The Media Minute 04.21.2020

There are no easy, one-size-fits-all answers to how magazines can survive COVID-19 and the resulting recession. But asking the right questions can help you navigate your magazine through these rough waters.

68% of consumers say they’re searching for coronavirus updates on the internet – making it the biggest online activity, according to latest research by GlobalWebIndex. The company has been studying consumers’ media consumption habits in the current pandemic.

Called Source Local, the product allows readers to browse businesses in a local market offering gift cards. The businesses are sorted in alphabetical order. Nearly 10,000 businesses across the U.S. have added themselves to Source Local since Gannett first launched the product last month, and it has drawn over 1 million pageviews.

Publishers fret they are losing revenue from their coverage of the coronavirus pandemic when media buyers block online ads from appearing next to those stories. Yet much of that content can be considered brand-safe, according to a study that suggests news publishers are being unfairly punished for keeping readers informed about the crisis.

Curating an effective email list for your company is a lot like creating a playlist of songs for a party. It takes time, consideration,and awareness of who you’re trying to connect with. You don’t make your friends listen to a bunch of random songs in an attempt to get their attention.Instead, you hand-pick tunes that you know will get the crowd excited.

It turns out if you’re a journalist, Muck Rack is a handy little website filled with a few useful tools intended to help reporters monitor the news and quantify the impact of their reporting. Not surprisingly, it was Poynter’s digital tools guru Ren LaForme that got me to stop and notice what the site had to offer.

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