WEDNESDAY 25 MAY 2022

In this newsletter you'll find two takes on the future of news from Ros Atkins and Jazmín Acuña, two job openings, and long reads on the struggles of Russian exiled journalists and on solutions journalism in Africa. You'll also find our research team's presentations at this week's ICA annual conference, our next seminar on digital culture in India, two job openings, and a chart from last year's Digital News Report. 
 

🕒 This newsletter is 1,438 words, an 12-minute read. If you don't receive it yet, join our mailing list here. If you want to receive our daily roundup with readings on journalism, join our Telegram channel here.
 

Explore Digital News Report 2021 here | Check out data from your country | Download a PDF version | Read our methodology

📰 On doing innovation right. In a piece adapted from his recent speech to the Society of Editors, BBC journalist Ros Atkins lays out what he thinks news organisations need to do to meet the challenges of the future. “News is not a given in people’s lives. It can’t be assumed people will seek to learn about our world via journalism,” he says. The article includes seven tips for journalists and four for news organisations. | Read the piece

🖥️ Investigative outlet Bellingcat recorded 9.1 million pageviews in 2021. Its most popular article was this piece about US soldiers exposing nuclear secrets through flashcard apps. | 🤝 A majority of newsroom workers of US political news website The Hill have formed a union. | 👗 In the 7-day period beginning with the Met Gala, Vogue magazine registered 100,000 new newsletter sign-ups. | 🏡 German association Netzwerk Recherche explored the "new sector" of European independent public interest news organisations, 31% of which are engaged in local reporting. | ❌ A new Twitter policy will hide tweets spreading misinformation during a crisis. | 🇳🇴 Norwegian public service media organisation NRK will close its news-focused Facebook page.

🙋🏾‍♀️ An important conference. The International Communications Association holds its 72nd annual conference later this week in Paris. Our team of researchers will do presentations on a range of issues, including news avoidance, misinformation, polarisation and trust, with evidence from countries around the world. We’ve compiled the research they will present on our website.

🙋🏾‍♀️ Managing our research team. We are seeking an academic with a commitment to connecting practice and research globally and a significant reputation in research on journalism to take on the role of Director of Research at the Reuters Institute. The person we select will be a part of the senior leadership team, contribute to the strategic planning and represent the Institute internationally.

How to apply. This is a full-time fixed-term position to 31 December 2024 with the possibility of extension. Applicants will need to upload a short CV, a list of relevant publications, a supporting statement and a brief document explaining how they see our current research. The deadline to apply is midday (UK time) on Tuesday 14 June. | Find out more and apply

📆  A vital role for our Journalist Programmes. We are looking for a programmes officer to play a key role in the smooth running of our Journalist Fellowship Programme as well as our Digital Deep Dives, short courses and our Oxford Climate Journalism Network. Applications close on 6 June. | Find out more and apply

How social media is changing. Newer mobile-based social networks like TikTok have become central to a new wave of protests by younger people across the world. As the chart shows, TikTok is especially popular among younger audiences: 31% of people under 25 use it for any purpose and 9% use it for news. Percentages are much smaller in older demographic groups. TikTok's audience is even higher in Thailand, Indonesia, Peru and other countries in the Global South. | Learn more

Explore Digital News Report 2021

🔗 Read the executive summary of the report. | By Nic Newman
✊🏿 How people perceive news coverage. | By Richard Fletcher 
⚖️ What audiences think about impartiality. | By Craig T. Robertson
🏡 How technology has disrupted local news. | By Anne Schulz
💰 Financing commercial news media. | By R. Fletcher and R. Nielsen
🕺🏻 How and why people use social media for news. | By Simge Andı 

The event. Today we are hosting the next event in our global journalism seminars series. Our guest will be journalist Shadma Shaikh, who will discuss trends in digital culture in India. Shadma has looked in depth at how younger generations in India are trying to make names for themselves through strategies like ‘shitposting’. In this piece she also wrote on how social media creators, particularly from India’s rural areas, are exploited by fraudsters promising fame and brand deals.

📅 Wednesday 25 May | 🕐 13:00 UK time
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🌍 On solutions journalism in Africa. With the help of the Solutions Journalism Network, African reporters are publishing these kinds of stories and translating them into local languages. This piece by our contributor Patrick Egwu features voices like that of Nigerian journalist Seun Durojaiye, who applied the solutions angle to a project on the rise of domestic violence during the pandemic. | Read the piece

🪆 On Russian journalists in Riga. Forced into exile by Putin's war, Russian journalists are rebuilding their lives in the Latvian capital. This piece by our contributor Benjamin Bathke will help you understand how colleagues like Alexey Kovalev, Aleksandra Ageeva, Victoria Lee and others are adjusting to their new life. | Read the piece

🇺🇦 More on the war in Ukraine:  🤥 On fact-checking the war | 📚 On Ukraine's history | 📱 On live-blogging | ✊🏿 On human rights | 💥 On war crimes | 🧘‍♀️ On mental health | 🇷🇺 On helping Russian journalists | 🛢On the climate side | 🇹🇼 On the view from Taiwan | 🪛 On the challenges facing fixers | ⚰️ On the journalists we've lost

📹 Citizen journalism in Mariupol. Yuliia Paievska, known as Taira, is a celebrated Mariupol medic captured by Russian forces. Before her enforced disappearance, Taira filmed her work in the besieged city on a tiny camera smuggled out by AP journalists.

• “The video is an intimate record of a city under siege that has now become a worldwide symbol of the Russian invasion and Ukrainian resistance. In it, Taira is a whirlwind of energy and grief, recording the death of a child and the treatment of wounded soldiers from both sides,” Vasilisa Stepanenko and Lori Hinnant write. | AP

🇵🇭 Disinformation in the Philippines. This long piece by Filipino journalist and professor Sheila Coronel takes us back to the moment when Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa and her newsroom at Rappler realised Bongbong Marcos, the son of the Philippines’ former dictator, would win the presidential election after running a campaign based on disinformation. | The New Yorker

🇷🇺 A day in Russian propaganda. “After more than two decades in power, today Mr Putin is the puppet master. The state controls the country’s television channels, newspapers and radio stations. The Kremlin gives editors and producers metodichki, or guidance on what to cover and how.” The Economist takes us through a day in Russian propaganda in this multimedia piece. | The Economist

🇵🇸 Press freedom in Palestine. Abdul Rahman Mahmoud tells the story of Shireen Abu Akleh and what her killing means for Palestinian journalists. “Her death raises the number of journalists killed in Palestine to over 40 since 2000, demonstrating the danger faced by reporters in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. In just the past year, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights documented 150 attacks on the press.” | International Journalists’ Network

🤝 Working together. Collaborations in journalism are becoming more common and gaining recognition including prestigious prizes. “The current growth of collaborations, however, has roots in two key years: 2009 and 2016. In 2009, the Knight Foundation gave $2.4 million for a series of nine collaborations led by J-Lab. 2016 was the year that the groundbreaking Panama Papers was published,” Stefanie Murray writes in a piece exploring the practice. | NiemanReports

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