WEDNESDAY 29 APRIL 2020


In this newsletter you will find details about our new piece of research on how the British public get news and information about the pandemic and also a link to join our webinar on the opportunities of news podcasting during this crisis. You will also find a job opportunity, the announcement of an ambitious research project and a list of webinars, reads and resources that may be useful at this difficult time.    

🕒 This newsletter is 1,321 words, a ten-minute read. Let's get started.
OUR NEXT WEBINAR

News podcasting and the impact of COVID-19

The speaker. On Thursday we'll be joined by Nic Newman, Senior Research Associate at the Reuters Institute and the lead author of a recent report on news podcasts. Nic will speak about the opportunities of news podcasting and the impact of COVID-19. 

Why now. The number of news podcasts globally rose by almost 12,000 between January and October 2019, according to News Podcasts and the Opportunities for Publishers, a report the Reuters Institute published in December last year. Publishers are making significant investments in news podcasting hoping to attract younger audiences, build habit, and bring in additional revenue.

And yet... According to some initial reports, podcast downloads went down across many genres as a result of the changing routines of listeners during lockdowns. However, this recent piece by Nick Quah offers a more nuanced picture, with listening migrating to the afternoons and the audience of news podcasts going up. 

📌The webinar. Nic Newman will discuss the possible impact of the pandemic on news podcasting on Thursday 30 April 2020 at 13:30, UK time. Sign up for the event in the link below.

Sign up for the webinar
 NEW RESEARCH ON COVID-19  
Views of the UK government are hugely polarised

The project. On Tuesday we published the first installment of our UK COVID-19 news and information project, an eight-month initiative funded by the Nuffield Foundation. The project will examine how the British public navigates information and misinformation and how the government and other institutions are responding to the current crisis.

The methodology. Our research will be based on regular surveys conducted by YouGov online. The aim is to survey same set of respondents 10 times at regular fortnightly intervals. The questions in each survey will be a combination of tracker questions, questions cycled in and out, and one-off questions designed around key events.

🥊 Polarisation. According to the first factsheet of the project, approval for the government response to the crisis is very polarised, with 82% of those on the political right saying they think the government has done a good job, compared to just 14% of those on the left. We don't find this extraordinary gap when asking about the response of other institutions. 

📺News media. More than one-third (37%) think that the news media is doing a good job of responding to coronavirus. This is higher than the equivalent figure for technology companies (15%) but lower than the figure for the NHS (92%) and the UK government (54%).

👍 The BBC rules. Around 60% of our respondents think that the BBC is doing a good job in covering the crisis. TV outlets like ITV (36%) Channel 4 (32%) and Sky (28%) get a higher proportion of positive evaluations than many newspapers. Most, but not all, major UK news outlets have net positive rating. 


📱If you have four minutes, read the entire factsheet in this link
📊 Explore more figures from our survey in this PDF

A NEW PROJECT
Trust in News – major new research project at the Reuters Institute supported by the Facebook Journalism Project

The grant. What kinds of digital news do people trust, why do they trust it, and what can publishers and platforms do to help people make decisions about what news to trust online? These are the questions at the heart our new Trust in News Project, funded by a £3.3m ($4m) grant from the Facebook Journalism Project. 

The details. In line with the Reuters Institute’s mission of exploring the future of journalism worldwide, the Trust in News Project will research these questions across four countries: Brazil, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In combination, these countries account for more than one billion internet users and represent a wide range of different media systems and contexts.

Other activities.
The project will involve different forms of research and ongoing engagement with professional journalists, publishers, and other relevant stakeholders by offering two fellowships for journalists interested in working on trust to join us in Oxford, a series of workshops with industry stakeholders, and collaborations with other relevant parties.

📌We are hiring! We are seeking to appoint a Senior Research Fellow to help develop and lead the institute's comparative research on the drivers of trust in news and identify actionable, evidence-based recommendations.

  • The ideal candidate is someone with a proven track record of independent internationally oriented, high-quality research. 
  • This post is offered on a full-time basis from 1 September 2020 (or as soon as possible thereafter) until 31 August 2023.
  • More details on how to apply here.
OUR LEARNING HUB 
A selection of webinars, reads and resources

💸 A course. The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas is launching a free course on how to cover COVID-19. The course runs from 4 May and is offered simultaneously in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. The instructor will be award-winning science journalist Maryn McKenna. | Knight Center

🎉 World Press Freedom Day. On Monday 4 May, Meera Selva, Director of our Journalist Fellowship Programme, will take part in this discussion with other European journalists on how to counter the abusive strategies used by governments to limit press freedom in the current pandemic. | EFJ

🗞 A webinar. ICFJ will also host a webinar on Monday to mark World Press Freedom Day. The webinar will feature Cilla Benkö, Director-General of the Swedish Radio, award-winning reporter Melinda Liu and journalist Jason Rezaian, who spent 544 days in an Iranian jail. | ICFJ

🧟‍♂️ How to verify. The European Journalism Center has just published an updated edition of The Verification Handbook. The goal of the book, edited by Craig Silverman, is to equip journalists with the knowledge to investigate social media accounts and messaging apps as well as other forms of disinformation and media manipulation. | EJC

👩🏾‍💼 How to create a distributed newsroom. Newsrooms have had to reconfigure as distributed, digital spaces. This playbook will help you chart a sustainable path forward, based on experience and strategic thinking. We especially recommend this chapter on audience engagement by our new Head of Leadership Development, Federica Cherubini. | Fathm

Useful resources. Many institutions are creating guides and resources to help journalists cover this all-consuming story. Here are links to the best ones we've found: 

  • The Committee to Protect Journalists has put together this safety advisory and has translated it into many languages. | CPJ
  • The Media Development Investment Fund has put together a useful guide on how to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on your media business. It's available in seven languages here. | MDIF
  • The International Press Institute has launched a website to track the attacks on press freedom worldwide in the age of COVID–19. | IPI
  • The ICFJ has launched a forum to connect journalists with some of the world’s top health practitioners and newsroom leaders. | ICFJ 
  • The European Journalism Observatory is exploring how news brands are covering the pandemic in many different countries. | EJO  
📌 And one more thing... Today at 14:00 UK time we are kicking off our weekly seminar series on the business and practice of journalism, chaired by Meera Selva. The speaker will be Prashant Rao, Global Editor at The Atlantic. Prashant will speak on building a global media brand. The magazine has gained more than 36,000 subscribers in the last month. You can find more details about the magazine in this thread. Sign up for the seminar in the link below.
Sign up here

More information on what we do...


Journalist Fellowship Programmes | Leadership ProgrammesResearch

Today's email was written by Eduardo Suárez and Matthew Leake.  

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