A billion voices screaming for your attention

Media statistic of the week 

Video is the best performing content type across every social media network. But how do people decide what to watch? According to YouTube executives, 70% of what people watch on YouTube is determined by a recommendation algorithm. That’s just one of the stats the team at Hootsuite has compiled in a new infographic on the top 10 YouTube stats for 2020, shared by Social Media Today. 

This week in media history 

Rolling Stone magazine’s John Lennon tribute issue hit newsstands on January 22, 1981. The iconic Annie Liebowitz cover portrait featured a naked John Lennon curled up in a fetal embrace of a fully clothed Yoko Ono. The photo was taken just 12 hours before Lennon’s death.

This week in the media industry 

Local music is local journalism

The largest radio conglomerate in the country, iHeartMedia, initiated a round of mass layoffs last week, cutting enough people that one former on-air host described Tuesday as “one of the worst days in on-air radio history,” writes Elias Leight of Rolling Stone. Leight got ahold of the memo the company sent to employees announcing a “new organizational structure.” He described it as seemingly “plucked partly from a corporate-culture parody like Office Space,” full of chest-puffing and business jargon.

In a blow to local radio across the country, the cuts were concentrated in small and medium markets. “Serious bummer: ‘iHeartMedia is very much convinced that the local aspect of radio is no longer important,’” Sarah Fenske quotes from the piece. “Local radio hosts are being pushed out again. Local music is local #journalism,” Tom Risen reminds us. And now, “The only thing local will be the broadcasting tower,” tweets Tom Leyden.

Chicago’s “News Nation”

Nexstar Media Group’s Austin Kellerman calls this “the beginning of a new era,” linking to the news that Nexstar is launching a national primetime newscast originating from Chicago on WGN America. Variety’s Cynthia Littleton reports that the “News Nation” newscast is expected to debut by mid-summer. Tweets Ben Bradley, “HUGE news from our new owners and a HUGE commitment to our Chicago news operation.” 

Alex Weprin thinks, “This is a fascinating move by Nexstar. Effectively a new cable news channel based in the midwest rather than NYC/DC, with distribution rivaled only by the ‘big three.’” And here’s a breath of fresh air: In addition to placing less emphasis on politics, “Nexstar executives also vow that there will be no opinion or commentary segments, only down-the-middle news reporting, features and human interest stories as well as extensive weather reporting.”

Worlds are merging

You may be wondering why we’d need to revive the “town crier” in a world where everything can be found online. But Catherine Adams of Nieman Lab explains why newsrooms across Europe, inspired by Pop-Up Magazine in the United States, are experimenting with “live news” formats and filling their national theaters. “News on stage,” as she calls it, is about giving audiences the credibility, proximity and humanity they crave. 

She points to a long tradition of news and stage coming together, going back to ancient Greece, where the Theatre of Dionysus was a meeting point for political assembly. J.M. Porup shares, “As a journalist with a side hustle as an actor and standup comedian, I really enjoyed this great article by @catherinecadams in @NiemanLab. Meetspace and virtual worlds are merging, and this is one surprising and delightful outcome.” 

Another area of experimentation for journalism today is TikTok. Kerry Flynn of CNN explores how publishers are starting to invade TikTok to court Gen Z. Among the media companies that have begun experimenting with the short-form video app in recent months are NBC News, ESPN, The Washington Post, NowThis and USA Today.

USA Today’s Alex Ptachick shares, “A thing I said about our TikTok strategy to @kerrymflynn: ‘We wanted to be a part of the dance trends and the feel good moments and build up an audience and then start to insert the news more often.’” Ptachick notes that Flynn’s piece also includes “The story of how our Iran explainer on TikTok came to be. In short, we saw a lot of misinformation + wanted to combat it.”

Journalism and tech

Last week, Microsoft unveiled details of how its AI technology is being developed with the aim of transforming the practices of journalism for the modern age. In his inside look at the company’s pitch to publishers, Ian Burrell of The Drum asks, has journalism finally found its big tech ally? “Probably not, no,” is Esther Kezia Thorpe’s guess. 

