July 31, 2014

mediawiremorningGood morning. 10-ish, anyone?

  1. NYT acknowledges Carol Vogel lifted from Wikipedia: Part of a July 25 column “used specific language and details from a Wikipedia article without attribution; it should not have been published in that form,” a grisly editor’s note reads. (NYT) | Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy told Ravi Somaiya “editors have dealt with Carol on the issue.” (NYT) | “It seems to me that there can be little dispute about the claim,” Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan wrote Wednesday. “Anyone can see the similarity.” (NYT)
  2. E.W. Scripps Co. and Journal Communications will combine broadcast properties, spin off newspapers: The companies “are so similar and share the deep commitment to public service through enterprise journalism,” Scripps Chairman Richard A. Boehne says. Among the newspapers in the new company, named Journal Media Group: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The (Memphis, Tennessee) Commercial Appeal (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) | “The complicated transaction is the latest move by media companies to focus on either television or print operations, with nearly all choosing to leave behind the slower-growing print business.” (NYT) | Al Tompkins: Scripps “is well positioned to cash in on mid-term political spending with stations in hotly contested political grounds of Ohio and Florida.” (Poynter) | “This deal looks much better for print spinoff than the Tribune deal. No debt or pension obligation. That is huge.” (@dlboardman)
  3. News Corp may bring back something like The Daily: It’s “working on an app-based news service aimed at ‘millennial’ readers” that would “would blend original reporting with repurposed content from News Corp properties such as the Wall Street Journal,” Matthew Garrahan reports. (FT) | Earlier this month, News Corp VP of product Kareem Amin talked about a project in development: “Our users are getting older and our products don’t have as much reach into the younger generation, and we would like to reach them on mobile devices,” Craig Silverman reports he said. (API) | #TBT: Jeff Sonderman on lessons from The Daily’s demise (Poynter)
  4. David Frum apologizes: Images from Gaza he questioned “do appear authentic, and I should not have cast doubt on them.” (The Atlantic) | “Atlantic spokesperson Anna Bross says Frum isn’t facing any repercussions from the company.” (Poynter) | “Frum showed how utterly inclined he is to believe and recirculate a claim of Palestinian photo fakery. Journalists guard against their biases by checking their reporting before publishing it.” (The Washington Post)
  5. Is Vocativ for real? The company, which says it plumbs the “deep web” for stories, has a deal to provide video to MSNBC and is about to announce a series on Showtime. But many who’ve used its vaunted software, Johana Bhuiyan reports, describe “a milieu in which they and other employees continually misled the company’s leadership about the usefulness of the software in their reporting, writing and video work.” Also worth noting: One exec tells Bhuiyan the company paid George Takei “under-the-counter” to tweet stories. (Capital) | #TBT: This is Bhuiyan’s last story for Capital; she’s moving over to BuzzFeed. Earlier this month, she gave advice to media reporters: “Turn your computer off once in a while.” (Poynter)
  6. Where did Plain Dealer journalists land? A year ago today, the paper cut about a third of its newsroom. Where are they now? There “aren’t a lot of of jobs that are cooler than being a reporter,” John Horton, who now works in media relations at Cuyahoga Community College, said. “I mean, that’s what Superman was.” (Poynter)
  7. Why Twitter’s diversity statistics matter: The company is 70 percent male and 59 percent white. That’s “a problem because white men unconsciously build products for white men – products that subtly discourage anyone else from using them,” Jess Zimmerman writes. (The Guardian) | Related: How would Twitter users react if it offered a moderated, Facebook-style feed? (Gigaom)
  8. Thomson Reuters releases second-quarter results: Revenue at the news division was down 1 percent from the same period last year. (Thomson Reuters) | The company’s cost-cutting program helped swing it to a profit, even as net income “was little changed.” (Bloomberg News)
  9. Here is a picture of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in the Washington Post newsroom: “Very, very cool moment.” (‏@JoshWhiteTWP) | Related: Jeremy Barr asks Post Executive Editor Marty Baron whether “that traditional path” to the Post, through small papers, is still the way in. Baron: “I would say that that model passed a long time ago.” (Capital)
  10. Job moves, edited by Benjamin Mullin: Margery Eagan will be a spirituality columnist for Crux, The Boston Globe’s Catholicism vertical. Previously, she was a columnist for The Boston Herald. Lauren Shea is now a project director at The Boston Globe. Formerly, she was a senior digital producer at Arnold Worldwide. Corey Gottlieb and Angus Durocher will be executive directors of digital strategy and operations for Boston.com and The Globe’s online marketplace. Formerly, Gottlieb was a senior manager of product development at Major League Baseball Advanced Media. Durocher was a lead engineer at YouTube. Adam Vaccaro, formerly a writer at Inc. Magazine, has joined The Globe as a staff writer, along with Sara Morrison and Eric Levenson, both from The Atlantic Wire. Laura Amico, the creator of Homicide Watch, has also joined The Globe as news editor in charge of multimedia and data projects. (dankennedy.net) | Lindsay Zoladz will be pop music critic for New York magazine. She’s currently an associate editor at Pitchfork. (@lindsayzoladz) | Eva Rodriguez will be a senior editor at Politico Magazine. Formerly, she was an editorial writer at The Washington Post. (@DylanByers) | Job of the day: Oregon Public Broadcasting is looking for an assignment editor! Get your résumés in! (Journalism Jobs) | Send Ben your job moves: bmullin@poynter.org.

Suggestions? Criticisms? Would like me to send you this roundup each morning? Please email me: abeaujon@poynter.org.

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Andrew Beaujon reported on the media for Poynter from 2012 to 2015. He was previously arts editor at TBD.com and managing editor of Washington City…
Andrew Beaujon

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