Mathew Ingram

I write about digital media for the Columbia Journalism Review. I'm an expert in stucco, a veteran in love and an outlaw in Peru (via https:

Jul. 2, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

What comes after we get rid of objectivity in journalism?

The killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, and the protests that followed, helped spark a debate in many newsrooms and journalism schools around the country about the time-honored principle of objectivity in journalism, and…

Jun. 26, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

Bowing to pressure, Google says it will pay publishers for news

For the better part of a decade, publishers have been begging (or threatening) Google, seeking compensation for the news they provide on its platform. And for all of those years, Google has adamantly refused—until now. On Thursday, Google announced…

Jun. 18, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

Are digital giants like Facebook destructive by design?

The most benign view of Google, Facebook, and Amazon is that any social or political disruption and turmoil these behemoths have caused is a side-effect of the beneficial services they provide, and any over-sized market power they have is the result…

Jun. 4, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

Trump vs social media

Donald Trump’s preferred platform is social media. But he has managed to pick fights, and divide, even there. Twitter recently added a warning label to two of his tweets, with a link to a fact-check of the information he posted, and then blocked a…

May. 28, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

Twitter fact-checks Trump, but will it do any good?

When Twitter said earlier this month that it was making some changes to “limit the spread of potentially harmful or misleading content” by adding warning labels to tweets, one of the most obvious questions was whether the company would apply the…

May. 26, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

Should Google and Facebook be forced to pay for content?

In a recent column for the New York Times, media writer Ben Smith wrote about how regulators in Australia and France are moving to force digital platforms like Google and Facebook to pay media companies directly for the content they carry from…

May. 22, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

When a billionaire owner isn’t enough

Before COVID-19 brought financial disaster to American media outlets, one of the escape routes some journalists sought was a billionaire buy-out. It seemed to work for the Atlantic magazine. In 2017, when David Bradley, the chairman and former…

May. 21, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

Coronavirus patterns make local news even more important

During the coronavirus pandemic, Ed Yong, a staff writer for The Atlantic, has written an impressive series of in-depth articles on the virus that causes COVID-19 and the often confusing details about how it has spread, what medical experts say we…

May. 14, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

Experts weigh in on Facebook’s new Oversight Board

Almost two years after it first started talking about the idea, Facebook of its Oversight Board, the “Supreme Court” that will—theoretically, at least—have the ability to overrule Facebook and its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg about whether certain…

May. 7, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

Facebook’s new oversight board: Supreme Court or fig leaf?

Two years ago Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and chief executive of Facebook, “Supreme Court” that might help regulate content on the network. Now, the first members of what it calls its Oversight Board have been named. The company appointees on…

Apr. 30, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

Fighting misinformation during a pandemic

Fact-checking and verification were already crucial skills for journalists before the COVID-19 pandemic came along, thanks in part to the rise of Donald Trump and the. But the coronavirus has made fact-checking and filtering skills even more…

Apr. 24, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

What needs to be done to help the media industry?

If it wasn’t already obvious that the media industry was in dire straits before the coronavirus came along,. Every day, it seems, news outlets large and small are announcing waves of furloughs, salary cuts, and layoffs for significant numbers of…

Apr. 23, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

Protocol layoffs raise some troubling questions

When Protocol, a new site focusing on technology coverage,, expectations were high. After all, the man behind the site—Robert Allbritton, who owns it through his holding company, Capital News—also helped create Politico, one of the most successful…

Apr. 22, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

Amplifying the coronavirus protests

As the coronavirus quarantine stretches into its second month, some people are pushing the boundaries of the lockdown restrictions. Many of them are just going for a drive or trying to play Frisbee in a park. But in a number of cases, groups of…

Apr. 21, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

The good-news trend: Uplifting? Delusional? Both?

Since we are currently in a global pandemic that has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people and the closure of stores, restaurants, and other hallmarks of normal life, it’s not surprising many people are searching for things to take their…

Apr. 20, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

Coronavirus continues to take its toll on the media industry

It’s hard to imagine an industry more poorly prepared for the arrival of a global pandemic than the media business. Even before “coronavirus” became a household word, the industry was already reeling from a series of body blows, most of them…

Apr. 16, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

How did the digital giants get so big, and what should we do about it?

In recent years a handful of giant digital platforms, including Google, Amazon, and Facebook, have grown in dominance. Each one has a market value of half a trillion dollars or more, and almost total control over some of the key levers in the digital…

Apr. 9, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

What Google and Facebook need to do to fight disinformation

Both Google and Facebook have to remove disinformation related to the COVID-19 virus over the past few weeks, considering their somewhat when it comes to removing hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and trolls related to political campaigns. But experts say…

Apr. 2, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

Zoom under pressure

It’s the kind of problem many companies would love to have: by the millions, to the point that it has become mission-critical for many, including journalists. Unfortunately for Zoom, what caused the demand (the company are using the software now than…

Mar. 26, 2020

Columbia Journalism Review

How metro papers are dealing with the pressure of COVID-19

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact an ever-widening group of cities and states, it is challenging media outlets both big and small — not just because it puts pressure on already stretched newsrooms in terms of reporting resources, but…