AJR News Wrap 3/6: Slate Travoltifies the Web and Getty Helps Stressed Out Editors
Screenshot from Slate.com of AJR.org "Travoltified."
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March 6, 2014


EDITOR’S NOTE: Links to selected media news articles from around the web over the past week.

THE POWER OF PRINTNewsweek went to print Friday after it ceased its printed magazine in 2012 — and, not quietly. Its cover story that revealed the unconfirmed identity of Bitcoin’s founder set off a firestorm on social media and literally sent reporters chasing the man named in the story. Its new owner, IBT Media, resurrected the print product this week with its new focus on originally reported longform journalism, reports USA Today.

TRAVOLTIFY: John Travolta’s gaffe at the 2014 Oscars where he blundered singer Idina Menzel’s name (saying instead Adele Dazeem) sparked yet another online grab at reader traffic. A name generator inspired by the mispronounced name became Slate’s most viewed article in the website’s 18-year history, bringing in 9.5 million unique visitorsreports The New York Times.

SO MANY PHOTOS: Expected to have a major impact on the stock photo market, Getty Images released 35 million stock photos free to embed in an act against copyright infringement, according to the British Journal of Photography.

PATCH WANTS VIRAL HITS: At the “new” Patch, viral stories will be more widely distributed than they were before the company was acquired by holding company Hale Global in January, according to an interview Street Fight conducted with CEO and cofounder Charles Hale.

BAD NEWS FOR BUFFETT: Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, longtime champion of local newspapers, saw a 5.6 percent drop in daily readers among his 28 papers, Bloomberg reports, and he didn’t even mention them in his legendarily comprehensive annual investor report.

THE END OF ZITE: Flipboard, the magazine-style news reader, purchased competitor Zite from CNN. Flipboard will incorporate Zite’s personalization technology into its own app and halt future development of Zite, according to CNET.

JOURNALISM CLICHES: At The Washington Post, Carlos Lozada compiled a list of 150 overused words and phrases in journalism. Needless to say, it’s a much ballyhooed, eye-popping collection.  

DOING IT RIGHT: Editor & Publisher created a list of 10 newspapers that are effectively fighting to stay relevant, including the Des Moines Register and the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

 TEACHING TECH REPORTING: A Poynter column argues that adding technology reporting classes could help push innovation into a poorly-covered industry while giving students an opportunity to write and be “sheltered from market realities.”

MORE FREE STORIES: The Boston Globe announced this week that it will soon implement a number of changes, the biggest of which is the replacement of BostonGlobe.com’s hard paywall with a meter – it will offer up to 10 free stories a month, Neiman Lab reports.

This story includes contributions from Juliana Sesay, Jessica Suss, Maddie Tallman,  Olivia Owens, Adam Offitzer, Dan Appenfeller, Jim Bach, Kaylin Bugos, Mike King and Lisa Rossi 

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