Friday 29th October: Same shit, different wrapper

October 29, 2021

Happy Friday! This morning's newsletter is brought to you by Peter.

Mark's been thinking a lot about Facebook's identity recently. The iconic social media brand might be one of the most used products in the world, but he's worried that name just doesn’t encompass everything his business does. It's so tightly linked to one product it can’t possibly represent everything the company will be in the future.

Better change that name then, call yourself Meta to fully reflect your ambition to build the metaverse of virtual work and social communities. One thing though, that future-facing rebrand won't solve a single one of the societal harms the company formerly known as Facebook has been exposed for recently.

Good luck making the metaverse a thing Meta, but you know it wil take years, right? Meanwhile the misinformation, hate speech, radicalisation and general outrage will continue unchecked on your platforms, no matter what you call them. And actually, looking at Twitter right now, I'm not seeing anyone that doesn't think the worst of your OG networks isn't going to port straight onto Meta's metaverse.

But nevermind - so long as you keep moving fast, who cares about the broken stuff?

COVID crushed news and magazine stock prices, but analysis from Press Gazette shows Britain and America’s largest listed consumer publishers have staged a full comeback on the stock market. The six leaders chosen by Press Gazette are now worth $34.6 billion, combined, up 78% from the end of 2019.

Media analyst Thomas Baekdal reckons being an independent publisher is great, but also hard. Thomas says the top independent publishers are all outliers and in his latest Plus Report he's looking at the 'misleading narratives' that surround independent publishing. Have a read on a week's free trial (and then sign up 😊).

The Gender Gap Tracker has analysed the ratio of men and women being quoted in over 1 million online news articles. The good news is there has been a recognisable increase in the proportion of women quoted in news. The bad news is that proportion continues to hover around 30%.

* ICYMI - Esther has launched a newsletter to elevate women working in the news and media more generally. You should have a look.

This week's podcast:

This week we hear from Sean Conboy, Executive Editor at The Players’ Tribune; a sports-focused site that publishes first-person stories from professional athletes. He talks about the process they use to get content from elite athletes, and why the site doesn’t shy away from difficult stories and human rights issues, like the ones around the Qatar World Cup.

We've got a couple of really exciting Conversations episodes in the works. So if you haven't had chance to listen to our most recent one on how publishers are making use of robots in their work, here's a reminder!