Mastodawn

ianhillmedia Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis I love it here, but no.

Katherine ☘️Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis Because the majority of them lack a solid IT team and/or simply outsource it to the parent company

edwardiglesias Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis your url seems to be having a bad day.

Chris Coleman Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis Now let’s see which ones continue writing about Elon with the knowledge that they could get banned again, and which ones bow down and back off.

Paul Allen Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis I suppose media outlets worry that even creating a parallel account on Mastodon might result in the "algorithm" (aka Musk) suppressing their tweets on everyone's timelines.

Jeff Markel Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis I see lots of independent journalists talking about going to, or already having gone to, post.news. Good for them, I guess but, even beyond their painfully obvious albeit early-days scaling issues, it seems to me that moving to Post is going from one monolithic walled garden to another, where the garden is really a circus that charges admission, the circus animals are the users, the clowns are scary, and mostly what they want to do is sell you popcorn, cotton-candy, and lots of sugar

@jeffmarkel I agree. I was briefly an adviser to Post but backed away.

This Minute Matters Dec 17, 2022

And the blatant blocking of mastodon urls...labeling them as harmful.

Meta Meta Mike Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis in time. I think it's happening. I too want to rush it but I'm not sure we can. I try to balance a sense of urgency with a sense of patients. Thank you for all you're doing! Keep it up!

This Minute Matters Dec 17, 2022

One way to send the signal to post here is to post their article links and click on them, I suppose.

Shoe_fly Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis @KCStar is here.

Darryl Collins 🚴🏻Dec 17, 2022

#BylinesNetwork @BylinesNetwork doing it right. They have their own server (Bylines.Social) hosting all ten of its local citizen journalism publications, with website verifications throughout:

1) The English regionals:
@YorksBylines
@NEBylines
@BylinesEast
@CentralBylines
@NWBylines
@KentBylines
@SussexBylines
@WEBylines

2) The nationals:
@BylinesScotland
@BylinesCymru

#Bylines

Nicolas Pettiaux Dec 17, 2022

@darrylxxx @jeffjarvis voici un media traditionnel qui a mis en ligne son serveur #mastodon @JohanneMontay @philaloux

David Miller 🇺🇸 🗽Dec 17, 2022

@darrylxxx @jeffjarvis
This is a fantastic example of how to do it.

Not every little local paper has the resources to host their own server but syndicates can and small papers that aren't part of a larger network could also collaborate to give their journalists an online professional home that can't be yanked out from under their feet.

The Perennial Gardener Dec 18, 2022

@darrylxxx @jeffjarvis @YorksBylines @NEBylines @BylinesEast @CentralBylines @NWBylines @KentBylines @SussexBylines @WEBylines @BylinesScotland @BylinesCymru @BylinesNetwork

Northern Ireland missing

Guido Leenders Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis could be worse; no politicians are found here (which also might be a good thing while it lasts).

Guido Leenders Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis hmm, that is a failure of me. Just came across a list and it seems it went from close to zero to a significant amount in few days.

@guidoleenders can you share that list?

Guido Leenders Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis sure: https://mastodon.social/@janvlug/109523328071114226 (I don’t know what country you are in but this is the Dutch parliament)

Jamie Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis NBC and Reuters are on Post.

ldcolton Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis Legacy media being slow to adapt to a rapidly changing environment is kind of a "same story, different decade" thing. I remember working for a small local newspaper around 2003 and being shocked by how unprepared they were for the internet. In 2003! They felt they were a "news" company and not a "tech" company, so they didn't even try to understand the net. They outsourced their web presence and repeated the process with every other paradigm shift brought on by tech.

S the gardener Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis I think it’s super hard for many, to start again from scratch.

Gregg Prendergast Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis do local dailies (or in my case 3x a week local paper) even have the technical talent to stand-up a mastodon server? how much does it cost?

Chris Ross Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis agreed. Surprised that @washingtonpost and others didn't immediately create their own Instances.

They have the financial means to build and support the infrastructure. They could, if they choose, incorporate revenue means, and most importantly, their journalists would be protected.

