Mathew Ingram
Columbia Journalism Review
Toronto, ON, Canada
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Recent articles by Mathew:
The case against Julian Assange is a clear threat to journalism
As the imminent release of the (no doubt heavily redacted) Mueller report continues to suck all the oxygen out of the US media industry, other important news events are at risk of being overlooked, and the Julian Assange case is arguably one of them, despite Assange’s infamy. The WikiLeaks founder was taken into custody last […] → Read More
Twitter deletes links to news story due to bogus copyright claims
Have you ever had something you posted mysteriously disappear from the internet? It’s a bizarre experience, especially when it’s a result of an overreaching copyright claim. That’s what happened to me this weekend, after I posted a link on Twitter to an interesting (and disturbing) news story at TorrentFreak, a site that writes about copyright […] → Read More
Misinformation and platform influence dominate Perugia media conference
It’s difficult to sum up the main themes of a conference like the International Journalism Festival, in part because it is so vast. One of the oldest and largest journalism conferences, it takes place in Perugia, a small town two hours north of Rome that probably peaked in popularity sometime in the 3rd century BC, […] → Read More
YouTube has done too little, too late to fight misinformation
The metaphor YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki likes to rely on when she’s describing the Google video-sharing service is a wholesome one: it’s like a library, she says—a custodian of content provided by others, giving users an easy way to find things they might be interested in. There are disturbing and even offensive books in the […] → Read More
YouTube has done too little, too late to fight misinformation
The metaphor YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki likes to rely on when she’s describing the Google video-sharing service is a wholesome one: it’s like a library, she says—a custodian of content provided by others, giving users an easy way to find things they might be interested in. There are disturbing and even offensive books in the […] → Read More
What should publishers make of Zuckerberg’s newest plan to pay them?
Facebook appears to be mounting something of a charm offensive lately. A commitment to fund journalism to the tune of about $300 million over the next three years was followed on Saturday by an op-ed from CEO Mark Zuckerberg in The Washington Post suggesting ways in which the giant social network could (and should) be […] → Read More
Crowd-funded journalism startup The Correspondent under fire
The Correspondent is one of the most successful crowdfunded journalism startups of all time: it raised $2.6 million in just 30 days, in a campaign that ended in December, and drew in a number of high-profile supporters, including activist DeRay Mckesson, musician Roseanne Cash, and Jordan Hewson, daughter of U2 frontman Bono. The campaign’s success […] → Read More
Facebook: We care deeply about journalism. Please believe us
This week, journalists from dozens of small startups and non-profits joined funders and journalism academics at a small, art-filled boutique hotel in Denver to talk about how to save local journalism. There were drinks and dinners and tasteful snacks during the various sessions designed to encourage brainstorming among the 140 or so attendees, and heated […] → Read More
New Zealand massacre: Journalists divided on how to cover hate
Mass shootings have a way of making the theoretical talk about Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube and their role in spreading hate all too real. Thursday brought yet another horrific example of this depressingly frequent phenomenon, when a white supremacist shot and killed 49 people in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. The killer took things […] → Read More
The pros and cons of getting to know your readers better
With membership and subscription programs playing an increasingly important role in media business models, many publishers seem to be trying to get to know their readers better. The New York Times, for example, has started asking its readers to tell the paper a bit more about themselves, using a web form posted at its Reader […] → Read More
The pros and cons of getting to know your readers better
With membership and subscription programs playing an increasingly important role in media business models, many publishers seem to be trying to get to know their readers better. The New York Times, for example, has started asking its readers to tell the paper a bit more about themselves, using a web form posted at its Reader […] → Read More
Google, Apple, and the Saudi wife-tracking app
It’s one of those things that sounds so simple when you see a headline flash by in your Twitter stream: Apple and Google offer a smartphone app in Saudi Arabia that allows husbands to track their wives, and even prevent them from crossing the border? That’s outrageous! Why would such an app even exist, let […] → Read More
Facebook says the future is private messaging, not public posts
On Wednesday, in what seemed like a major shift, Mark Zuckerberg wrote that he wants to reorient Facebook around private, encrypted, and ephemeral messaging, rather than public sharing. This could have significant implications not just for regulators, who have been trying to get Facebook to crack down on offensive and violent content, but also for […] → Read More
Google says it’s fighting misinformation, but how hard?
Google recently presented a white paper at a digital-security conference in Germany, in which the search giant detailed all the steps it is taking across its various divisions—YouTube, Google News and Google Search—to fight misinformation and disinformation. The company said it is working hard in a number of areas including using quality signals to help […] → Read More
Here’s what we are doing with Galley, our discussion forum app
As some of you may know, CJR took over the management and direction of a discussion forum website/app called Galley late last year, and we have been doing our best to turn it into a place where people—not just journalists, but anyone—can have thoughtful, meaningful discussions with each other on a platform that cares about […] → Read More
Apple goes for the jugular with subscription revenue deal
There have been rumors about a forthcoming Apple News subscription plan for some time now, with the first reports emerging in April last year, when Bloomberg said the company was working on a Netflix-style news service that would include dozens of publishers for one monthly fee. As talks continued, some media companies were said to […] → Read More
Researchers say fears about ‘fake news’ are exaggerated
It’s so widely accepted that it’s verging on conventional wisdom: misinformation, or “fake news,” spread primarily by Facebook to hundreds of millions of people (and created by Russian agents), helped distort the political landscape before and during the 2016 US presidential election, and this resulted in Donald Trump becoming president. But is it really that […] → Read More
I was plagiarized by Jill Abramson
It’s an odd feeling to have an otherwise unremarkable passage you wrote appear as an exhibit in an accusation of plagiarism, especially when it relates to the former executive editor of The New York Times, and especially when the allegedly plagiarized passages appear in a book about the state of modern media. And yet, here […] → Read More
How foundation funding changes the way journalism gets done
Many journalists are sensitive to the way wealthy owners can influence a newsroom, whether through outright pressure on reporters and editors, or behind-the-scenes maneuvering and subtle hints. But it’s not just rich capitalists and venture investors who bring such influence—every form of funding, however well-meaning, shapes the kind of journalism that gets done, and that […] → Read More
BuzzFeed cuts should mean the death of metric-obsessed media
The latest waves of layoffs at BuzzFeed continue to roll through the media industry, with more than 200 reporters, editors, and other editorial staff scheduled to be cut, including entire teams and huge swaths of international bureaus like the UK and Australia. Media Twitter is an almost unbroken stream of people saying they have been […] → Read More