Facebook

Facebook is purging fake news stories, but The Onion probably won’t be affected

Facebook

Social networking giant Facebook announced Tuesday that it’s taking steps to stamp out malicious fake news stories while leaving funny fake stories unaffected.

The company is tweaking its inscrutable News Feed to cut down on the number of “stories that are hoaxes, or misleading news,” Facebook software engineer Erich Owens and research scientist Udi Weinsberg write in a post on the company blog.

The change isn’t intended to remove stories that people report as false or allow Facebook to decide what’s factual and what isn’t, they explain:

To reduce the number of these types of posts, News Feed will take into account when many people flag a post as false. News Feed will also take into account when many people choose to delete posts. This means a post with a link to an article that many people have reported as a hoax or chosen to delete will get reduced distribution in News Feed.

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Sorry, journos: Heavy use of social media is not stressful, study says

The Pew Research Center’s latest internet study, out this morning, uses some intricate survey methodology to come to a straightforward finding: heavy users of social media, Facebook particularly, are not stressed by the experience.

That’s noteworthy in light of a spate of think pieces and entire books arguing that digital information overload is messing with our minds and lowering the quality of life for many.

But a survey of 1,800 people, using a established scale for measuring stress, found that internet/cell phone/ social media users are not finding “that their life is is overloaded, unpredictable and uncontrollable” as a result.

I asked whether the study tried to measure the impact of heavy news consumption via social media. Co-authors Lee Rainie of Pew Research and Keith Hampton of Rutgers University both said no — but that might be a good question for another day.

The report noted one interesting exception to the overall finding: heavy Facebook users, especially women, said they are now more likely to learn of adverse events like illness, breakups and job loss among friends and family.  Read more

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Why editors shouldn’t call readers a**holes

New York Times Editor Dean Baquet called a college professor an asshole on Facebook and some people cheered.

It’s possible that those who recognize how hard it is to create great journalism every single day of the year were animated by the idea of the polite and prestigious editor of the country’s biggest newspaper swinging back in response to a cheap shot.

I wish he wouldn’t have.

Creating dialogue in the face of hostility is a challenge in social media – and in real life, too – but it can be done. And it should be done. And it’s in the best interest of journalism that the editor of the New York Times set that example.

Baquet’s comment under University of Southern California’s Marc Cooper’s Facebook post had 53 likes as of this morning.

Marc Cooper seems to reveling in the attention it brought.  He posted every article written about Baquet’s outburst, more than once pointing out to his followers, “I’m the asshole.” And he posted a lengthy response. Read more

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Facebook makes some changes, offers more transparency about where traffic comes from

Facebook

Facebook announced some new tools and improvements on Wednesday in response to conversations the company has had with both big and small news organizations, a Facebook spokesperson tells Poynter.

The three new publishing tools will allow publishers to reach people based on other things they’ve liked, put a post-end date to posts that can go stale and identify stories doing well on Facebook.

There are also, the announcement notes, some improvements that will help media companies better understand where traffic is coming from:

Accurate and actionable analytics are critical for media organizations to understand and optimize how their content is performing on Facebook. We’ve made a variety of improvements to Domain Insights to show how Pages and social plugins drive traffic to websites.

We’ve added a new “Top URLs” section, which displays URL-level reporting and shows when other Pages and influencers reshare your content. For example, if a high-profile public figure reshares one of your posts, you’ll know why that post may have reached more people than other posts.

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‘Dark social’ is mostly Facebook

Good morning. The weekend awaits. Here are 10 media stories.

  1. “Dark social” = Facebook

    For years, publishers couldn't identify the source of a hunk of their traffic. Chartbeat this week "flipped a switch on its real-time dashboard to place that traffic in its proper bucket"; “We saw mobile Facebook traffic increase by about 40% on sites with big Facebook presences,” its chief data scientist, Josh Schwartz, said. (Marketing Land) | "The only question is how much Facebook traffic you’re not counting," Alexis Madrigal writes. (Fusion) | "Dark social comprises only a small percent of overall desktop traffic, but commands a fairly significant chunk of mobile traffic." (Chartbeat) | "That kind of dependence on a single site raises all kinds of issues." (Gigaom)

  2. J-school student arrested in NYC Garner protests

    City University of New York grad student Desiree Mathurin reported on a protest at the Brooklyn Bridge Wednesday night and got popped with 82 others.

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Politico, AJC launch redesigns

Good morning. Here are 10 media stories.

