Breaking News 4: When real news is fake

For this article I’m defining fake news as “news stories that have no factual basis but are presented as facts” (taken from “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election”), whether a site’s goal is to make money or make partisan political points. Here are several ways real and fake news are the same. … Continued

Why send a newsletter at all?

E-newsletters have become a primary engagement, dissemination and revenue-generating tool for modern newsrooms. With benefits ranging from reader loyalty to audience insights to new revenue, it’s easy to see why. What’s harder to see is the “why not,” though it’s equally important. Email used to be a method for filtering the internet. Far from the … Continued

InkaBinka: The news startup that’s actually a technology company

Dutch graduate students visited four U.S. journalism startups between December 2015 and February 2016 to observe how these entrepreneurs “make it work” and, in the process, redefine what it means to be a journalist. Their work is part of Beyond Journalism, a study of entrepreneurial journalism by 2015-2016 RJI Fellows Tamara Witschge and Mark Deuze, both journalism professors in the Netherlands.

RJI Fellowship seeks to bolster independent mobile journalism in Cuba

With few Cuban residents having access to the internet on the island, independent news outlets like 14ymedio are forced to find creative ways to deliver online news to a disconnected country. The latest idea from the team at 14ymedio is to develop an app that will utilize offline sharing technology to further amplify news distribution … Continued

Breaking News 2: When good ads go bad

Breaking News is a series on the self-inflicted fractures breaking the news business. The first was on malvertising. This second report is on the “ad tech tax” everyone pays — in dollars, time and readership.

Digital services suite helps community papers become one-stop shop for merchants’ advertising needs

Missouri Press Service has launched a suite of digital services designed to help community newspaper publishers boost their relationships with ad clients while generating additional revenue.   Services range from creating websites and social media pages for newspapers’ ad clients to training newspaper staffs to sell targeted YouTube and display ads. Since MPS, a Missouri … Continued