What we are reading this week
Take a look at some of the things we are currently reading in our newsroom that you should be aware of
Google | GNI Startups playbook
The Google News Initiative Startups Playbook aims to demystify the process of launching a digital news startup. This must-read guide for budding media entrepreneurs will help you build a “financially viable and journalistically impactful” business. If you are at the stage where you are ready to launch your start-up, the playbook will help you to build out your product, grow your audience, identify your initial sources of funding and revenue as well as setting up your operations. You will not find a more detailed and practical guide on digital entrepreneurship than this one from Google. It is one for the bookmarks.
KAS | Hounded African Journalists in Exile
This report from Kas Media Africa collates the distressing modern-day stories of journalists forced into exile across the continent in a series of harrowing personal essays. These first-hand accounts are heard from men and women journalists in countries ranging from Tanzania, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and Chad. These stories shine a light on the implicit dangers of being a journalist and the bravery shown by these individuals who continue to fight for the truth despite risks to the own lives and livelihoods.
Journalism.co.uk | The Africa Women Journalism Project fosters newsroom innovation during the pandemic
The initiative was launched in July last year as the pandemic began to take hold in East and West Africa with the aim of ensuring that female journalists are still able to report on important issues facing women in the region. Its project director Catherine Gicheru believed that women are more likely to open up to other women than men when it comes to sensitive issues such as sexual health and female genital mutilation. Speaking in a podcast with Journalism.co.uk Gicheru said the programme hopes to expand and continue to upskill women journalists on the continent.
Axios | The new era for long-form journalism
Newsrooms are getting creative about bringing back long-form journalism by using methods such as customised pop-up newsletters and podcasts, writes Sarah Fischer for Axios. This matters because the changing reading habits of consumers have forced newsrooms to ‘pivot’ away disseminating large chunks of texts in favour of mediums such as podcasts. While people are still clicking into long-form news articles, they are less engaged, she writes citing insights from SimilarWeb. Long-form journalism is not dead just yet, it has been reinvented.
