Reporting the truth in the name of freedom

Media statistic of the week 

As Maja Pawinska Sims writes at PRovoke, “The 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer has uncovered a ‘global infodemic’ in which people no longer know where or who to turn to for reliable information.” 

The latest study from Edelman shows that 59% of respondents believe that journalists are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false, in addition to 57% believing that about government leaders and 56% believing it about business leaders. Trust in all news sources is now at record lows, with social media (35%) and owned media (41%) the least trusted, while traditional media, at 53%, saw the largest drop in trust at eight points.

This week in media history

On Jan 13, 1976, American inventor Ray Kurzweil and the National Federation of the Blind unveiled the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the first omni-font optical character recognition system. In a piece for Illuminify Tech last year, Aditi Chandrasekar wrote about Kurzweil’s pioneering work and how he has continued breaking technology’s barriers.

This past week in the media industry 

The spectacle

And what a past week it’s been. In an op-ed for The Guardian, Joan Donovan, Brian Friedberg and Emily Dreyfuss write that Donald Trump’s presidency is ending as it began: in media spectacle. And the Capitol siege was the biggest media spectacle of the Trump era. “Social media platforms have incentivized and enabled conspiracy and extremism, but the siege of the Capitol is stark proof that we have entered a new era, long in the making,” they write.

They also introduce us to the term boomerwaffen, which is “a pejorative name for the boomers and normies radicalized by cable news and AM radio, likening their potential for rightwing violence to that of Atomwaffen terrorists."

What happened in those frenzied hours

Politico editor Carrie Budoff Brown tweets, “New: Five of the journalists in the building were congressional reporters for @politico, whose normal beats cover the far more bureaucratic daily business of Congress. We asked them, as well as a photographer and two more reporters outside, to describe what happened in those frenzied hours when the threat to American democracy came from inside the building.” 

The result is a real-time account of the hours when rioters breached the Capitol and brought the government to a halt, published in Politico Magazine, ‘Is This Really Happening?’: The Siege of Congress, Seen From the Inside.

Melanie Zanona shares, “Some moments I’ll never forget: the chaplain praying over us as escape hoods were passed out. and ducking for cover while holding a strangers hand, having no clue what was on the other side of the barricade.”

Of the oral history, Aaron Mehta says, “This is incredibly well done, if horrifying in every way. One thing that stands out: how the professional staff in Congress, the folks who do the day-in-day-out work, managed to keep everyone safe despite the chaos. Hats off to them.”

Witnesses to history

Individual reporters who were at the Capitol are also telling the story that they lived through. Jeremy Herb suggests, “If you want to read firsthand accounts of today’s surreal day at the Capitol, I would highly recommend @pkcapitol for the Senate chamber and @sarahdwire for the House.”

We’ll take you first to Sarah Wire of the Los Angeles Times, who wrote about her experience reporting from the House, I’m in a room full of people ‘panicked that I might inadvertently give away their location.’ She shares that Rep. Norma Torres (D-Pomona) took a photo of her in the House gallery and tweeted to let her bosses know she was safe. 

Del Wilber calls it a “Hell of a story by @sarahdwire @latimes about what it was like to be in the Capitol today. Stress. Fear. Photos of her baby. Lawmakers praying. Arguments between reps and cops. Locked in the gallery, then a secure room.” As Nicholas Riccardi tweets, “Witness to history @sarahdwire writes about what it’s like.”

Paul Kane of The Washington Post takes us Inside the assault on the Capitol: Evacuating the Senate. “My day inside the Senate, the evacuation to a secure location, the madness, the chaos. The odd calm,” he tweets. “I'll never forget the officer standing in the middle of the Senate, an orange POLICE sash draped over one shoulder. A semi-automatic over the other.”

“It’s stunning to read @pkcapitol’s vivid, lucid account of what it was like to be inside the locked down capitol,” says Sarah Kaplan. “But it also reminds me, intensely, of the accounts from so many survivors of school shootings.”

Documenting the chaos

To be sure, the news media was part of the story. As Tiffany Hsu and Katie Robertson write at The New York Times, Covering Pro-Trump Mobs, the News Media Became a Target. “Murder the media” was scratched into a door of the Capitol. Violent protesters smashed equipment and punched a photographer. But, as Hsu and Robertson report, they donned gas masks and flak jackets and kept reporting.

“Who would have thought Trump’s firehose of toxic lies about fake news would lead his conspiracy-loving supporters to assault journalists on his behalf? Anyone who’s paying attention,” notes Liza Gross. Steve Silberman says it’s “What happens when the President of the United States declares working journalists the ‘enemy of the people’ because he wants no scrutiny of his crimes.”

“Journalists are not the enemy. I thank all who documented the chaos yesterday,” tweets Alissa Skelton. And as Dan Sewell reminds us, “Since Thomas Paine, American journalists have risked their lives to report the truth in the name of freedom. Wednesday was just the latest time.”

At the center of the riot

And then there was the media that was (and still is) fanning the flames. In her Washington Post column, Margaret Sullivan “succinctly makes the case,” says Meg James: The pro-Trump media world peddled the lies that fueled the Capitol mob. Fox News led the way. Erik Wemple calls it a “Strong piece here by @sulliview placing Fox News at the center of the Jan. 6 riot.”

Also at The Post, Paul Farhi reports that Cumulus Media is ordering conservative radio hosts to temper election fraud rhetoric or else face termination. As Eric Umansky notes, “Some companies have been profiting bigly from what’s essentially the disinformation industrial complex…” And Greg Mora’s reaction is “Pffffft. Like 25 years too late.”

