Monday briefing #7: Absentee journalists, paywall infowars, Twittok, Insta reels in Tiktok, ecommerce entrepreneur, search listening, Madison Avenue manslaughter, and more

Media, social media and platforms, case studies, corporate communications, must read and listen, and research and reports

Good morning. My name is Stephen Waddington. I’m a professional advisor to agencies and communication teams.

I joined Don’t Cry Wolf as a non-executive director this week. As founder John Brown told Provoke Media, we look forward to delighting and irritating the industry in equal measure.

This is a mix of articles from my own blog and content discussed in the marketing, media and PR community. My thanks to all the contributors.

Media

😠 MEDIA HARASSMENT: IPSO says requests for journalists to stop contacting a source don’t last indefinitely. It backed the actions of a Daily Record journalist who approached a man three years after he asked not to be contacted. Source: Alan Morrison.

💻 ABSENTEE JOURNALISTS: Western Mail and WalesOnline owner Reach is planning to make about 20 staff at the titles and other Welsh papers redundant in a restructure. Welsh stories will be overseen by sub-editors in England and a shared content department. Source: Andrew Smith.

⚠️ PAYWALL INFOWARS: Current Affairs makes the case that the truth is paywalled but that disinformation is free. It cites a growing chasm between paid for quality media and free content. Source: Craig McGill.

💭 JOURNALIST BUBBLE: US research reports that journalists congregate in microbubbles on Twitter, with limited engagement outside the bubble. Authors Nikki Usher and Yee Man Margaret Ng say it raises concerns about vulnerability to groupthink and blind spots. Source: Andrew Smith.

Social media and platforms

😕 TWITTOK: The Trump administration has declared TikTok a national-security threat due to its Chinese ownership. Microsoft and now Twitter are bidding for the video-sharing apps’ US operations. Source: Andrew Smith.

❌ MACHINE MISINFORMATION: Amazon's search results have come under fire for surfacing misinformation. Its machine learning algorithms routinely serve recommendations for anti-vax bestsellers and juices that cure cancer. Source: Sarah Waddington.

📱 FACEBOOK THROTTLE: The social media platform does not throttle sharing in your newsfeed to a limited number of friends according to Snopes. Cutting and pasting a message is no more, or less effective, than hitting share. Source: David Gallagher.

📷 INSTA REELS IN TIKTOK: Instagram Reels enables you to edit and share 15-second multi-clip videos with audio and effects. Sounds a lot like TikTok? That’ll be because it is. Source: Karan Chadda.

Case studies

📈 ECOMMERCE ENTREPRENEUR: Ash Young has built an e-commerce site selling car mats during lockdown and has been tweeting about it along the way. He has mainly used PPC and retargeting and is closing in on £1m turnover. Source: Stephen Waddington.

👂 SEARCH LISTENING: Diagio spotted high search traffic for home baked luxurious desserts during lockdown. It created online recipe tips for Baileys banoffee pie and Baileys and ice cream milkshakes, leading to a 7.5% rise in sales. Source: Nigel Sarbutts.

Corporate communication

📝 SAFE WORD: Google assumes that all corporate communication will become public. The Markup shared an internal Google training document about safe communication. It covers topics such as non-threatening language (eg. get ahead of competitors vs improve our product). Source: Andrew Smith

Must read and listen

🎙️ DIGITAL DISRUPTORS: John Brown, Carrie Rose, and Darryl Sparey spoke to Paul Sutton about opportunity in PR and marketing land, the importance of a strong proposition, media relations, and a focus on delivering exceptional work for clients. Source: Paul Sutton.

📰 MADISON AVENUE MANSLAUGHTER: Author and agency veteran Michael Farmer argues that legacy agencies have been weakened by focusing on execution over strategy. Slim margins have left nothing for investment. He suggests that the agency of the future will need to start over. Source: David Gallagher.

👦 CRAIG NEWMARK PROFILE: Craigslist feels a lot like an internet time capsule. In a rare interview, Craig Newmark, its billionaire founder explains the $200m investment that he has made in journalism in a bid to defend democracy and counter disinformation. Source: Sarah Waddington.

Research and reports

💲 AD SPEND REPORT: The latest WARC report in for Q1 2020 reports 2.9% ad spend growth for Q1 2020 but notes that there is an estimated 39.0% fall to come in Q2 2020. It predicts Q2 2021 for a recovery and growth. Source: Stephen Waddington.

📺 LOCKDOWN SCREEN BOOM: The annual Ofcom Media Nations 2020 report is out. Streaming and telly viewing has benefited from a lockdown boom. We spent 40% of our time during lockdown watching telly and online services. Source: Stephen Waddington.