Saving Local Journalism
Posted on Saturday, October 31, 2020 at 5:17 PM
In the news: There are several proposed measures to rescue the ailing
local news industry, including a proposed bill in the House of
Representatives. But are there too many cooks in the kitchen?
“How
many plans to save local journalism are too many?” asks a Poynter.org
headline this week. Rick Edmonds discusses some of the proposals making
the rounds. Of particular note is HR 7640, aka the Local Journalism
Sustainability Act. The bill, which has bipartisan support in the House,
would provide tax relief and credits to news organizations and subsidize
small business advertising, Edmonds summarizes.
There are other
bills in the works, including safe harbor bills in both chambers of
Congress, Edmonds reports. However, nothing is set in stone, he warns:
“Despite the flurry of interest, nothing will happen until after the
election, possibly in November or December or more likely as a new
Congress comes back in January. Then there will be the added challenge
that local news may not rise to the top of a crowded agenda.” Read more here.
Also
Notable
Covid-19 Hits Ad Industry
Advertisers
are bracing for long-term hardship beyond the end of the pandemic.
Although ad spending figures were better than expected this quarter,
“the risks of extensive and long-lasting economic trauma are on the
rise,” reports Seb Joseph of Digiday.com. Citing impending lockdowns in
France and Germany, Joseph cautions that although we’ve seen recovery in
the short term, the future is far from certain: “Media buyers [are]
bracing for choppy economic climes and closely watching indicators --
namely, what happens to media prices should consumer spending remain in
free fall.” Read more here.
Also
Struggling: The News Industry
Newspapers have been hit hard
by the current pandemic as well, as discussed in a recent Pew Research
Center piece by Michael Barthel, Katerina Eva Matsa, and Kirsten Worden.
The three writers discuss the Q2 numbers and other developments in the
news industry. “Among the six publicly traded newspaper companies
studied ... advertising revenue fell by a median of 42% year over year,”
they report. The digital side is struggling as well: “Digital ad revenue
fell by a median of 32% year over year in the second quarter.”
Circulation revenue is down 8 percent as well. Read the full report here.
MarketWatch
Adds Paywall
Popular finance and business site MarketWatch
has added a paywall to its news content. Sara Guaglione of MediaPost.com
reports that “a subscription to MarketWatch costs $1 for
the first four weeks, then rises to $19.99 a month. It includes
unlimited access across devices and platforms, member-exclusive content
and fewer ads.” However, the paywall does not cover the entire site;
Guaglione says that “much of the site will remain free, such as MarketWatch’s
market data pages and the Virtual Stock Exchange.” Read more here.
Automation
to Augment Journalism
Can bots and humans coexist in the
newsroom? Sérgio Spagnuolo of the International Journalists’ Network
thinks so. This week, he discusses how automation can relieve
journalists of tasks that sap time from their actual reporting. He
discusses how he was able to develop a Twitter bot and automate report
delivery, while hiring a human community manager to oversee the process.
“Automation in journalism is something that continues to raise quite a
few eyebrows.... Journalists might (and should) be wary of the effects
of automating every single aspect of a newsroom -- as Microsoft tried to
do with MSN -- but the key thing I took from that experience is that
automation is a great ally, not a standalone solution.” Read more about
how automation can streamline things in the newsroom here.
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