‘Ghost Boat’s’ ambitious storytelling | Closing the doors to verification | Navigating distributed content

By Matt Carroll <@MattatMIT>

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

  1. The massive, storytelling ambition of ‘Ghost Boat’: Ghost Boat is a fascinating, serialized attempt to discover what happened to a refugee boat with 243 people on board that disappeared in the Mediterranean without a trace. The Ghost Boat team is crowd-sourcing its investigation with journalists, investigators, and citizens in an attempt to find out what went wrong. And in the meantime it’s telling a riveting story about the investigation and the lives of those who disappeared.
  2. Closing the doors to verification: How WhatsApp and similar networks are challenging newsgatherers when it comes to verification of eyewitness content. It’s getting a lot tougher to verify videos and photos on social media, unfortunately. By Storyful News Editor Joe Galvin.
  3. Navigating the minefield that is distributed content: It’s a difficult path for newsrooms to navigate. Facebook and Twitter? Apple and Snapchat? Here’s a guide for newsrooms on the advantages, disadvantages and challenges of publishing on social media sites. By Andreas Pfeiffer for WAN-IFRA.

Bonus: “101 free newsletters that will expand your mind,” including a number geared for journalists. By Herbert Lui.

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