TGIF! This Halloween issue is brought to you by Chris.

BBC issues staff with new social media guidance — www.bbc.co.uk

Apologies for those of you who heard a scream of frustration from South East London yesterday - that was just me reacting to this story. In previous newsletters I've argued that Tim Davies' new social media guidelines for journalists are counterproductive. You can't trust what you can't see, and getting journalists to hide their opinions online won't magically fix the trust issue nor will it win anyone over to the cause. Transparency is the salve to that, not this sop to unachievable objectivity. But what Downing Street wants Downing Street gets, so it was inevitable that Davies' rules would be implemented.

That, I could have lived with. I could even have lived with the paranoid edict that journalists can't use emojis that imply a qualitative judgement either. But what I can't stomach is the legitimisation of the term 'virtue signalling' in a new rule that states "employees should avoid virtue signalling" even when the cause they're supporting appears worthy.

'Virtue signalling' is 2020's 'fake news' - a now meaningless term the powerful use to dismiss news they disagree with, which has been thoroughly appropriated by the far right. By legitimising it Davies' BBC is only giving its enemies another stick with which to beat their reporting. Along with Davies' other rabid and ill thought out attempts to remove any appearance of subjectivity at the Beeb in service of the current government, this latest effort will only hasten the BBC's descent into irrelevancy.

Changing newsrooms 2020: addressing diversity and nurturing talent at a time of unprecedented change — reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk

You know what genuinely would solve the BBC's trust issue? If it better represented the public it purports to serve. This report from Federica Cherubini, Nic Newman and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen makes it clear that a lot of legwork needs to be done on that front across the entire media industry: "improving ethnic diversity (42%) is highlighted as the most pressing diversity priority in the year ahead."

'This conversation is personal': Inc.'s columnists are now available through text for readers willing to pay [paywalled link] — digiday.com

Direct comms access to journalists is fast becoming the go-to selling point for subscriptions and memberships. It's part of The Atlantic's Masthead membership, sustained The Athletic throughout the pandemic, and is at the heart of many publishers' live events strategies. Now Inc. is joining in on the party.

Publishers' guide to planning online events — whatsnewinpublishing.com

And speaking of events, this article from FIPP provides some practical tips for publishers launching their own online events. The reasons for doing so are readily apparent - we're not going back to normal any time soon and events revenue is vital. This guide might help put you on the path to doing digital events right.

This week's episode:

AgriBriefing CEO Rory Brown on growing niche media — voices.media

This week Rory Brown, co-founder and CEO of AgriBriefing, speaks about building a niche B2B business, the issues with finance in media, AgriBriefing’s acquisition strategy, and keeping an entrepreneurial spirit alive as a larger company.

Lessons from award-winning publisher podcasts: Bestseller’s Casimir Stone — voices.media

Peter has been interviewing the winners of our 2020 Publisher Podcast Awards to learn how they do their stuff. In the eighth episode in the series, Bestseller host Casimir Stone says editing takes time, but crafting a podcast episode around a narrative allows you to deliver a different kind of value than a straight interview.