paying for Online News
- To keep readers around after COVID, publishers see hope in newsletters and podcasts
- Survey: Most Brits say prevalence of free news stops them taking out a subscription
News in brief:
- Katie Hopkins has been ‘permanently suspended’ from Twitter for violating the platform’s ‘hateful conduct’ policy.
- Kim Kardashian West has signed an exclusive deal with Spotify to produce and host a new podcast about criminal justice reform. Spotify have also splashed out this week on a slate of exclusive scripted podcasts with Warner Bros and DC based on its stable of super heroes and villains.
- Athlete-turned-civil-rights-activist Colin Kaepernick is joining the board at Medium, and his publishing arm Kaepernick Publishing will create stories for Medium about race and civil rights in the US.
- The Trump vs social media row has continued this week with two incidents: Facebook removed a bunch of Trump ads which were using a red triangle as it’s a ‘Nazi hate symbol’, and Twitter labelled a video he shared about a ‘racist baby’ as manipulated media as it claimed to be from a CNN clip. The video has now been taken down due to a copyright request.
- Bauer has dumped its Australasian magazine portfolio on private equity group Mercury Capital for just $40 million, which stings as they bought it in 2012 for $550 million. Coronavirus has seen mag ad values crash by 52% for the publisher.
- News executives Will Lewis and Lionel Barber have condemned journalists’ ‘unbecoming’ use of social media to share opinions.
- Prominent Filipino journalist Maria Ressa has been found guilty of cyber libel in a case widely condemned as politically motivated. She has 15 days to appeal the decision but risks spending up to 6 years in prison.
- Audio tweets are here! Will they make it easier to ignore the screams of the far right and fake accounts? Or easier to spread abuse given they’ll be much harder to filter?
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