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The post Alliance Members: We’d Like Your Input! Audience & Advertising Research Needs appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

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From 2021 to 2022, ransomware attacks by hackers increased 13 percent, according to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), an increase larger than the previous five years combined. In 2014, Google researchers reported that “21 of the top-25 news organizations in the world have been targeted by hackers” (largely by state actors), a number that has almost certainly increased in the past eight years.

While large corporate and government hacks tend to generate the most attention, smaller organizations are at risk as well. In June 2022, a local, independently-owned publisher (who requested to remain anonymous) found its servers had been hacked and held ransom.

The publisher learned at 3:00 am local time that a hacker had broken in to one of their systems, looked at what files were accessible, and then locked the system, leaving a ransom note. The publisher found the ransom note when they accessed the system while attempting to solve a different print production issue. By 4:00 am local time, the publishers had notified their insurance provider, retained a lawyer and contacted the FBI.

With their legal and insurance team in place, the publisher began its response on two tracks. The first step was to contact the hacker directly. Since paying ransoms is technically illegal, their insurer had to get approval for any payments, and they were advised to set a ceiling for what they would pay and to not respond to the hacker right away, so that they might extend the timeline. On a parallel track, their internal teams were working to rebuild systems and find backups, to determine whether they would need the ransomed information at all.

It took approximately two weeks, but the publisher determined an estimate of the value of what was lost and made the hacker a counter-offer at an insurer-approved amount. When it was rejected, the publisher chose to walk away from what was lost, confident they had made the best decision without paying the original ransom amount. This was reinforced as the publisher learned that decryption keys, the information that hackers typically offer in return for their payment, don’t always work, and there is the risk of data loss even for those who pay off the hackers.

Overall, the publisher sees this as a success for three reasons:

1.)  They had a plan: They previously had a conversation on this topic with another publisher in their region, which had led them to set up a process in the event of a hack.

2.)  As part of that plan, they had cyber insurance that specifically covered ransomware attacks and a provider that could advise them on what to do, which included installing monitoring software throughout the organization’s computers and making changes to information security, such as requiring more complicated passwords.

3.)  Because they had a plan, they were able to take a step back and proceed “like it was 1975,” as the publisher said, until all their systems were back up and running safely. Any work that could be done offline, was done offline.

Additionally, the publisher also learned that some of their internal processes, while not to blame for the attack, impacted how they were able to respond to it. For instance, the publisher stored some archives in physical servers that were then locked by the hacker, rather than utilizing cloud storage, which is controlled by a third-party that can provide necessary access. Additionally, the publisher’s regular data backup schedule meant that the hacker’s malware reached their internal servers more quickly than it might have otherwise. The publisher is now reconsidering how frequently to back up their data.

The publisher said that hacks of this nature are “a criminal enterprise that works because it’s done in silence.” They believe in talking candidly about what they learned and how other organizations can prepare in advance for the possibility of a ransomware attack.

The publisher offered three pieces of advice for companies thinking about their risk:

1.)  Do not assume your company is too small for hackers to pay attention to.

2.)  Make a plan – Know how to contact your lawyer, insurance provider, and law enforcement, so you can determine what to do at each stage of the process.

3.)  Consider whether your IT policies increase your vulnerability to being hacked and work to resolve them in advance.

No company is immune to the threat of ransom attacks, but as this experience shows, forward-thinking organizations can take smart steps to mitigate their effects and continue with minimal interruptions.

The post This Publisher was Victim of a Ransomware Attack: How They Minimized the Impact and 3 Lessons You Can Apply appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

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With the rise of digital platforms as a major distribution channel for news, concerns about “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers” – a phenomenon that occurs when platforms’ algorithms only serve readers content that they already agree with – have arisen. As more and more news consumers get information online, the scholarly community has worked to investigate the impact of this shift and the degree to which it perpetuates partisan viewpoints due to the lack of visibility of alternative perspectives. A study published in the journal Science Advances in 2022 added new data to the field and suggests that unlike TV, online news is not a major driver of partisan news consumption.

The cross-disciplinary study, conducted by researchers in the fields of communications, computer science and economics, set out to understand where TV news consumption fits into the question of American news consumption and partisanship. As the report explains, “What is missing from this debate is a broader view of partisan audience segregation that includes the Internet but recognizes that the modal American experience of news cannot be adequately described or explained based on online behavior alone.” With 64 percent of Americans saying they get their news from TV sometimes or often in 2021, according to the Pew Research Center, this inclusion is vital.

At the highest level, the finding suggests that concerns about partisan news consumption should focus on TV rather than online sources. The researchers declare that “while only a minority of TV viewers are part of a partisan-segregated news audience, this minority is far larger and far more internally consistent than what has been found in the online media environment.”

