By Matt Carroll <@MattCData>

Feb. 12, 2017: Cool stuff about journalism, once a week. Get notified via email? Subscribe: 3toread (at) gmail.

1. What happens when a mid-sized city loses its paper: Spoiler alert: It’s not pretty. Take a case-study of Guelph, a Canadian city of 100,000, which lost its paper. Some other news sites have tried to fill the hole, but enterprise reporting clearly took a hit, say observers. A grim example of the growing news deserts. By Ricardo Bilton for Nieman Lab.

2. Wikipedia bans Daily Mail — deserved rebuke or slippery slope?: The volunteer editors of Wikipedia banned the Daily Mail, the Brit rag that peddles “dubious, salacious and sensational” stories — and, occasionally, gets something right. Will Oremus of Slate argues this is a good thing because of the paper’s terrible reputation, even as he notes other bans of publications, notably one by a sub-Reddit that was much more controversial.

3. Holding on tight to print: Who doesn’t think that print is slowly dying?Well, media critic Jack Shafer of Politico keeps arguing that print is showing surprising strength — maybe it’s future is not so dark, after all. Which is a totally insane way to think, says Aron Pilhofer, a newly-minted journo prof at Temple, and formerly of The Guardian and the NYT. Retreating back to print isn’t just a bad idea — it’s suicide, he writes. An interesting read.

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Matt Carroll is a journalism professor at Northeastern University.

By Matt Carroll <@MattCData>

Feb. 4, 2017: Cool stuff about journalism, once a week. Get notified via email? Subscribe: 3toread (at) gmail.

1. Stuck at the center of a fake news conspiracy theory: Doris Truongof the Washington Post took pictures of the notes left by Rex Tillerson at his DC confirmation hearing. Wow, what a horrible person. Oh wait. She didn’t. Too late: Thousands of outraged people slammed her — for something she didn’t do, at an event she didn’t even attend. What it’s like inside the fake news whirlwind.

2. Two interesting pieces from The Backchannel Team: How thousands of college kids are powering a clickbait empire:Odyssey, a story platform you probably never heard of, is paying college kids to grow this rapidly expanding site. The issue: They’re getting paid next to nothing, while the company reaps the benefits. Good piece by Jane Porter. And Facebook Live is the Right Wing’s new Fox News: A fascinating piece about how a new generation of conservative sites are latching on to the rising tide of Facebook Live to reach the growing faithful, much like an older generation used talk radio. By Alexis Sobel Fitts.

3. Designing news for those who are burned out: Feeling a little … overwhelmed by all the news these days? Do your fear another story about Trump will drive you into a quivering, whimpering ball behind the couch? Well, Melody Kramer, writing for Poynter, feels your pain. And she has some interesting thoughts about how media sites can help their readers battle news fatigue.

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Matt Carroll is a journalism professor at Northeastern University.

By Matt Carroll <@MattCData>

Jan. 31, 2017: Cool stuff about journalism, once a week. Get notified via email? Subscribe: 3toread (at) gmail.

1. What *really* happened at Donald Trump’s inauguration: That bad media! They lie and distort everything about my wonderful inauguration! So here’s the true story of inauguration, written the way The Donald wants it. A comic read by Alexandra Petri of the WaPo. A lot of fun.

2. The horror when a freelancer is plagiarized:Freelancers have a tough time, under the best circumstances. What happens when you write a sensitive story on the sexual abuse of children, and the story gets plagiarized by crass rip-off mills? Nothing good. By Ginger Gorman for MediaShift.

3. The global state of fake news, in 5 charts: If you are wondering how pervasive is “fake news,” and how it is spreading, these charts help explain. Concise and interesting. Ross Benes for DigiDay.

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Matt Carroll is a journalism professor at Northeastern University.

By Matt Carroll <@MattCData>

Jan. 23, 2017: Cool stuff about journalism, once a week. Get notified via email? Subscribe: 3toread (at) gmail.

1. How journalists screwed up the ’16 election — and are still getting it wrong: Nate Silver, who’s made his career on highly accurate political prognosticating, is starting a series of why it all went so badly this time around for media outlets (including his own fivethirtyeight). He gives a thoughtful take on the election, wishful thinking, and how to do better next time. The first of what (hopefully) will be an interesting series.

2. The team making Mark Zuckerberg more likeable: Don’t you wish you had a Facebook team to make you a more likeable person? Mark Z does. The Facebook founder has a group devoted to making videos, photos and whatever for his Facebook page. They are intent on showing the world a kinder, softer guy. Look! His favorite pizza toppings! It’s a new take on an old idea: Big corporation tries to manipulate the public into changing its view of its top guy — and by extension, their view of the corporation. Nice story by Bloomberg Sarah Frier.

3. BuzzFeed crowdsources ‘TrumpWorld’: No other president has had such a complicated business and personal background. Here’s your chance to dig in and inform the world about what it all means. BuzzFeed has dug up as many business details and personal relationships as it could find, mashed them neatly into a downloadable spreadsheet, and asked for the public’s help in connecting the dots. What can you find? It’s a great idea. By John Templeton and a team.

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Matt Carroll is a journalism professor at Northeastern University.