Fresh useful insights for people advancing quality, innovative and sustainable journalism 

OFF THE TOP

You might have heard: Last week President Biden signed into law a bill making Juneteenth, the celebration of the end of slavery, a national holiday (CNN)

But did you know: How publishers observed the Juneteenth holiday this year (Digiday)

After Juneteenth became a national holiday, publishers like Condé Nast, BuzzFeed and Vox Media gave workers Friday off to commemorate the day, which fell on Saturday this year. Some publications, including The New York Times and Washington Post, added PTO that workers can use to celebrate the holiday. The Times and Post both offer personal days that employees can use to celebrate cultural or religious holidays.

+ Noted: The Wall Street Journal plans to shut down its Greater New York section (Talking Biz News); A correspondent for far-right channel One America News is helping pay for Arizona’s election audit (The Washington Post)

API UPDATE

Track the diversity of your sources with Source Matters — an easy automated tool from API

The sources journalists choose to quote in their stories affect whose stories get told, how stories are told, who the news is for, and what communities are served. That’s why API has created a new tool called Source Matters, which supports automated, customizable, impactful source tracking by any news organization. If you work at a news organization that is interested in working to track and improve the diversity of your sources, please contact us for more information or a demo. 

+ Where you can find API at ONA21

TRY THIS AT HOME

Publishers debate in-person, online and hybrid events (Knight Foundation)

As the outlook for the pandemic improves, many publishers are continuing to offer online events, which are less expensive to produce and can have large audiences. ONA’s annual conference will be online again this year, and the organization moved from long-term to short-term planning for events to allow for quick responses to public health changes. Some publishers are beginning to consider returning to in-person or hybrid models, using outside locations or holding indoor events with limited seating. Mark Glaser recommends that publishers consider if their audience and sponsors feel comfortable with in-person gatherings, if people are willing to travel for conferences, and if people are tired of online events. 

OFFSHORE

Who is behind Spanish Telegram’s storm of COVID-19 disinformation? (Coda)

Foreign disinformation networks and conspiracy theorists have been spreading misleading and false stories online that have led to skepticism surrounding COVID-19 in Spain. A major forum for this material is the messaging app Telegram, where dozens of groups focused on coronavirus denialism have grown since last year. Many channels share misinformation from Russian-linked media, with Spanish social media accounts for Russian-backed news sites amassing millions of followers. As false narratives spread last year, Spaniards became less willing to vaccinate, and in an El País survey from November, 40% of respondents said they believed the vaccine was part of a conspiracy.

OFFBEAT

How leaders can respond to employee burnout (Source)

P. Kim Bui, director of product and audience innovation at the Arizona Republic, asks how organizations can respond when they’re losing workers due to burnout. Bui suggests managers ask their teams what energizes them, especially when their burnout may be more connected to the emotional toll of their work than the amount of it. Managers need to pay attention and take note of what drains their team — and themselves. When staff burnout is rising, Bui writes: “It’s likely you are pushing yourself too hard and not giving others the implicit permission to take care of themselves through your own practice.”

+ On Wednesday, June 23 at 12 p.m., API vice president and senior director Amy Kovac-Ashley will facilitate an ONA Table Talk on how newsrooms can guard against burnout (ONA21)

UP FOR DEBATE

Why intersectional reporting can’t ignore people of color with disabilities (NBCU Academy)

Journalist Sarah Kim covers how race, gender and sexuality issues intersect with disability, and she writes that her work “gave personal validation to my persistent feeling as a person of color: disability has a race problem and race has a disability problem.” Kim points out that people of color with disabilities are underrepresented in media and argues that journalists should use an intersectional lens to reflect how race, sexuality and disability influence one another. “Including a source with a disability in a story for the sake of being ‘diverse, equitable, and inclusive,’” she says, “does not move the needle anywhere; it’s just lip service.“

+ Colorado Newsline reporter Chase Woodruff analyzed 126 local news stories on last week’s heat wave and found that just five referred to climate change (Twitter, @dcwoodruff)

SHAREABLE

Publishers have checked out on platforms (Digiday)

After initially picturing platforms as an important way to reach audiences, now publishers reject platforms as a source of revenue or brand-building. According to a Digiday survey, half of publishers said that Facebook was valuable for driving revenue and a third said YouTube was a valuable revenue source, but other platforms lack the same value. For brand-building, two-thirds of publishers said that Instagram was useful, but publishers said other platforms were less useful in that arena. Meena Thiruvengandam, a media consultant, said that executives are unlikely to devote funds to experimenting on new platforms, adding: “You’ve got to have proof that there’s something there.”