  1. Politico, AJC launch redesigns

    Politico's new presentation aims to give readers a "cleaner, more organized design that seeks to crowd out some of the noise of our information overload moment," Editor Susan Glasser writes in a welcome note. (Politico) | "Today is the formal beginning of the biggest transformation of [Politico] in eight years," CEO Jim Vandehei writes in a memo to staffers. The publication's visual retooling echoes expansion plans "into Europe and other states," but VandeHei says "Washington will always be the central nervous system of [Politico]." | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also has a new design, a "bold new look" that will spread to other Cox Media Group free newspaper sites, CMG says in a release. Take a tour: (AJC) | From June: "AJC reorganizes newsroom for digital with topic teams inspired by Quartz’s ‘obsessions’" (Poynter) Somewhat related to the Politico stuff: The Washington Post, whose publisher used to be president and COO of Politico, plans to get its journalists on TV more.

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Ghomeshi.

Toronto Star investigated sex allegations against Jian Ghomeshi

mediawiremorningGood morning. Here are 10 media stories.

  1. Jian Ghomeshi leaves CBC under dramatic circumstances: The broadcaster fired the host, whose show “Q” has gained a foothold below the 49th parallel as well, citing “information” it had received about him. (CBC) | “Over the past few months the Star has approached Ghomeshi with allegations from three young women, all about 20 years his junior, who say he was physically violent to them without their consent during sexual encounters or in the lead-up to sexual encounters.” (Toronto Star) | Ghomeshi acknowledges his “tastes in the bedroom may not be palatable to some folks” and says an ex-girlfriend launched a “campaign of harassment, vengeance and demonization against me” and that one person “began colluding with a freelance writer who was known not to be a fan of mine and, together, they set out to try to find corroborators to build a case to defame me.” (Jian Ghomeshi’s Facebook) | Canadaland’s Jesse Brown says he’s been working with the Toronto Star investigating Ghomeshi.
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Cue the outcry — more big Twitter changes on the way

Friday. Good morning (or good evening, if you’re reading this at night). Andrew Beaujon is back next week.

  1. Let’s freak out about Twitter changes: Sayeth Twitter: “in many cases, the best Tweets come from people you already know, or know of. But there are times when you might miss out on Tweets we think you’d enjoy.” Noooooooo! (Twitter) | Stuart Dredge weighs in: “The difference between the two social networks is that Facebook is taking stories out of its news feed – it prioritises around 300 a day out of a possible 1,500 for the average user – while Twitter is only adding tweets in. For now, at least.” (The Guardian) | Previously: I wrote about the Facebookification of Twitter and the Twitterfication of Facebook. (Poynter)
  2. More Twitter changes: Now with audio! “Notably, Twitter is teaming up with Apple to let users listen to certain tracks and buy the music directly from the iTunes store,” Yoree Koh reports.
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Barack Obama

Obama joins Medium, finds another route around the press

mediawiremorningGood morning. The weekend is in sight. Here are 10 media stories.

  1. Malala Yousafzai wins Nobel Peace Prize: The former BBC blogger turned activist “has shown by example that children and young people, too, can contribute to improving their own situations,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee writes. Indian children’s advocate Kailash Satyarthi shares the prize with her. (Nobelprize.org)
  2. Back in St. Louis: During protests last night following an officer-involved shooting in the city’s Shaw neighborhood, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Valerie Schremp Hahn saw people “slamming a brick on the ground to break it in two.” One “asked what I was tweeting and I said nothing. He basically but me in a headlock and asked to get my phone. I said no,” she tweeted. Then, this: “I screamed ‘get away from me! Get away from me!’ And ran towards the crowd. My press pass fell off but I still have my damn phone.” She adds: “If it makes him feel better I didn’t get his picture.” | Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery tweeted a photo of the Ferguson, Missouri, McDonald’s earlier on Thursday: “@ryanjreilly wish u were here :( ” | I noticed some other Ferguson vets and national outlet reporters on the scene: L.A.
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Free Press designer ‘cared about every single word, every comma, every period’ on 1A

mediawiremorningGood morning. Here are 10 media stories.

  1. Free Press designer dies: 25-year veteran Steve Anderson was 59. Remembers Amy Huschka, assistant editor/social media: “He was so proud of his Twitter account and loved sharing historic images and daily 1A’s with his followers.” From Jason Karas, a designer and colleague: “He cared about every single word, every comma, every period that he placed on a 1A.” (Detroit Free Press) | A collection of memorable front pages designed by Anderson. (Detroit Free Press) | A Storify of Anderson’s tweets that anyone who loves newspaper design should check out. (Storify)
  2. Freelance cameraman contracts Ebola: The unidentified man was working for NBC News on a team in Liberia with medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman. The production team has been ordered by NBC News “to return to the United States and enter quarantine for 21 days,” Bill Carter reports.
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