Abramson’s concerns on distributed content | Rebuilding trust in media, like the French| Verification tips for social video

By Matt Carroll <@MattatMIT>

Nov. 24, 2015: A trio of news media stories, videos, and data viz compiled weekly. Get notified via email? Email 3toread (at) gmail.com.

1. Jill Abramson’s concerns about distributed content: Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of the New York Times, worries that a world of distributed content, with publishers agnostic about where their material appears, weakens newsroom culture. And hey, btw, social platforms (she argues) — shouldn’t you be responsible for helping uphold the First Amendment? Just sayin’. Her post on Medium was in response to an earlier post by John Herrman about “Tech is eating media. Now what?”
2. Rebuilding trust in media — should we look to France?: In the wake of the Paris attacks, French media shifted into overdrive to combat misinformation and hoaxers on social media. By Alastair Reid of First Draft.
3. Newsrooms need compasses, not road maps: An interesting take on how to “navigate” the future of news. Josh Stearns of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and Molly de Aguiar argue that newsrooms need to listen to local communities much more to discover what they should be doing. It’s less a matter of “maps”, which lay out a specific path, and more of “compasses,” which point the general direction, but require a lot more creative work to get where one wants to go.

BONUS: How the storytelling platform influences a story: A week ago I posted a story on Medium about what it was like to see your life put into the movie “Spotlight.” Now I’ve reframed the exact same story on FOLD, a storytelling platform that emphasizes contextualization. It’s been transformed into a very distinct story. The “look and feel” of each are vastly different. I’m curious to get feedback from people about what they like/dislike about story presentations on the different platforms.

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Matt Carroll runs the Future of News initiative at the MIT Media Lab.