In early September, Google announced it had changed its news algorithm to highlight original reporting on the web. When Richard Gringas, vice president for Google News, published the change on a blog post, a wave of reactions surged for and against the measure. In online news, it’s hard to break a story and easy to […]
The short life of the New York Times en Español
When two weeks ago, The New York Times closed its Spanish operation, journalists and readers alike tweeted their outrage. The New York Times en Español did not prove financially successful, said the paper, hence it had to be closed. With a small newsroom in Mexico City entering a market full of established Spanish-speaking papers, the […]
The news subscription model has reached Spain
The majority of Spaniards do not pay for news, at least not in 2019. It’s easy to find online content for free, as most newspapers in Spain do not have paywalls yet. However, that’s changing. Newspapers are starting to put up paywalls in hopes to get a new source of revenue and a paying loyal […]
Substack, the newsletter platform that monetizes emails
In the last five years, newsletters have become essential for news outlets, writers, and anyone who wants to get their content out there. Some companies, like The Wall Street Journal, have dozens of newsletters; others, like The Skimm, base their whole business on one email. As information overload grows, newsletters have gained success. Emails synthesize […]
What Facebook’s latest attempt to court the media means
Just after Apple revealed its grand plan to ‘save’ the media with its News+ offering, Facebook returns to the fold. This week, The Wall Street Journal reported the tech company is in conversations with publishers to relaunch yet another Facebook News Tab. The Menlo Park-based company will pay publishers as much as $3 million to […]
Journalism is still male, but the tide is turning
In college, women fill journalism classes, while men remain a minority. But a few years later, when those students enter the workforce, the situation shifts. Men dominate newsrooms, outnumbering women on almost all occasions. Although the gap has decreased in recent years, women still lag in journalism—they represent only 41.7% of newsroom employees, according to […]
What the almost 3,000 journalism job cuts tell us about the media industry
The US economy is growing, companies are hiring, and the unemployment rate is the lowest since 1969—a meager 3.6%. It’s a party for almost everyone, except for journalists. In the first half of 2019, nearly 3,000 people were let go from newsrooms all over the country, traditional and digital media alike. The scarcity of revenues, […]
The Spanish-language podcast Radio Ambulante shows us a path to success
In 2012, the podcast industry was taking off in the United States, although mainly in English. It was hard to find long-form podcasts in what already was the second most spoken language in the country—Spanish— until Radio Ambulante came along. Radio Ambulante, a weekly 30-60 minute podcast in Spanish covering Latin American stories, has garnered […]