Futurist Jim Carroll Dec 17, 2022

https://futurist.info/@jimcarroll/109524180803113810

A poll I ran literally 24 hours before the manchild had his journalism meltdown

Futurist Jim Carroll (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image I'm going to pin this to my profile for now. Literally 24 hours before #bloodythursday I posted this poll here asking when we thought we would see major news organizations arrive here. The poll answers are WILDLY out of date just like that. #twittermigration is real, and #journalists are arriving en masse after the #thursdaynightmassacre

Mastodon

Brian Sullivan Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis Just access journalism at work but access to powerful platform, not people? Ultimately dollars rule even in journalism.

JEFF JENNINGS Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis Once “normal” people see the word “server” that they need to pick before they even sign up they probably hit the backspace. Not user-friendly and explains why most accounts here are related to tech. It’s only user-friendly once you get here but most people don’t go past that barrier probably

@jeffjarvis Were news orgs and journalists any faster in taking up Twitter? My recollection was that in the aughts, many more of them were jumping on Second Life.

@kwerb It's a good question. If one considers that they are already acclimatized to "social media" then this now is just a question of which place.
And I don't remember much takeup of Second Life. Perhaps that's because I was too busy at the time making fun of it.

@jeffjarvis Media orgs were in Second Life to say they were. Journalists were in Second Life to make fun of us weirdos. (Except Wagner James Au, who is still there.)

@jeffjarvis More of my point is that a "social media" protocol with 8 million users is different for journalists than a platform with 300 million and direct pathways into the traditional media ecosystem. I can't blame those who care more about reach than conversational quality.

@kwerb But, of course, the reach was never 300 million; it was only as many as one reached. We have the opportunity to get out of the mass-media definitions and mindset of scale, eh?

@jeffjarvis Amen, brother.

WolfH Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis I don't know about organisations, but the list of journalists is getting very long https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13No4yxY-oFrN8PigC2jBWXreFCHWwVRTftwP6HcREtA/htmlview?resourcekey=undefined&pru=AAABhH2W2zA*V1PG7hJSTbifNCcDu40zLA#gid=1320898902

Journalists on Mastodon and Fediverse (Responses) - Google Drive

WJJH Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis For serious organizations this are consequential decisions and I can appreciate this requires impact analysis, strategic review, consultations. This takes time and cannot be taken on the spur of the moment or in the same manner the twit toddler makes his decisions.

@WJJH I heard the same kinds of excuses by newspaper editors about the web.

Mike Hemmes Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis
Absolutely. I could talk for hours about #Mastodon. But I’ll say, in this context, media, and everyone else looking to communicate via short form social platforms like #Twitter and #Mastodon, need to realize that the fediverse (ex. Mastodon) is made for us, by us, and is the evolution of Twitter-like platforms.

Mike Hemmes Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis
One of the talking points within this Twitter saga is it’s profitability, both when it was still public and also now as it struggles to guarantee reimbursements to its creditors. This concept does not lend itself to organic conversation and free speech.
Conversely, federated platforms and servers are maintained by the folks who want to have the conversation, paid for with their own funds and the funds of those that want to participate in the conversation.

Mike Hemmes Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis
There’s so much more I’d like to say about the instances themselves (servers like mastodon.social and infosec.exchange for example) and how they further foster community engagement in a way not seen on other platforms, but I digress.

Michael Dec 17, 2022

It's likely not a newsroom decision. They may want it, but the IT department often moves slowly to study security and infrastructure.

Jeremy Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis I doubt they will until they are convinced they have no choice. Many people are uneasy with the lack of institutional backing behind mastodon (and many other open source projects) - for institutions that goes double or triple. Asking large, traditional orgs to sign up to Mastodons is a big ask, and I'd expect a lot of careful, risk-averse analysis and then, at best, tentative steps.

Bree Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis
Yep, been looking to follow some of the news organizations that I followed on Twitter and they just aren’t here 🤷‍♀️

Chris Lombardi Dec 17, 2022

@jeffjarvis As individuals, you and I are taking the chance that MSTDN -- not Post. or spill, or one of the others-- will serrve the audience we want to reach. If I ran a big organization I might fear making the wrong bet

@ChrisAintMarchin Mastodon, Post, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit... one must make many bets or, to put it another way, go to many places to find the people we serve, eh?