Daily Clips: NFTs are Being Used by Political Candidates

News Service Launches In Nebraska With Experienced Reporting Team

The launch of an independent, nonprofit news outlet was announced on Thursday in a press release. The Nebraska Examiner is an online news organization focused on Nebraska and will launch Jan. 25. The Examiner is the 26th statecapital news outlet created under the umbrella of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit funded by grants and taxfree donations.

“We intend to provide a hard-hitting flow of daily news, scoops and reports that will keep Nebraskans informed and help them to better understand their state and communities,” said Cate Folsom, the Examiner’s Editor-in-Chief. “Our staff of four has worked in Nebraska journalism for a combined 137 years. Our deep experience and strong skills will benefit our readers moving forward.”

Lee Enterprises Asks Shareholders To Fight Takeover

On Monday, Lee Enterprises asked shareholders to help it defeat a takeover bid from Alden Global Capital. In a notice, Lee asked shareholders, at its March 10 annual meeting, to vote only for its proposed board nominees. It said shareholders should also “disregard any materials sent to you by or on behalf of Alden…”.

According to its proxy notice Monday, Lee’s largest shareholders are Alta, Wyoming-based Cannell Capital, which owns 8.23% of Lee shares; Ponte Vedra, Florida-based Praetorian Capital Management, which owns 7.32%; and Alden-affiliated Strategic Investment Opportunities, which owns 6.32%.

Alden, which offered $24 a share for Lee in November, in December saw the newspaper publisher reject its three nominations for Lee’s board. Lee said it determined that Alden’s submission of board nominees did not meet several requirements in the company’s bylaws. Alden then sued Lee in a Delaware court, calling Lee’s bylaws unusual and improper. Alden is seeking a ruling that its nominations are valid. The case is pending, with a trial scheduled for Feb. 7, Lee said.

NFTs Are Being Used By Political Candidates To Raise Money

The cryptocurrency phenomenon known as NFTs, political candidates are now getting into the act — but some experts say that transparency concerns could affect their use as a political fundraising tool. “NFTs are bringing more people into our fold, into our movement,” said Max Rymer, a digital consultant for Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Dr. Scott Jensen.

Jensen’s campaign saw an opportunity for NFTs to be a low-dollar way for people to become engaged with their candidate and receive something of value in return for their donations, Rymer told ABC News. Through the sale of NFTs, “we’ve added 2,500 new people that are going to support our campaign going forward,” Rymer said. And while the number of political campaigns that have launched NFTs remains low, interest has been growing. Electables.com, which will make money by providing an NFT fundraising platform for campaign clients, currently has more than 300 campaigns on its waitlist ahead of its planned launch in March.

Google News Initiative Partners With Medill And Mather On Groundbreaking Local Newsroom Tool

The Google News Initiative has partnered with the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications to support an expansion of its new Medill Subscriber Engagement Index, a tool that aims to track and deeply understand the behavior of digital subscribers for local news organizations, according to a joint announcement today. The Medill Index, which launched last year, was initially developed with the support of a Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge Grant. The Index gives participating local news organizations detailed financial and readership metrics of their digital audience.

The Index tells news outlets which types of their content are correlated with regular readership and subscriber retention. It also measures revenue per subscriber, retention rate, readership by device and the percentage of subscribers who appear especially at risk of canceling. Significantly, the Index allows participating outlets to benchmark their performance against that of peers across the country.

More than 50 news outlets are now part of the Index, with about 100 more expected to join in the first half of this year, participants in the subscriber Index are all U.S.-based now, but Medill and Mather aim to eventually expand it to Canada and other countries.

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