How news outlets are shifting their international coverage, ProPublica’s audience engagement plans and more in this week's Digital Media Mash Up, produced by the Center for International Media Assistance.
News orgs succeed with fresh approach to international coverage
In early 2015, The Guardian’s correspondent in Cairo, Patrick Kingsley, found his reporting was taking him far beyond Egypt. Investigating human trafficking naturally led him where the smuggler’s networks did—toward Europe. The deeper he looked, the more he found himself developing sources and expertise on an emerging theme, migration, rather than a place, Egypt.
Jamie Wilson, The Guardian’s head of international news, had noticed the same thing. (Columbia Journalism Review, 1/4)
Doing journalism differently: What’s next for ProPublica’s engagement reporting team
A few months ago, we announced that we were hiring for a new kind of position: engagement reporter. Engagement is often used as a kind of euphemism for a social media gig or equated with thinking solely about getting the biggest audience. We’ve been thinking of something different: a journalist who specializes in building and cultivating communities to both deepen our reporting and to galvanize responses to it. They would operate as a kind of journalistic community organizer, who is member of investigative projects from the get-go and uses whatever tools fit best — online or off.
We’ve since hired two fabulous journalists as ProPublica’s first engagement reporters. (ProPublica, 1/4)
2017 is the year that Twitter learns to thrive or dies
Twitter just can’t seem to win.
At this time last year, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey had recently resumed responsibilities as permanent CEO, and people seemed excited all over again about the renewed prospects of a stumbling Silicon Valley darling. Everyone loves a comeback story after all. After being ousted in 2008, Dorsey had the chance to revive a company that was facing stalled user growth, a pervasive harassment problem, and a beleaguered stock price. Dorsey was supposed to be Twitter’s savior—even though he already had a full-time job as CEO of another company! Dorsey, folks said, was the one who could apply the kind of vision and direction that only a founder could have for a company he created. (Wired, 1/1)
Media feast, news famine: Ten global advertising trends that threaten independent journalism
Even as citizens feast on an growing buffet of digital media choices, there is an increasing famine of credible, thorough and independent nationally focused news reporting. The former masks the latter as people worldwide now have access to an unlimited amount of entertainment through a wide variety of channels and as governments exert more comprehensive and nuanced control over media. Better connected globally, but less informed locally, citizens living in these media environments may not recognize when their rights to be informed about their government and their society are being compromised.
In “Media Feast, News Famine, Ten Global Advertising Trends that Threaten Independent Journalism,” Michelle Foster looks at the sobering implications for national news media of the growing dominance of global players on digital and mobile platforms. The report also explores how those working to support independent media around the world can help to ensure that local and national news media can continue to thrive in the changing advertising environment. (CIMA, 1/5)
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Main image CC-licensed by Flickr via Ka Hei Mak.
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