Four key data points underline this finding:

• About 17 percent of Americans are partisan-segregated via TV—roughly four times as many as are partisan-segregated via online news consumption.
• TV news consumers are several times more likely to maintain their partisan news diets month-over-month.
• TV viewers’ news diets are far more concentrated on preferred sources, while even partisan online news audience members tend to consume from a variety of sources.
• Partisan cable news audiences are growing even as the whole TV news audience is shrinking.

New Paper”Quantifying Partisan News Diets in Web and TV Audiences” in @ScienceAdvances with Dan Muise @homahmrd Baird Howland @markusmobius @duncanjwatts: if you are concerned about partisan-segregation, you should be focused on TV, not online https://t.co/9rXUFR3O5a 1/7 pic.twitter.com/NG4yjih2Mt

— David Rothschild (@DavMicRot) July 13, 2022

Publishers working in non-TV media should pay close attention to these findings. As online news consumption continues to grow, people who get their news there will likely continue to get information from across the ideological spectrum. Companies that invest in gathering and producing unbiased news are continuing to meet their responsibility to the American public.

Though many detractors of the legacy news industry attack its supposed “partisanship,” these findings suggest that high-quality news, when consumed online, provides a more balanced view of major issues. The results also suggest that the digital platforms through which most Americans find their news should promote quality journalism sources further. Online news distribution, so often algorithmically managed, could be used to fight partisan segregation, if the online platforms would use their power to promote real, unbiased news sources.

The post Study Suggests Online News Not a Major Contributor to Partisan News Consumption appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

From November 6–10, the Lincoln Network hosted the Reboot Conference, a series of virtual conversations about the intersection of technology and policy. Day three of the conference focused on the future of online news, and included conversations with leaders of the Knight Foundation, the American Journalism Project, Substack, The Washington Post, and The Texas Tribune, among others.

Included in the November 10 discussions was a conversation between the Lincoln Network’s Marshall Kosloff and Alliance CEO David Chavern. Chavern and Kosloff discussed the state of online media, the overwhelming power of the digital duopoly over news publishers, the role of Section 230, and the profitability of digital news as we move to an even more online future.

You can watch the conversation between Chavern and Kosloff below. You can learn more about the Reboot Conference here.

The post Video: Can News Be Profitable on the Internet? appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

The news media industry saw a lot of changes and challenges in 2018. We faced new battles on Capitol Hill, like the fight against newsprint tariffs and the push for an anti-trust safe harbor for news publishers. At the same time, we had to contend with an extremely hostile political environment and a digital ecosystem that continues to favor dominant giants and disfavor quality content.

But looking forward to 2019, I think it is pretty easy to see that it is shaping up to be an absolutely pivotal year that may well determine the strategic landscape for news publishing for many years to come.

First, 2019 is going to be a year of new technological “solutions” for the news business – with proposed debuts of the “new” Texture app from Apple, Jim McKelvey’s new advertising and payment system Invisibly, and subscription products from Facebook and Google, to name a few. While it would be nice for one of them to be The Answer, publishers will instead have to wrestle with how these technologies interact and whether some materially change how the public consumes and pays for journalism. The two questions that will always be asked are (1) does the new technological solution produce significant revenue to fund news operations, and (2) over the long-term, will it increase (or decrease) a reader’s attachment to our news brands? We will need both revenue and brand equity if we hope to maintain sustainable, independent digital news businesses.

2019 will also be a big year for major mergers and acquisitions in the industry. It is easy to anticipate that several big publishers and media chains will change hands throughout the year. We’ve already seen major shifts in ownership in 2018, from the Los Angeles Times’s sale to Patrick Soon-Shiong, to TIME magazine’s sale by Meredith Corp., to tronc taking bids from competitors like McClatchy this fall. As we move into 2019, we’ll see M&A accelerate and reveal a wide range of different strategic choices within the industry.

Finally, I expect that in 2019 will begin to see rapid consolidation in digital publishing systems – like The Washington Post’s Arc, New York Media’s Clay and new products from WordPress – with just a handful emerging as the engines that drive all publishers into the future. There has already been talk this year of the need for a smaller number of digital publishing tools, with some suggesting that having just one digital publishing platform with an integrated advertising marketplace could create a strong counterweight to Facebook and Google. In 2019, we’ll find out which platforms can best serve the needs of publishers and deliver the kind of digital experiences that readers really value.

What I’m most anticipating for the new year, however, is more opportunities to work with our news media members to find solutions to the industry’s problems and answers to the many new challenges that pop up every day. I know that while 2019 will be full of difficulties, it will also bring many new opportunities for our industry, and I look forward to seeing how our members take advantage of each one that comes along.

The post CEO Column: Will 2019 Determine News Media’s Strategic Landscape? appeared first on News/Media Alliance.