<> The Conversation has moved away from traditional fact-checking in favour of a more constructive approach to combating misinformation, according to editor-in-chief Misha Ketchell. In a revealing interview on Influencing Insider, Ketchell explained why the publication closed its fact-checking department, citing concerns about the confrontational nature of fact-checking journalism. "Fact checking is so sanctimonious at the end of the day. It's so 'I'm right and you're wrong. You got it wrong. Gotcha,'" Ketchell said.  "The difficulty with that is that it's combative and you end up sort of preaching to the choir." Instead, The Conversation is focusing on what Ketchell calls "pre-bunking" - providing accurate information before people encounter misinformation.  "We're trying to present information in a more neutral way," he explained. The publication maintains its commitment to academic expertise, continuing journalism's traditional role of providing expert context to new

PANDER POLITICS  It’s Friday and finally sub editors around the country can start looking forward to a time when they can stop thinking exclusively in China puns. There have been some doozies — “Great Gall of China,” “Nice to Xi You,” “Any Storm in a Port” (think Darwin) — and a few wince-inducers, like The Daily Telegraph’s “PM Goes Weak at the Chinese.” Today’s entrant is “Panda Politics,” the homophone doing duty to frame the trip as indulgent, wavering, groveling — at least according to the opposition.  In The Age (“PM rejects opposition claims on China”) and The Sydney Morning Herald (“PM eyes 'rewards' of panda politics”), Paul Sakkal addresses those critiques directly. Albanese has shrugged off barbs that his stops to visit soccer coaches, a tennis centre, a really very old long wall, and a big bamboo muncher or two were self-indulgent, arguing instead that Australia will reap economic benefits from demonstrating

Image source: The Hindu, Business Today, PM India, Raw Pixel and Tribune India; Edited by Dinesh Raj M The government’s latest flagship agriculture push, the Prime Minister Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana (PMDDKY), has been met with a mix of optimism and cautious scrutiny in the press. At the heart of the Rs 24,000-crore-a-year initiative lies the convergence of 36 schemes from 11 ministries, targeting 100 low-performing districts–a scale not seen in any prior agri-scheme. Hot Off the Press The Hindu dissected the scheme’s operational vision, highlighting that committees at national, state and district levels will lead planning and execution. Notably, each District Dhan-Dhaanya Samiti will include progressive farmers and prepare plans aligned to national goals such as crop diversification, water conservation and organic farming. The inclusion of private sector partnerships was flagged as a key pillar. Meanwhile, Hindustan Times framed the scheme’s urgency and potential reac

After completing a full refurbishment of the publication’s website, GadgetGuy’s Valens Quinn believes that many publishers see, “the landscape is changing about the way people consume content,” and as a result, it's “important to keep up with the times.”  “What we wanted to do with Gadget Guy was to do two things. One, it allows us to post quicker because there is an overhead to writing articles, getting all the images, and entering them into the CMS,” Quinn told Influencing.  “Two, it was to take content from all the places we invest in. We're putting a lot of effort into video and socials, and you must create content relevant to that platform.” After the new publication’s website was soft-launched in May, Quinn said the main changes were on the homepage.  “We have our tech ticker, which is the main feed. We've designed the tech ticker to include in-feed articles, meaning you read them directly. That could be our latest social posts that you're alread

<>   In the early days of The Conversation, a small team of ten journalists huddled around a single IKEA table, their phones constantly ringing as they reached out to academics across the country.  Editor-in-Chief Misha Ketchell remembers assembling that table himself with an Allen key, creating what would become the humble beginning of a groundbreaking media organisation which has now spread globally.  The initial pitch to academics seemed almost comical, Ketchell told Influencing Insider. "We've just started, we have no audience, no money, and we can't pay you - but would you write an article in the next three hours?"  Despite numerous rejections, the team persevered, gradually building trust and understanding between the worlds of journalism and academia. Arguably their breakthrough moment came during one of the darkest events in recent history - the Christchurch massacre. When the editor called Ketchell suggesting they wait a few weeks before covering the tragedy,

Australian Podcast Ranker for June has revealed the ABC has topped the charts with a podcast that averages just over 6000 downloads an episode. ABC News Top Stories produced 415 episodes in June, with 2.5 million downloads between them. With a monthly listenership of 781,067, according to Triton’s ranker, the podcast toppled Hamish and Andy from the top spot. The duo Hamish released four new episodes in June, to 776,321 listeners – and 1.5 million downloads. ABC’s Mushroom Case Daily scored 3.35 million downloads across 29 episodes, to land in third place this month – its highest placement to date, and no doubt its peak. But there’s still the sentencing to come, so expect another ABC News Daily and Conversations also performed well for the national broadcaster, with 1.17 million and 2.1 million downloads respectively, and monthly listenerships of 405,000 and 365,000. Mamamia Out Loud slipped to fourth place, with 537,000 listeners and 1.74 million downloads, while Sha

    Google has quietly struck new deals with a string of digital and independent publishers, in some cases on significantly reduced terms, as Labor prepares to resume work on fresh laws aimed at forcing tech firms to pay for news, reports John Buckley at Capital Brief.  Buckley revealed Google has reached agreements this year with Schwartz Media, publisher of The Saturday Paper and The Monthly, and Mamamia, as well as with Yahoo, Australian Community Media, Crikey publisher Private Media, and youth publisher Junkee. “Some of these new deals carried reduced values,” he reported one of the sources had told him,, speaking on the condition of anonymity as the information is confidential.  Negotiations were opened in some cases with offers as much as 40% below their original values, said Buckley.. “Google has continually demonstrated strong support for public interest journalism, and is the only technology company with an extensive number of significant commercial agreemen