A mic with the NPR (National Public Radio) flag at their headquarters in Washington DC. by Ted Eytan, Flickr, Some Rights Reserved

I wrote about public media groups in the US buying digital local news sites last month for What’s New in Publishing last month after Colorado Public Radio bought Spirited Media’s Denverite. This isn’t really a new trend with St. Louis Public Radio buying the St. Louis Beacon more than five years ago, but we have more examples recently. And now with Philadelphia’s WHYY buying Spirited Media’s original site, Billy Penn, we have another example of this interesting effort by public media groups to scale their digital audiences and ambitions through acquisition.

In my international media newsletter today, we have a couple of pieces looking at the acquisition as well as this in a jam-packed edition:

What will journalists do with the 5G wireless? LSE research role to study AI and news. NYT CEO: Publishers can’t build business model on cuts. Drone journalism tips and more (including Vice’s latest sign of weakness and lack of focus).

If you spot a good story about the business of media, especially digital, feel free to send it to me @kevglobal on Twitter.

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Shy Greek Sculpture, by Alan Levine, from Flickr, Some Rights Reserved

Good Monday morning! In my international media newsletter today, we hear from my friend Suchandrika Chakrabarti on 7 reasons a freelance journalist should start a podcast. I met her when I was doing consulting and training for her former employer, then Trinity-Mirror, now Reach in the UK. It’s a great post, and I think if you have love audio and have a niche that you’re passionate about, podcasts can be a great addition to a freelancer’s repertoire.

Apart from other industry news today, we also have another bit of sage, actionable advice: If you’re an introvert attending a media festival for the first time, this is for you. Janie Octia of Splice, which aims to become the Nieman Lab/Digiday of Southeast Asia, gives advice for how to get the most out of media conferences if you’re not an extroverted über-networker. I raise my hand to that. I’ve had to learn networking. It didn’t come naturally to me. I still struggle to break the ice, but once I do, I found that I best understand networking (or blogging) as sharing mutual professional passions.

If you don’t get my international media newsletter, you can get a taste of it and subscribe here. 

Blind monks examining an elephant, an ukiyo-e print by Hanabusa Itchō, Public Domain, from Wikimedia

I’m slightly introspective and philosophical after putting together today’s newsletter, and I’m reminded about the old parable of blind men describing an elephant by touch. We all speak from our own limited experience and perspective, and that governs what we see.

Has the publishing industry got its mojo back – at least when it comes in pushing back against the big tech platforms – as Jason Kint of Digital Content Next argues? And is this going to lead to a media renaissance? Or is it depressing to be an investigative journalist in an era where crushing student debt limits limit who can operate in that space? And a number of experienced journalists have had to leave the field due to job cuts? Both things can be true. There are green shoots of optimism and growth, especially at national outlets, but in a lot of markets and especially at the local level, it’s tough to be a journalist, investigative or otherwise.

I hope you enjoy today’s dose of Hegelian dialectic. (There is a much longer story about that, but you’ll have to buy me a beer or wait for the book. Yes, there will be a book.) There is a couple of duelling views on the arrest of Julian Assange. And as VR hype cools at media groups, it is being replaced by AR hype.

To subscribe to the newsletter, it’s over here. Have a great weekend.