Every Saturday morning, we invite a publishing pro to put together their top media links. This week’s guest editor is Dr Bibiana Campos Seijo.

Dr Bibiana Campos Seijo is the Editor in Chief of Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN) and vice president of the C&EN Media Group. C&EN is the news organization of the American Chemical Society, one of the largest scientific societies in the world.

A chemist by training, Campos Seijo has been leading publications in the chemical and pharmaceutical sciences for more than a decade.

You can find her on Linkedin.

Bibiana says:

"We are getting to the end of the 2020 presidential election cycle in the US. After November 2 we should have an idea of who the next resident of the White House will be.

Over the last 4 years we have come to expect regular attacks on the credibility of mainstream media. We have also come to expect disregard or manipulation of scientific guidance and data - a rejection of evidence and science.

Scientific news organizations such as Scientific American or Science have spoken out against the mistreatment of science and scientists. Some have gone as far as endorsing a presidential candidate. This is highly unusual and represents a significant break with tradition.

Science is political but it should not be politicized so I don’t agree with the endorsement. Scientific news organizations have done a stellar job this year ensuring that rigorous and authoritative information about COVID-19 reached the general public and that should not be taken away from them for any reason."

Email is a platform — medium.com

Annemarie Dooling from the Wall Street Journal writes for Medium to share the Journals’ strategy for email: “By considering the totality of the uses of an inbox, we’re working to become a part of readers’ daily schedules and habits. Our goal is for our readers to see our content as a utility that helps them in their day-to-day.”She shares useful best practice for this dark horse of media and encourages flexibility. We’d do well to take heed of her advice if we aspire to make our brands an important part of a reader’s daily routine.

How two local newsrooms are sewing diversity into the fabric of their organizations — www.poynter.org

Most newsrooms have been grappling with matters of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) for a long time and the events of 2020 have made it urgent. As Eliana Miller acknowledges, the issue is twofold and it involves more than just creating diversity in newsroom coverage: we need to look in the mirror, hold our institutions to account and foster and maintain a newsroom culture that lives up to our DEI values. Progress is slowly being made and this article highlights the efforts of two local news organizations in the United States that are taking positive action.

Apple, Google and a deal that controls the internet — www.nytimes.com

The US Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Google accusing the tech giant of “illegally protecting its monopoly over search and search advertising.” As part of the suit, the DOJ is targeting Google’s deal with Apple, whereby Apple receives annual payments - estimated to be in the $8-12 billion range - in exchange for integrating Google’s search engine into the iPhone and other devices. If regulators were to force a break up between the two companies both are set to suffer big losses. Apple would have to say goodbye to a lot of “easy money”, Google to a significant amount of traffic - half of Google’s search traffic is said to come from Apple devices.

It’s not the first time this happens, it won’t be the last and it is likely to last for years. The saga has just started...

Introducing The Membership Guide, a practical handbook for launching and growing membership — www.lenfestinstitute.org

As traditional models continue to struggle to generate enough revenue to support media organizations around the world, many are looking at alternative ways, including donations, paywalls and membership models, to fund their operations. Enter the scene The Membership Puzzle Project, an initiative to create a handbook, aptly named The Membership Guide, designed to “help news organizations launch, grow, and sustain membership programs.”

For those of us working in media departments within membership organizations this is an interesting shift to witness - for once in a direction where we may be a step ahead with respect to our colleagues in B2B.

As journalists work from home, their newsrooms are shutting down — wamu.org

“It’s better that they cut costs with buildings and not people because we’re already a thin staff of reporters and editors.” This is not a story about journalists losing their jobs. It is about them losing their newsrooms.

If you would like to guest edit a future edition of My Media Roundup, simply reply to this email.