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LION members will have access to legal advice hotline

The American Society of News Editors is partnering with Local Independent Online News Publishers to expand its recently improved Legal Hotline service.

Under this partnership, members of LION will gain free access to the new ASNE Legal Hotline Facebook group, through which they can run their legal questions by ASNE Legal Counsel Kevin Goldberg and interact with other news leaders about legal issues in a timely manner.

ASNE and LION encourage all members to join the Facebook group and start engaging in conversations with Goldberg and their colleagues to help one another better understand legal issues on topics, such as First Amendment rights, FOIA and copyright infringement, and more prepared to protect their newsrooms and communities.

 

'Journalism as an act of citizenship:' Lessons from City Bureau
 
"The new contract between journalists and the public will frame journalism as an act of citizenship ..." It’ll share the role of "watchdog," engaging people in the production of news and information.
 
 
And Andrea Faye Hart, City Bureau's co-founder, writes about how City Bureau opened and invited the public into its news meetings, and how others can do the same.
 
Meanwhile, the Democracy Fund writes about "how we know journalism is good for democracy," noting recent documentation of how erosion in local news is tied to drops in civic engagement.
 
Related: Funding Journalism, Finding Innovation: Success Stories and Ideas for Creative, Sustainable Partnerships.
 
 
Facebook reverses itself after local publisher is harassed, banned 
 
 
Johnson, publisher of Flint Beat in Michigan, exposed a racist attack against her father last week in a public Facebook post, only to be inundated by white supremacist trolls. Then she was banned from posting for 24 hours, instead of the people who were attacking her with racist insults.
 
RELATED: Instagram deleted a video by a news outlet that identified members of a white supremacist group. This is what happens when speech gets outsourced to Twitter and Facebook.
 
 
Tips for building a subscriber base and a membership program
 
LION member, Whereby.Us co-founder and Reynolds Journalism Institute fellow Rebekah Monson is working on tools that will make it easier for small publishers to grow a base of email newsletter subscribers. RJI has detailed some early lessons.
 
Those email subscriptions are crucial for publishers who hope to launch a serious, sustainable membership program to support local journalism.
 
And the News Revenue Hub has some advice based on its work with local online news sites, including: Ask for more, more often, and aim higher.
 
“The best predictor of membership loyalty is whether an organization has been talking to their audiences already about their need to raise money."
 
 
News About Local Independent Online News Sites
 
BROOKLYN: As Greenpoint’s Polish community fades, one family newspaper thrives.
 
CALIFORNIA: This small California publication provides a blueprint for how local buyers can save a newspaper.
 
CHARLOTTE: Charlotte Agenda has a mighty business model. How’s the journalism?
 
COLORADO: How veteran journalists in Colorado are using the blockchain to build a news start-up.
 
 
TEXAS: In Texas, Nonprofit Journalism Aims to Fill Gap as For-Profit Local Media Falter.
 
VERMONT: INN will host a free webinar conversation Wednesday, June 27, with Anne Galloway, founder and publisher of VT Digger, about how "she turned her idea for a news startup in Vermont into an inspiring enterprise with 19 full-time employees and an annual budget over $1.5 million."
 
 
Tools and Tips: Advertising and Revenue
 
AD BLOCKING: Mobile ad blocking is becoming a bigger threat.
Should publishers raise prices on subscribers who use ad blockers?
 
AD TECH: A month after GDPR takes effect, programmatic ad spend has started to recover.
 
E-COMMERCE: Good and Upworthy are getting into the commerce business.
 
FOUNDATIONS: Here are a few ideas for how funders and publishers can work together.
 
PODCASTING: Could Google’s new podcast app change the way we understand the Average Podcast Listener? How BBC Stories experiments with audio to reach younger audiences. Your local podcasting community is out there — invite it into your newsroom. Detroit's lesson for community radio: go slow with podcasting.
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS: Facebook tests ‘subscription Groups’ that charge for exclusive content.
How Swiss news publisher NZZ built a flexible paywall using machine learning. With new beats and sprints, The Sacramento Bee aims to hit 60,000 digital subs.
 
 
Tools and Tips: Journalism and Technology
 
AUDIENCE: How New York Media grew median daily users 42 percent.
 
COLLABORATION: How journalists in Oregon are collaborating to tackle a mountain of data about high school concussions.
 
 
 
ENGAGEMENT: Social Media: Driving or Diminishing Civic Engagement?
 
 
ETHICS: Ethics — The media’s unique selling proposition.
 
FREELANCE: Freelancers are precarious. When should they push back?
 
IMMIGRATION: Following the money on ICE and Trump's internment camps.
 
INSTAGRAM: The data behind winning Instagram captions.
 
INVESTIGATIVE: How can small newsrooms do big work?
 
LINKEDIN: LinkedIn can be an avenue to new audiences, Maryland students find.
 
SEO: 12 SEO Trends Heating Up 2018.
 
TRANSPARENCY: For News Organizations, ‘About Us’ Shouldn’t Be An Afterthought.
 
TRAUMA: When tragedy strikes, what do journalists owe sources?
 
