Bron Maher

whoever runs the BBC push notifications team at the moment: are you aware there are news stories out there that *aren't* about crimes perpetrated by migrants

i'm going to start telling people i'm a rapporteur of actualité

Don’t dwell on “democracy,” and other new findings about how to market local news "Here’s the paradox: 93% of people believe reliable local news is necessary for democracy, yet many of these same people react negatively to explicit 'democracy' messaging."

"local news and information" polled better, apparently, and to be fair we should be able to tell audiences what specifically we do for them rather than appealing to them using the abstract worth of ~*journalism*~

but also idk maybe one day "news" itself will end up on the euphemism treadmill

“Journalism” and “media” are loaded words. “People don’t dislike what you do,” the toolkit states. “They dislike what they think ‘journalism’ means.” The following is set apart in a quote box: While we heard throughout the research that people value the role of local news, the word “journalism” can evoke partisanship or elitism for some audiences, while “media” sounds like entertainment to many people. In our research, “local news and information” consistently tested better than “journalism,” with participants expressing concerns that “journalism” felt too institutional or politically charged.

lmao industry's cooked

But I have to be so real and say a big reason I'm active on TikTok is because I am so stubborn, and I was getting really sick of seeing my work being used for other people's content. I was like, I don't like this. You are getting facts wrong. You're using my words as your green screen background with your big head in front. I think it's crazy that there's this concept of news influencers and they're not reporters. I said this on Bluesky months ago where I was like, I feel like as journalists we're ceding ground to content creators who don't know left from right, who didn't report the stories, who don't have the expertise to explain this to a general audience. And I don't like that. I don't like the idea of us taking some of it lying down.

(w alt text)

Very much enjoyed this from @miasato.bsky.social via embedded.substack.com/p/mia-sato-t...

(I'm not sure my reporting specifically translates to TikTok virality, but "don't spend more than 30 minutes doing a TikTok explaining your story" also seems like a solid rule)

I didn't know until we buried my mother, so probably most people here don't know: Jewish cemeteries strongly recommend that you get insurance for the headstone.

Because the cemeteries are so often desecrated, the gravestones smashed.

This article cost thousands of pounds to clear and months of time to report, and gave voice to a number of victims who had been hitherto ignored. We are a tiny publication with just one full-time member of staff. If you'd like to support us, please subscribe today.

www.the-fence.com/shop

Not every newsroom can do this, clearly. And it's worth noting Civil Eats has only done this one year so far: we'll have to see how lasting the foundation support is long-term.

But for me, it is an interesting case study suggesting, maybe, The Guardian's model could work for smaller publishers too!

And one of the reasons Civil Eats succeeded here was also that it spent years communicating to its audience how expensive news is to create and how difficult it is to fund.

Weirdly, this mirrors the way The Verge successfully *launched* its paywall (ie after years covering Google's effect on news)

Between the very values-driven Civil Eats and The Guardian, which makes its supporter pitch "keep this liberal journalism free by voluntarily contributing toward it," it seems like this strategy works best for news outlets with a political/social mission.

A few things to note: first, Civil Eats did a lot of reader research before getting rid of its paywall and could be pretty confident its supporters would keep paying.

Second, they got some philanthropic foundations to agree to match their supporter revenue, so they had some security.

No Paywall = More Revenue. Has This News Site Found a Better Strategy? - A Media Operator In September last year Civil Eats, a nonprofit news site covering the U.S. food system, dropped its nine-year-old paywall while continuing to…

Here's a new case study in The Great Paywall Debate: Civil Eats, a nonprofit newsroom covering the US food system, dropped its paywall a year ago - and has more paying supporters now than it did before.

(AMO, on the other hand, has not dropped its paywall, so I'll unpack the key points below)

This is my regular reminder to everyone that jstor is open to the general public now; a free account there will give you access to 100 papers a year.

Shabana Mahmood to demand migrants earn right to settled status New tests will include learning English to a high standard, paying National Insurance and not claiming benefits.

imagine being a consultant doctor here and having to go out litter picking to be given your citizenship lol

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I'm thrilled to announce I'm returning to the New Statesman as Political Editor in November. 🥳

An honour to step into @andrewmarr.bsky.social's legendary shoes as he becomes editor-at-large. Can't wait to get started with @tommctague.bsky.social and the whole team!

The meme says "come and take it" And it shows Shadow holding a bottle of Tylenol

the difficulty is not that many people go to any medium *just* for news. I kinda worry that most people will only ever encounter news incidentally, like a modest amount of vegetable smuggled into a meal

maybe the future will be 5 minutes of govt-mandated news during your Netflix ad breaks lol

I promised to do 3 years at @prospectmagazine.co.uk . That's stretched into more than 4 & I'm delighted that Phillip Collins will be taking over in the new year. It's been a blast. Phil inherits a brilliant team. And now for new adventures.... www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/press-room/7...

Right-wing attacks on free speech are nothing new. I wrote this five years ago. Yes, the left sometimes over-reached, but it's wrong to claim that the right's attacks are solely in response to that. www.ft.com/content/c966...

I always think of when Milo Yiannopoulos got his CPAC invite (very reasonably!) rescinded over his comments on child sexual abuse way back in 2017. If that crowd had really believed in this maximalist, no-repercussions-ever view of speech, they would have objected!

The number of commentators/news outlets describing a "right wing shift on free speech" is maddening - like, pals, the hypocrisy was always there, you just weren't paying attention to it

A screenshot of an FT article, illustrated with the Wall Street road sign: Headline: Donald Trump calls on US companies to ditch quarterly reporting Subhead: US president says taking a quarterly view on company is 'not good' Photo caption: Trump issued his call to scrap quarterly reporting in a Truth Social post

a thousand business journalists just cried out in alarm on.ft.com/46hWB6L

Shot, chaser

Young men more likely to vote Green than Reform. Young men second most progressive group of any demographic. Combined right-wing vote barely bigger than Green vote alone for young men

when I say the media reporting I do now is niche this is what I mean www.amediaoperator.com/news/emerald...

The Gaza family torn apart by IDF snipers from Chicago and Munich Five-month investigation reveals how four members of one family were shot and killed in a single day and highlights a pattern in which Israeli troops target unarmed civilians

IDF sniper from Chicago who says he killed Gazan teenager just for trying to retrieve his brother's corpse: “They’re thinking, ‘Oh I don’t think [I’ll get shot] because I’m wearing civilian clothes and I am not carrying a weapon' and all that, but they were wrong. That’s what you have snipers for.”

We're calling it the FT “macro mood” -- the figure shows average weekly sentiment since 1982, which is generally negative, with sentiment troughs highlighted

EU slaps Google with €2.95B fine despite Trump trade threat Brussels hammers U.S. search giant after internal Commission feud.

The EU fines Google €2.95 billion for abusing its dominant position in the advertising technology market, despite the threat of trade retribution from Trump.

you can really see the misogyny operating as a key lever of transphobia when you realize that both trans women and trans men are considered by transphobes to be women (lying) and women (deluded), respectively