| LION summit planned for IRE conference in Orlando June 15
LION Publishers will hold a day-long summit at the Investigative Reporters & Editors conference in Orlando Friday, June 15, covering issues, opportunities, ideas and advice for local independent online news organizations and entrepreneurs who are considering starting their own local news site.
A theme of this year's LION gathering at IRE will be how investigative, enterprise and accountability journalism can help local publishers build financial support from readers. LION recently launched I-DIG (Impact-Designed Investigative Grants), a micro-grant program supporting local investigative news projects by its members. LION will be working with recipients to tie the results of accountability journalism to appeals to readers for subscriptions, memberships and/or donations.
All about reader revenue: Advice on memberships, subscriptions
If you missed the Reader Revenue summit that LION and the Center for Cooperative Media held at Montclair State University in New Jersey April 6, here's a comprehensive roundup of presentations and discussion about membership programs, subscription systems and other ways to build financial support for local journalism from readers.
The day-long event featured speakers from The Membership Puzzle, the News Revenue Hub, American Press Institute and the Lenfest Institute. About 80 participants were in attendance, mostly publishers and editors from independent and nonprofit news publishers from around the U.S.
Related: After years of tinkering with paywalls, publishers are creating the right funnel to find digital subscribers. Subscription models benefit by treating audiences like members. Should you design for addiction or for loyalty?
Gatehouse owner might bid for Tronc's newspapers
SoftBank, which owns the Gatehouse newspaper chain, is among three bidders reportedly eyeing Tronc, whose newspapers include the Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, Baltimore Sun and Hartford Courant. Tronc's share price rose last week on news of SoftBank's interest.
Related: Eight questions as Michael Ferro leaves the stage ($100 million richer).
LION webinar: YouTube for local news publishers
What role should YouTube play in local online news publishers' video and social media strategies? Are there opportunities to monetize local news content uploaded to YouTube, or is it mostly about exposure for your brand?
Join LION on April 24 for a webinar on "YouTube for Local News Publishers" with Lon Seidman, whose "Lon.TV" tech review channel on YouTube has more than 167,000 subscribers and who has helped organize local independent online media publishers in Connecticut, will walk participants through best practices. It's free for LION members, and only $15 for non-members.
Tools and Tips: Advertising and Revenue
AD BLOCKING: Google expands its tool for publishers to combat ad blocking. Axel Springer suffers setback in ad-blocker fight.
AD FRAUD: Despite high-profile takedowns, domain spoofing remains a big source of ad fraud.
AD TECH: Why Tech Firms Obtain Most of the Money in Programmatic Ad Buys. The GDPR is coming and will change Facebook ad targeting. Facebook looks to quietly limit reach of GDPR, the EU's tough privacy law. Ad tech firms are quitting Europe, blaming the GDPR (often as a scapegoat). The GDPR is spooking location-targeting companies.
ESCAPE ROOMS: Iowa newspaper uses an escape room to solve the profit puzzle.
MOBILE: Mobile Ad Spending to Surpass TV in 2018.
NEWSLETTERS: Here's what you need to know about monetizing newsletters. The Telegraph rolls out new 'authored analysis' strategy for editorial newsletters.
PODCASTING: Solving 97% of the podcast measurement problem.
SPONSORED CONTENT: "Native advertising isn’t scalable enough to save the news industry." Five quick things to know about sponsored YouTube videos.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: Facing government pressure, this Polish news organization is zipping through its subscription goals and strengthening its local loyalty. Consumer Reports looks for paid member growth with new payment options. The road to 1 million subscribers: FT helps users to build 'habit.' The New York Times has signed up a lot of subscribers. Here’s how it plans to keep them. Is this the end of the subscription era?
Tools and Tips: Journalism and Technology
ARCHIVES: When an online news outlet goes out of business, its archives can disappear as well. The new battle over journalism’s digital legacy.
CLICKBAIT: Once focused on scale, Hearst is cutting back on aggregation and viral fluff.
COLLABORATION: More than just a pop-up: How the collaborative newsroom 100 Days in Appalachia has grown.
DATA: Exclusive sneak preview into the new Data Journalism Handbook.
FREELANCE: Declining pay for freelance writers hurts more than just the quality of the prose.
INSTAGRAM: Instagram Stories have become traffic drivers for publishers and influencers.
MEMES: Emotion and identity: Why journalists should cover the wider context behind memes.
PHOTOGRAPPHY: How do you make people care? Here’s how this award-winning photographer does it.
POLLING: The 2018 AP Stylebook will include a new chapter on polls and surveys, adding details to help journalists report responsibly on public opinion research heading into the U.S. midterm elections.
SAFETY: The Field Guide to Security Training in the Newsroom.
STORY COMMENTS: Don’t reply to comments when you’re hangry, and other tips for engaging with readers. How To Engage In The Comments: A Journalist’s Guide.
TECH TOOLS: What do we do when the sites we use shut down? Tech's problems are our problems.
