News

Edward Snowden's release of classified NSA documents exposed the widespread government practice of mass surveillance in a democratic society. The publication of these documents, facilitated by three journalists, as well as efforts to criminalize the act of being a whistleblower or source, signaled a new era in the coverage of national security reporting. The contributors to Journalism After Snowden analyzed the implications of the Snowden affair for journalism and the future role of the profession as a watchdog for the public good. The book integrates discussions of media, law, surveillance, technology, and national security, and offers a timely and much-needed assessment of the promises and perils for journalism in the digital age.

Project lead: Emily Bell

This report evaluates the role of automated journalism, currently used to produce routine news stories for repetitive topics for which clean, accurate and structured data are available. Evidence available to date shows that while people rate automated news as slightly more credible than human-written news, they do not enjoy reading it since the writing is perceived as boring. While algorithms can describe what is happening, they cannot provide interpretations of why things are happening. Journalists are best advised to focus on tasks that algorithms cannot perform, such as in-depth analyses, interviews with key people, and investigative reporting.

Project lead: Andreas Graefe

Following the success of Serial and the proliferation of podcasts that ensued, this report describes the current podcasting media landscape and existing business models, and provides recommendations for the future of the industry. As new podcasts and podcast networks are emerging, they are disrupting the radio ecosystem by attracting significant advertisers who recognize the potential of podcasts as mobile-first content that engages with audience members in ways that no other mobile medium has previously.

Project lead: Vanessa Quirk

After decades of research and development, virtual reality (VR) appears to be on the cusp of mainstream adoption. For journalists, the combination of immersive video capture and dissemination via mobile VR players is particularly exciting. It promises to bring audiences closer to a story than any previous platform. Through a literature review and case studies on early VR documentaries, this report investigates the evolution of VR technology and what it means for journalism—reflecting on its process, technical requirements, feasibility, and impact.

Project leads: Taylor Owen, Fergus Pitt

Team member: James Milward

Messaging apps now have more global users than traditional social networks—which means they play an increasingly important role in the distribution of digital journalism. This guide synthesizes key lessons for organizations using messaging apps for news to engage new or difficult-to-reach demographics—including youth and diaspora communities who currently rely on apps like WeChat and WhatsApp to communicate—and gathers user-generated content. To devise a successful messaging app strategy, publishers must understand regional strongholds, user demographics, and popular features of each app, as well as the ways issues around information, privacy, personal security, and mobile data penetration will manifest differently around the world.

Project leads: Trushar Barot, Eytan Oren

This study identifies the patterns of longform readers' story consumption and sharing habits. It found that participants read about half of the stories during the week and half over the weekend. Among the most remarkable findings is that readers finished 94% of the longform pieces they started. This study examines the key contributors to reading completing rates and considers the limitations of analytics in describing reader behavior and engagement.

Project leads: Michelle Levine, Michael Shapiro

Based on survey research and interviews with newsrooms regarding current impact measurement practices, researchers designed and built a new analytics platform to measure the quantitative and qualitative impact of news stories and to add qualitative information that was previously nonexistent in such tools.

Project leads: Brian Abelson, Michael Keller

This project featured an ethnographic study of the role of metrics in contemporary news via three case studies (Chartbeat, Gawker Media, The New York Times) to evaluate the assumptions and values that underlie audience measures, the effects of metrics on journalists, how metrics interact with organizations’ culture, and how metrics are utilized by companies. The report found that traffic-based rankings can drown out other forms of evaluation and can exert a powerful influence over journalists’ emotions and morale. Additionally, the report outlines how news organizations can benefit from big-picture, strategic thinking about analytics and selecting analytics services.

Project lead: Caitlin Petre

The Responsive Cities Initiative convened a workshop series examining the following question: What could a university center do to advance policymaking and planning for fiber-optic networks that provide everyone in the United States with high-speed Internet access, (a) improve local governance, and (b) support civic journalism? This report identifies the constraints, barriers, and opportunities in the long-term planning required for universal fiber access.

Project lead: Susan Crawford

This brief by three PhD candidates at The University of Washington (Michael L. Barthel, Ruth Moon, and William Mari) takes a snapshot of how fifteen political journalists from BuzzFeed, Politico, and The New York Times (representing digital, hybrid, and legacy outlets, respectively) interact. The researchers place those interactions in the context of reporters’ longstanding traditions of gossip, goading, collaboration, and competition.

Project lead: Philip Howard

Team members: Michael Barthel, Ruth Moon, William Mari

Today, journalists require a baseline level of expertise in digital security fundamentals, such as robust password practices, anti-virus software, and regular data backups. Journalists must also have some expertise in select intermediate information-security skills, such as an awareness of the basic insecurity and risks of various channels of communication. This report identifies best practices for newsrooms and journalism schools to improve the robustness and efficacy of their information-security training programs.

Project leads: Chris Walker, Carol Waters

The report analyzes the bad practices used by online media sites which propagate hoaxes, questionable claims, and rumors sourced on social media to achieve widespread circulation or refrain from debunking and correcting falsehoods. One of the most important debunking strategies is to provide a counternarrative with new facts. Craig Silverman’s extraordinary success in spotlighting fake news for BuzzFeed flowed directly from his work as a Tow Fellow and this 2015 Tow Center report.

Project lead: Craig Silverman

This report identifies best practices for incorporating games into newsrooms by examining playful products and practices, disclosing business opportunities from the game industry, and critiquing the assimilation of play into the newsroom. By combining the work of journalists with game designers and developers, games and play can provide new means of disseminating news and engaging audiences. Open source formats could provide journalists with a repository of potential templates and tools, which is especially beneficial for those who do not have the budgets to build such products from scratch.

Project lead: Maxwell Foxman

This project examined how crowdsourcing transforms newsgathering into more of an iterative process and turns journalism into a conversation instead of a one-way megaphone. Good crowdsourcing efforts are high-touch, labor-intensive efforts, requiring journalists to determine a type of call-out, the communities to target, the method for collecting responses, and the avenues for connecting and giving back to the community of contributors. For digital-first startups, crowdsourcing provides a way to cultivate new audiences from scratch and produce unique journalism.

Project leads: Jeanne Brooks, Mimi Onuoha, Jan Schaffer

The financial pressures that digital technology have brought to legacy news media have forced many to close their international bureaus. Journalists often report on breaking news events without physically being there by immersing themselves in streams of content, whether live video feeds from cell phones, Twitter feeds, or blog posts. Through practical guidance and descriptions of this changing journalistic ecosystem, this report defines a new, hybrid foreign correspondent model that employs all reporting tools and a wide range of sources to bring audiences a better understanding of the world.

Project leads: Ann Cooper, Taylor Owen

Team members: Ahmed Al Omran, Burcu Baykurt, Jesse Graham, Anup Kaphle, Kelly Golnoush Niknejad