TRUST: Democrats see most news outlets as unbiased. Republicans think they’re almost all biased. The faith filter: How conservatives parse the news.
 
WEATHER: What journalists can learn from their local TV weather forecast.
 
 
Industry News
 
APPLE: Apple’s Push Against Push Notifications Is An Opportunity For Advertisers. Apple News says its mid-terms portal is more trustworthy because it’s run by humans.
 
ASNE: The logic for two separate newspaper organizations evaporates — and so they merge.
 
 
BUYOUTS: The bought-out: What journalists sell when they take an exit package.
 
 
COPYRIGHT: EU copyright proposal has free speech advocates worried.
 
DIVERSITY: Study: male political reporters retweet other dudes 3 times more than their female colleagues.
 
FACEBOOK: The Onion is on a crusade against Mark Zuckerberg because it says Facebook is choking its traffic. Despite months of controversy, users don’t seem to be leaving Facebook. Certainly not in any meaningful way. News is sometimes a casualty when Facebook and Twitter try to clean up their platforms. Facebook blocks ad for actual news claiming it's 'political.' FT stopped advertising on Facebook over political ads policy. Reveal "wasn’t going to jump through hoops to mis-classify Reveal as a political or advocacy organization for Facebook’s audience." As Facebook’s stock soars, here’s why it seems safe from new regulation–for now. Facebook Built A New Team To Spot Problems Before They Arise. Facebook launches gameshows platform with interactive video.
FACT CHECKING: There are hundreds of fact-checkers around the world. Here's what some of them look like. Facebook expands fact-checking program, adopts new technology for fighting fake news.
 
FAKE NEWS: Americans believe two-thirds of news on social media is misinformation. Misinformation and biases infect social media, both intentionally and accidentally.
These are the three types of bias that explain all the fake news, pseudoscience, and other junk in your News Feed. One conservative group’s successful infiltration of the media. Schools must equip students to navigate alt-right websites that push fake news. American media keeps falling for Russian trolls. "Deep fake" videos aren't that easy to produce yet.
 
GATEHOUSE: GateHouse’s Mike Reed talks about rolling up America’s newspaper industry. GateHouse Media thinks services for small local businesses can help replace long-gone advertising. Florida Times-Union is the third GateHouse paper in Florida to move toward unionization.
 
INSTAGRAM: Instagram pushes into longer-form video.
 
LA TIMES: Who Is Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong? Local Billionaire Takes Over 'L.A. Times' to Fight Fake News, 'Cancer of Our Times.'
 
MICROSOFT: Microsoft is rebranding its news efforts and expanding their distribution. How the New Microsoft News Combats Fake News, Makes Publishers Money.
 
MOBILE: Globally, internet, smartphone, and social media use is up, but there are big age, education, wealth, and gender gaps.
 
PRESS FREEDOM: NPPA Calls for Photojournalists’ Access to Detention Facilities. Propaganda or news: Should media publish government’s child-detention photos? Government overreach, an affair, and muddied waters surrounding a press freedom case. Access Denied: A survey of media access to public officials.
 
PRINT: Small-town American newspapers are surprisingly resilient.
 
PRIVACY: The Supreme Court just struck a major victory for digital privacy.
 
REDDIT: Reddit launches a "News" tab into beta testing.
 
ST. LOUIS: Post-Dispatch Layoffs Claim 5 More in Newsroom.
 
TRIBUNE: Chicago Tribune Takeover Sought by Relative of Former Publisher.
 
TRUMP: It’s time for the press to suspend normal relations with the Trump presidency.
 
TV: Gray Broadcasting to buy Raycom to create 3rd largest local TV owner.
 
UNIVISION: Univision Offers Buyouts to Gizmodo Media Employees.
 
WASHINGTON POST: The Washington Post’s year-old experiment with social publishing is moving towards websites, email, and video.
 
WIKIPEDIA: Wikipedia Makes The Case For Google & Facebook To Give Back To The Commons, Rather Than Just Take.
 
WORDPRESS: WordPress.com Owner Buys Atavist, Maker of Subscription-Offering Publishing Software.
 
YELP: Yelp, The Red Hen, And How All Tech Platforms Are Now Pawns In The Culture War.
 
YOUTUBE: Facebook takes another shot at grabbing social media stars from YouTube.
 
 
Upcoming Events

LION ANNUAL CONFERENCE: LION's annual conference, the country's largest gathering of local independent online news organizations, will be held Oct. 11-13 at Columbia College, Chicago.
 
WEBINARS: INN will host a free webinar conversation Wednesday, June 27, with Anne Galloway, founder and publisher of VT Digger, about how "she turned her idea for a news startup in Vermont into an inspiring enterprise with 19 full-time employees and an annual budget over $1.5 million."
 
INN will host a webinar on June 18 on Nonprofit Board Governance. Nonprofit news leaders won't want to miss this special executive virtual training around board roles and responsibilities, how they shift over a nonprofit’s life cycle and strategies to keep the board composition in alignment with the organization’s needs and much more.
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