For the Record

Canada Mulls Streaming Subsidies for Local Content:

Canada's federal government "has unveiled long-awaited legislation to regulate U.S. streamers like Netflix and Disney+ and force them to pay for the production of Canadian film, TV and music product," according to Etan Vlessing of The Hollywood Reporter. The proposed amendments to the country's Federal Broadcasting Act "could result in online broadcasters being required to invest more than $800 million in local content creators," paralleling laws that require U.S. broadcasters and cable services to invest as much as 45% of their Canadian revenue in local content. "We're asking these large and wealthy companies to invest in Canadian stories, in Canadian music, in Canadian artists," said Steven Guilbeault, the nation's heritage minister.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram Recognizes Union:

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram agreed to recognize a proposed collective bargaining unit of its journalists Monday. "We share overarching goals to preserve local journalism and produce work that is essential to the lives of people in our community," said Steve Coffman, the publication's editor and publisher. "I look forward to our continued efforts on those fronts and more." More than 80% of the newspaper's non-management journalists signed union authorization cards. The decision follows the recent unionization of The Dallas Morning News.

Gannett Posts Revenue Decline, Subscription Gains:

Despite surpassing the milestone of 1 million paid online-only subscriptions, Gannett "reported a net loss of $31.3 million in the third quarter, compared with an $18.5 million loss in the same period a year earlier," according to Nathan Bomey of USA Today. The company "also posted a 19.5% year-over-year decline in revenue to $814.5 million," compared to a 28% year-over-year decline in the second quarter. "Our third quarter results showed a significant and rapid rebound from the second quarter impact of the COVID pandemic and economic shutdown," Chairman/CEO Michael Reed said in an accompanying statement.

Internet Archive Adds Fact Checks to Wayback Machine:

The Internet Archive announced Friday that it has "started to surface" external annotations by fact-checking organizations and websites (including Politifact, the Stanford Internet Observatory and FactCheck.org) for users of its Wayback Machine, a digital repository of the World Wide Web. "We are attempting to preserve our digital history but recognize the issues around providing access to false and misleading information coming from different sources," said Mark Graham, the director of the initiative. "By providing convenient links to contextual information we hope that our patrons will better understand what they are reading in the Wayback Machine." The Wayback Machine began archiving cached webpages in May 1996 before opening to the public in 2001.

The Atlantic Retracts 'Niche Sports' Article:

The Atlantic "took the extraordinary step" Sunday of retracting an article in its November issue that "chronicles a world of wealthy parents in the Connecticut suburbs obsessed with prodding their children into niche sports like fencing, crew and squash in hopes of getting them into Ivy League schools" after freelance writer Ruth Shalit Barrett allegedly misled its fact-checkers and lied to editors, according to Michael Levenson of The New York Times. Barrett, a former associate editor at The New Republic, "had been a rising young political reporter in the 1990s" before accusations of plagiarism led to a long professional interregrum. The magazine also has taken down the online version of the article while continuing to host a PDF of the print version as a historical record. "I never imagined an outcome like this,” Barrett said to Levenson in an interview conducted prior to the retraction. "And I'm so very sorry that this is where things have ended up."

Columbia-Stanford's Brown Institute Working Towards Local 'Smart Paywalls':

The Brown Institute for Media Innovation's Local Media Lab has announced that it is "in the early days of partnering with small- and medium-sized local newsrooms to help them build more adaptable or 'smart' paywalls — taking advantage of machine learning many larger newsrooms might already have resources to explore," according to Vignesh Ramachandran of NiemanLab. "Our core objective is to really help local news organizations improve the revenue that they’re getting from readers," said Al Johri, a former Washington Post data scientist and senior software engineer with the institute's Columbia University team. Director Mark Hansen added that metering may be adjusted "in more of a personalized way, maybe to give you a few more articles or bring the paywall up sooner depending upon what your likelihood to subscribe turns out to be." 

Book Publishing Diversifies:

Alexandra Alter and Elizabeth A. Harris report on increasing diversity in book publishing, citing Pulitzer Board Co-Chair Aminda Marqués González and former Pulitzer Administrator Dana Canedy's hirings at Simon & Schuster, as well as Canedy's first acquisition at the publisher, of a forthcoming memoir by former Pulitzer Board Chair and 2009 Commentary winner Eugene Robinson. The New York Times piece also reports on new "diversity-minded imprints" at Hachette, Dutton/Plume and Random House Children's Books.

Analysis Reveals Disparity in Facebook Ad Prices:

An analysis of every known Trump and Biden campaign ad purchased on Facebook between July 1, 2020, and Oct. 13, 2020 by Jeremy B. Merrill of The Markup found that the platform has charged the respective presidential nominees "wildly varying prices for their ads" due to "a split-second automated auction, with other factors playing a role, including subsidies for ads that an algorithm rates as more 'relevant.'" Merrill added that "the difference was especially stark in advertisements aimed primarily at Facebook users in swing states in July and August, where Biden’s campaign paid an average of $34.34 per 1,000 views, more than double Trump’s average of $16.55." Attributing the disparities to "parameters set by the advertiser, such as their targeting and bid strategy," Facebook spokesperson Joe Osborne said that the article "reflects a misunderstanding of how digital advertising works." 

Pew Releases Pandemic Media Report:

A new Pew Media Center report on the “financial state of the news media in the second quarter of 2020" asserts that "median ad revenue at six newspaper chains made up of more than 300 daily newspapers fell 42% compared with the second quarter of 2019," Kristen Hare of Poynter reported Thursday. The double-digit decline extended to cable news channels such as CNN and MSNBC, although Fox News' revenue rose by 41%. Among the traditional newspaper companies surveyed, Gannett "saw the lowest decline in year over year revenue at 35%."

Greenwald Resigns From Intercept:

2014 Public Service contributor Glenn Greenwald resigned from The Intercept Thursday amid editorial differences surrounding an opinion piece about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, according to Jeremy Barr and Elahe Izadi of The Washington Post. Although Greenwald said the publication refused to publish the column unless he removed “all sections critical of [...] Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New-York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression," Editor-in-Chief Betsy Reed said that he "was asked to support his claims and innuendo about corrupt actions by Joe Biden with evidence." Greenwald published the most recent draft of the piece on Substack, where he plans to "continue publishing on [his] channel."