Good morning. Here are 9 media stories.
- ‘This hurts more than I can say’
Gigaom, the tech blog founded in 2006 by journalist Om Malik, has shut down due to apparent financial problems. Several staffers, including senior writer Mathew Ingram, tweeted about the news Monday. “This hurts more than I can say: I was just told Gigaom is shutting down — it has run out of money. We tried our best, but it wasn’t enough.” (@mathewi) | Malik published a statement about the closure. “Gigaom is winding down and its assets are now controlled by the company’s lenders. It is not how you want the story of a company you founded to end.” (Om.co) | The site posted a terse explanation about the closure: “Gigaom recently became unable to pay its creditors in full at this time. As a result, the company is working with its creditors that have rights to all of the company’s assets as their collateral. All operations have ceased.” (Gigaom)
- AP style tips for social media
The AP Stylebook dispensed some style rulings for social media on (where else?) Twitter Monday in a live chat. Among the most interesting pointers: The “@” sign can’t be used to both indicate the word “at” and refer to a user’s handle at the same time; avoid “tindered” and “tindering”; lowercase terms like tweet, retweet, pin, snap and subreddit, among others. (@APStylebook)
- No longer the Investigative News Network
As of Tuesday, the Investigative News Network will be known as the Institute for Nonprofit News, a name change that reflects “the organization’s commitment to supporting and fostering the growing world of non-profit journalism, which includes but is not limited to investigative journalism,” according to a release from the nonprofit. More than 100 nonprofit news organizations belong to INN, which was founded in 2009.
- Meet Univision’s BuzzFeed doppelgänger
Digiday’s Eric Blattberg offers a look at Flama, a digital video site owned by Univision that serves up buzzy content. “Since launching the Flama site in April 2014, Univision and its partner Bedrocket Media Ventures have arrived at a content strategy to attract Hispanic millennials: pair YouTube talent with a young, Hispanic editorial team well-versed in sharable content. The result is straight out of BuzzFeed, with the addition of an inverted question mark on the ‘¿WTF?’ button.” (Digiday)
- Los Angeles Times de-emphasizes A1
The paper is stressing digital presentation for its daily meetings now, according to a memo from editor Davan Maharaj. “Our main news meeting, which used to be at 10:30 a.m., now takes place an hour earlier — and it has changed dramatically. We begin by talking about the top story or stories of the day, inviting a robust discussion of reporting angles to pursue as well as Q&As, graphics, photos, videos, etc. It is no longer an A1 meeting but a coverage meeting, with an emphasis on what we can deliver for readers in the coming minutes and hours.” (LA Observed) | The New York Times took a similar step recently. (Poynter)
- Vice lands an Obama interview
Shane Smith, the founder and CEO of Vice, will interview President Barack Obama Tuesday. “The interview will take place tomorrow in Atlanta following Obama’s speech at Georgia Tech, where he will discuss college affordability and then have a sit-down with students. Smith, Vice’s founding editor, will moderate the Q&A.” (Politico) | Obama has granted interviews to new media outlets BuzzFeed and Vox recently. (The New York Times)
- Becoming notable on Wikipedia
At 1,905 words, journalist Andrew McMillen‘s Wikipedia entry is longer than “the ones devoted to the Academy Award-winning actress Frances McDormand (1,880), The Simpsons character Barney Gumble (1,848), screenwriter and director Lena Dunham (1,480) or stand-up comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan (1,029).” McMillen wrote for Backchannel about how his entry got so long. (Backchannel) | It’s now being considered for deletion. (Wikipedia)
- Front pages of the day, selected by Seth Liss
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch strips news of the new leadership in Ferguson’s municipal court system above the fold. And The Tulsa World gives prominent treatment to a story about the reaction to a racist video at The University of Oklahoma.
(Courtesy the Newseum) - Job moves:
Nathan Brown is now general manager of video at HuffPost Studios. Previously, he was general manager of video and TV for Complex Media. Roy Sekoff is now president and chief creative officer of HuffPost Studios. Previously, he was president of HuffPost Live. (Email) | David Firestone will be managing editor of FiveThirtyEight. Previously, he was special projects editor of The New York Times editorial board. (Poynter) | Leon Wieseltier is now the Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow in Culture and Policy at the Brookings Institution. Previously, he was literary editor of The New Republic. (Politico) | Rich Battista will be president of People and Entertainment Weekly. He is CEO of Mandalay Sports Media. (Time Inc.) | Mike Madden will be deputy editor of Outlook and PostEverything at The Washington Post. He is editor of Washington City Paper. (Washington City Paper) | Job of the day: Nashville Public Radio is looking for an enterprise reporter. Get your résumés in! (Journalism Jobs) | Send Ben your job moves: bmullin@poynter.org.
Correction: Yesterday’s newsletter made reference to “Reuters media columnist” Jack Shafer. Shafer writes for Politico.
Corrections? Tips? Please email me: bmullin@poynter.org. Would you like to get this roundup emailed to you every morning? Sign up here.