Meanwhile, “ICYMI: That sound you heard this morning was an entire industry hitting the brown note.” Josh Sternberg links to the report by Ronan Shields of AdWeek that Google Chrome Will Phase Out Third-Party Cookies by 2022. As Laura Bassett tweets, “.@Google eliminating 3rd party cookies is devastating for news publishers’ ad revenue at a time when the journalism business model is already in crisis. When Firefox did it in Germany, publisher revenue dropped 15%. This can’t happen. #savejournalism.”

So much talent in one group

“If you’re looking for a list of women doing great things in journalism >>>” the Online News Association’s Director of Programs Jen Mizgata directs you to the 26 women leaders selected for ONA’s Women’s Leadership Accelerator 2020. As the announcement says, “They represent seven countries and a range of backgrounds, newsrooms and expertise, including local news entrepreneurship, operations, product innovation, visual journalism and broadcast.”

Allison Smith is “Stupidly excited to have been selected for @ONA’s 2020 Women’s Leadership Accelerator cohort. (Only the 3rd Canadian in the program’s history!) Incredibly stellar women on this list.” And Elite Truong offers “Congrats to the new @ONA cohort! Excited to see so much talent in one group.”

Make your feeds less abrasive

Let’s wrap up with some advice that just about anyone who spends any time on social media can use. As Geoffrey Morrison writes at The New York Times, “The current state of the modern world is a billion voices screaming for your attention, and it’s easy to let the most negative ones filter through and bring you down.” So it’s not surprising when people want to “digitally disappear,” even if just temporarily. But in his new piece on how to turn depressing social media into a positive influence, Morrison argues that you can take certain steps to avoid being consumed by the gloom and get something more beneficial out of your digital life. 

Grant Clauser urges, “Read my friend @TechWriterGeoff article on how to make social media less depressing. Hope his tips work for you. (note, I still think facebook is an evil influence).” Bryan Marquard adds that there are “Lots of helpful reminders here from @TechWriterGeoff about how to make your social media feeds less abrasive. There will always be awful people, but we need to view their posts and tweets.”

A few more

• At the Press Gazette, Charlotte Tobitt reports that Telegraph Media Group, publisher of the Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, is pulling out of the ABC newspaper circulation audit, saying it is no longer a “key metric” for its subscriber-first strategy. The number of paying digital Telegraph subscribers surpassed the number in print for the first time in its 164-year history last month.
• Who is right about political ads, Twitter or Facebook? First off, Daniel Harvey has an issue with “False equivalence. Facebook’s approach is *patently* bad.” Still, Mathew Ingram of Columbia Journalism Review posed the question to a virtual panel of experts on CJR’s Galley discussion platform, and you can read the full roundtable discussion to find out what they think. 
• Erin Calabrese of ABC News reports that EU DisinfoLab, in cooperation with newsroom fact-checkers, has uncovered a far-right Polish media operation running a website that was making slight changes to real, existing stories and re-posting them to sow discord. The French website’s name, France Libre 24, was very similar to France 24, a mainstream news site.
• It's been a good twelve months in terms of economic performance and employment rates, but that hasn’t generated a sense of trust in institutions, according to the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer. As Audrey McNamara reports for CBS News, Edelman says this “trust paradox” is driven by a sense of unfairness, inequality of income and fear about the future. The global communications firm has tracked trust in institutions since 2000. Check out the full report here.

From the Muck Rack Team

Each month, Muck Rack interviews a different journalist, asking them about their career paths, their day-to-day workflow as a reporter, their relationships with PR professionals and how their favorite stories came to be. We also ask them to share a piece they feel proud to have worked on. Over on the Muck Rack Blog, we’ve rounded up some of those responses in a new post, 10 journalists share the stories that make them most proud.

Question of the week

Catherine Adams notes that “news on stage” can happen in any public space: a town hall, a pub, a festival or a theater. What do you think about the usefulness and viability of this kind of face-to-face performance as a way to combat the credibility crisis and bring back the audience and community journalism needs?