Increasingly think-tanks are doing journalism—not just blogging and tweeting but foreign reporting, too. Deskbound journalists, meanwhile, are embracing data and spreadsheets.
Unlike non-profits, such as ProPublica and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, think-tanks are in journalism more to promote ideas than to inform the public or expose wrongdoing. Much of what they publish is about policy. For officials and politicians, writes Jeremy Shapiro of the Brookings Institution, an American think-tank, “The thinkers are the validators. They will write op-eds, give pithy quotes to important newspapers, and appear on network news programmes.”
Think-tank journalism comes closest to the traditional sort when it is in the field.
For journalists, the news is not so good. Twitter, blogs and newsletters can get a think-tank’s ideas to its audience direct. Hence a relationship that used to be symbiotic, with wonks helping create news and hacks distributing it, is becoming competitive—especially in the battle for influential readers, such as politicians.
Read more at The Economist
Sunday, September 28
China tries to restrict foreign entertainment online
China’s TV regulator said that, from April, any foreign series or film would need approval before being shown online. Chinese media say that regulators are also considering limiting the number of foreign series shown online to a specific proportion of total output. The new rules appear aimed at closing one of the biggest loopholes in China’s control of its media: on terrestrial TV, for example, foreign dramas are banned in prime time. Many are forbidden altogether.
Read more at The Economist
Read more at The Economist
Surveillance is the advertising industry’s new business model
By monitoring the websites people visit, these companies can infer their location, income, family size, education, age, employment and much more. One data firm has compiled a billion profiles of potential customers, each with an average of 50 attributes. Consumers are lumped into “segments” such as “men in trouble”—presumed to have relationship problems because they are shopping for chocolates and flowers—or “burdened by debt: small-town singles”. When people visit websites, advertisers bid to show them precisely targeted ads. The auctions take milliseconds and the ad is displayed when the website loads.
Targeted advertising has advantages for consumers. It pays for many popular websites which people can enjoy free of charge. Relevant ads are probably more useful to consumers than irrelevant ones. But any business based on covert surveillance is vulnerable to a backlash.
Someone who is categorised by a data broker as a “motorcycle enthusiast” might find his rates for medical or accident insurance rise. “Men in trouble” might find it harder to get a job. Until objections were raised, OkCupid, a dating website, used to sell data about people’s drug and alcohol consumption. It is not going to be to anybody’s advantage to have such information about them widely available.
Read more at The Economist
Targeted advertising has advantages for consumers. It pays for many popular websites which people can enjoy free of charge. Relevant ads are probably more useful to consumers than irrelevant ones. But any business based on covert surveillance is vulnerable to a backlash.
Someone who is categorised by a data broker as a “motorcycle enthusiast” might find his rates for medical or accident insurance rise. “Men in trouble” might find it harder to get a job. Until objections were raised, OkCupid, a dating website, used to sell data about people’s drug and alcohol consumption. It is not going to be to anybody’s advantage to have such information about them widely available.
Read more at The Economist
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