Meanwhile, Twitter released a statement with an update following the riots in Washington, DC, and Tony Romm notices, “Twitter says it removed *70,000* QAnon accounts over the weekend. So when folks say they lost followers, well, this is why…” Twitter also explains that it has “deployed tech to surface potentially harmful Tweets for urgent human review.”

If only we could see what they see

If you’re wondering why it’s so difficult for journalists to get inside hospitals to document COVID-19 cases, Poynter’s Al Tompkins explains that the Trump administration issued guidelines on May 5 that made it almost impossible for hospitals to grant access to journalists. On Twitter, Tompkins says, “I suspect the public would be a LOT more responsive to pleas that we socially distance and wear masks and get vaccinated if you could see what nurses and doctors see.”

Meanwhile, as HuffPost’s Arthur Delaney shares, “The new COVID relief law threw a lifeline to newspapers and TV stations. All we got at internet-only news sites was.... ⚡️a DEADLINE ⚡️” He and Tara Golshan looked into why newspapers and TV stations got special access to PPP loans, but digital media didn’t. What they found: Sen. Marco Rubio, the chair of the Senate’s small business committee, made sure online-only outlets were excluded. “Marco Rubio, who has said nice things about saving journalism jobs, has given no reason for excluding digital,” notes Delaney.

Another blow to community journalism 

So it turns out, “Ripping out the sorting machines and mailboxes wasn’t the brightest idea in America.” As evidence, Mike Jopek links to Jacob Bogage’s story at The Washington Post, USPS delays are threatening small-town newspapers. So is a postage price increase. As Bogage explains, historic volumes of packages have gummed up the Postal Service, and community newspapers are getting caught in the mail backlog. 

Only 54% of periodicals were delivered on time in mid-December. Meanwhile, newspapers could be facing a 9% postage rate hike in the coming years. It all adds up to “Another blow to community journalism,” tweets Edith Brady-Lunny.

Some good publishing news

Kayleigh Barber has a piece at Digiday about how Black media brands are investing in growing community coverage. Marketing spend with Black-focused publishers grew in the wake of George Floyd’s killing and the Black Lives Matter movement last summer. 

Now, Barber reports, publishers with Black-focused brands and audiences are seeing a continued interest, if not an increase in interest, in advertising deals from both new and legacy sponsors. Digital publisher Blavity Inc., for example, saw its business grow 50% year over year. “And with that revenue lift, comes further investment in covering Black communities and supporting the journalists who are telling those stories,” she writes.

Nostalgic for the golden age of Quibi

Quibi was quickly gone, but the content remains, and Ben Mullin and Joe Flint of The Wall Street Journal have the details on Roku’s agreement to acquire the rights to Quibi’s content. The deal will make the defunct short-form streaming service’s shows available on the biggest streaming-media player in the U.S. 

Sure, it’s “Like TV Land or Nick at Nite, except for people who are nostalgic for the golden age of Quibi,” as Harry McCracken says, but also, it’s “Good news for all those content creators who poured their hearts into these bite-sized shows,” tweets Lance Ulanoff.

Flint notes, “Deal comes with complications and restrictions including in how the content is presented.” As Sahil Patel says, “Now you can finally watch movies in movie-sized chapters.” 

More publishing deals

Emily Saladino says, “There is/was so much happening this week, this media news nugget slipped right by.” Dave Sebastian of The Wall Street Journal had the scoop that Wyndham Destinations has bought Travel + Leisure from Meredith for $100 million, in a deal intended to expand Wyndham’s business beyond its core vacation-ownership operations. 

“Meredith will cont to publish & retain staff. But how much content will now be about Wyndham's 230 timeshare resorts?” Donna Airoldi wonders. “Could be a loss for readers.” But Adriana Lacy guesses this is just the beginning, tweeting, “I think we'll see more companies buying industry specific publications. We’ve seen so many editorial products being spun up by corporations, so why not just buy one instead.”

And the scoop from Joshua Franklin of Reuters is that Bustle Digital has hired a bank to explore a deal to go public. A source tells Franklin that the U.S. media platform, whose publications include fashion magazine W and Bustle, is exploring a potential merger with blank-check acquisition companies which would take it public. The company is aiming for a valuation of at least $600 million, including debt.

A few more

Last week, Owen Canfield, Opinion page editor at The Oklahoman, announced that the paper will no longer publish unsigned editorials. In that editorial, he reveals, “We have not had a true editorial board — a staff of opinion writers along with members of Oklahoman management — since fall 2018 … With one exception, every house editorial published in the past 20 months has been my handiwork.” So, going forward, his name will be attached.

Sarah Perez has the details at TechCrunch on Facebook’s redesigned Pages, which have a more simplified layout and no ‘Like’ button. “Notably,” she writes, “the redesign will also do away with the ‘Like’ button to instead focus on Followers — a more direct measurement of how many people a Page is currently reaching.”

From the Muck Rack Team

Muck Rack partnered with USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism to survey over 1,000 journalists and PR professionals to gather insights on predictions for how the future of politics will affect both the media and communications industries.

Additionally, we’ll be hosting a livestream to discuss the research, “Politics, Purpose, and Polarization in 2021: What Journalists and PR Professionals Need to Know” on Friday, January 15th at 12:00 ET/ 9:00 PT. 

Greg Galant, CEO of Muck Rack will be discussing key takeaways from our exclusive research with Fred Cook, Director of USC Annenberg College for Public Relations and Carrie Budoff Brown, Editor at Politico. Save your seat for the livestream and download the research here.