TRAFFIC: Here’s how sites are diversifying their traffic sources in 2018.
WEB DESIGN: Why Are Newspaper Websites So Horrible?
Industry News
APPLE: Apple, having bought Texture, is reportedly working on its own subscription news service.
DFM: The Gordon Gekko of Newspapers: A Vulture Capitalist Kneecapping Journalists. Rocky Mountain Low: How a hedge fund slowly unraveled one of the best sports pages in the country. Denver's mayor sticks up for local paper: 'It's important for democracy.' To save its newspaper, Denver should take a page from Philly. Southern California News Group asks for public support — and perhaps a shift to nonprofit status — amid cuts by hedge fund owner of Digital First Media. The Fight for Local News Can Bring Journalists and Communities Closer Together.
DIVERSITY: Why diverse online communities don’t trust journalists and seven ways to fix it.
DRONES: Journalists in developing countries are using drones and sensors to cover environmental crimes and pollution.
FACEBOOK: Facebook trials ‘High School Networks’ for Messenger – what could go wrong there? Facebook boss: We’ll “quite likely” launch up- and downvote buttons. Yes, Facebook is tracking you when you aren’t logged in. Facebook is letting white nationalist hate groups operate in the open. Where countries are tinderboxes, and Facebook is a match. Can Facebook beat back the fake news in Ireland’s upcoming vote on abortion?
FAKE NEWS: This "deepfake" video starring Jordan Peele as Barack Obama shows how easy it's getting to create convincing audio and video fakes. Truth Goggles are back! And ready for the next era of fact-checking. Who reads fact-checking and why? Here's what one outlet found out. Most Americans want tech companies to fight fake news, not the government. To fight disinformation, focus on on-the-ground reporting.
GOOGLE: Google, Twitter pressed to follow Facebook into Senate hearings.
HARASSMENT: Tips for tackling sexual harassment in the newsroom. She created a document to warn women of sexual harassers. It’s haunted her ever since. A new manual for writers and journalists experiencing harassment online.
LOS ANGELES: A visit to LA Weekly, the most turbulent newsroom in America.
MARSHALL ISLANDS: How a tiny paper in the Marshall Islands has given voice to victims of nuclear testing.
MILLENNIALS: Helping junior colleagues lead can help you grow as a manager. Here's how to do it. Why Modern Newsrooms Should Mind the Generational Gap.
OWNERSHIP: Hoping a random billionaire rescues your newspaper? Instead of Jeff Bezos, you might get Sam Zell.
PARENTAL LEAVE: Comparing parental leave policies in American newsrooms.
PRESS FREEDOM: Michael Cohen has dropped his libel suits against BuzzFeed, Fusion GPS over the Steele dossier.
PULITZERS: Four lessons for local journalists from this year’s Pulitzer Prize winners. Two years ago, the Cincinnati Enquirer started covering heroin as a beat. Earlier this week, it won a Pulitzer for it. Patterns from this year's winners, including: a) teamwork matters b) gender balance improved c) magazines represented d) no GateHouse or Digital First. Despite rule change allowing national papers to compete, a local newsroom still won the Pulitzer for breaking news. Photojournalist Ryan Kelly won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography for an image he took on his last day in the newsroom, before leaving journalism. After years of being overlooked, the USA Today Network (Gannett) wins three Pulitzer Prizes. Meet the journalism student who found out she won a Pulitzer in class.
ROHINGYA: R Vision, a digital news outlet by and for Rohingya people, aims to shed light on crisis.
SINCLAIR: DOJ close to clearing $6.6 billion Sinclair-Tribune merger. She Tried To Report On Climate Change. Sinclair Told Her To Be More "Balanced."
STUDENT MEDIA: SMU alumni launch campaign to save independence of student newspaper. Society of Professional Journalists reaffirms support for student newsrooms.
TAMPA BAY: Tampa Bay Times CEO says dozens of layoffs 'directly related to the tariffs.'
TV: Research: TV news employment surpasses newspapers. Northwestern will help local newsrooms study and design a sustainable approach — as local TV news’ potential grows. Reinventing local TV news might require going over the top.
WIKIPEDIA: How newsrooms could use page previews from Wikipedia.
YELP: How local food bloggers compete with Yelp.
YOUTUBE: YouTube ran ads from hundreds of brands on extremist channels.
Upcoming Events
YOUTUBE FOR PUBLISHERS WEBINAR: LION will host a webinar on YouTube for local news publishers at 1 p.m. April 24.
COLLABORATIVE JOURNALISM SUMMIT: May 10-11 at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
INN DAYS: The Institute for Nonprofit News will hold its annual INN Days summit June 13-14 at the Investigative Reporters & Editors' annual conference in Orlando.
LION AT IRE: LION will hold a day-long session on revenue, journalism, engagement and audience development issues relating to local independent online news sites June 15 during Investigative Reporters & Editors' annual conference in Orlando.
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. |