In the news: The AP Stylebook recently unveiled updates to better serve Asian American and disabled communities.

AP has updated its Stylebook to reflect changes in coverage of Asian American and disability issues. Kristen Hare of Poynter.org reports that AP Stylebook editor Paula Froke announced the changes at the recent ACES conference.

Notably, Hare reports that the Stylebook now asks that publications spell out Asian and Pacific Islanders and, for clarity, to use the abbreviation (AAPI) only in quoted text. Further, writers should avoid the euphemistic phrase “anti-Asian bias.” Per the AP’s press release: “‘Alternatives may include anti-Asian bias, anti-Asian harassment, anti-Asian comments, anti-Asian racism or anti-Asian violence, depending on the situation. Be specific and give details about what happened or what someone says happened.”

Disability-related language has also been updated to better serve the disabled community. Hare shares the AP’s comments on this: “‘[Writers should] use care and precision when writing about disabilities and people with disabilities; ask people how they want to be described; be specific about types of the type of disability, or symptoms; and avoid using disability-related words lightly or in unrelated situations and writing that implies ableism.”

Read Hare’s full roundup of AP Stylebook updates here.

Also Notable

US Daily Print Titles Hit Hard by Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic has dealt some resounding blows to daily print publications in the US. Earlier this month, William Turvill of the Press Gazette reported on some of the more notable losses last year. USA Today print circulation fell by 60 percent after the country went into lockdown last spring, says Turvill. (In other news, the newspaper just launched a paywall on its news content this week.) Other major newspapers such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal also saw falling circulation in summer 2020. “On average, the largest ten weekday newspapers in the US experienced a circulation fall of 20% in the six months to September 2020, Alliance for Audited Media (AAM) figures show,” reports Torvill. Read more specifics about how each of the major newspapers fared here.

Reuters Launches Paywall

This month, Reuters started putting news content behind an online paywall, reports Kim Lyons of The Verge. “[Reuters] will let users read five stories a month for free and plans to charge $34.99 a month for a subscription,” she reports. The paywall comes as part of a larger revenue strategy by the news outlet. “Reuters said it generates half of its revenue from its largest client, the financial data firm Refinitiv, and also makes money from online advertising,” Lyons says. “The company says it has redesigned its website with a ‘professional audience’ in mind and plans investment in segments like legal news and live streams of its event.” Read more here.

Pay Inequities at Gannett

A new study has unearthed major pay discrepancies in Gannett newsrooms. Gabby Miller of the Columbia Journalism Review writes: “On Tuesday [April 27], the NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America published a pay equity study on Gannett-owned newsrooms that found significant pay inequity for women and journalists of color, as well as further evidence of an overwhelmingly white, male workforce ‘less racially diverse than the U.S. as a whole.’” The report covers only union-represented newsrooms, says Miller, so it likely illuminates only a portion of the problem company-wide. Overall, she reports, the Newsguild looked at “441 full-time and 25 part-time, non-managerial workers’ median pay from fall 2020 across gender and race demographics in 14 Gannett-owned newsrooms belonging to the union.” See the discrepancies by the numbers across multiple demographics here.

Diversity at Meredith, Hearst, and Condé Nast

In recent months, Meredith, Hearst, and Condé Nast have published staff diversity numbers. According to Kathryn Hopkins of WWD.com, “These numbers don’t tell the whole story as the big three magazine publishers did not break down figures for divisions and brands.... The overall findings show that while the big three differ on certain measures, much work still needs to be done, especially when it comes to getting more people of color through the door.” She summarizes the findings from all three companies’ reports here.

Editorial Restructuring at Condé Nast

Some Vogue, Vanity Fair, and GQ editors in the UK may be laid off in the coming months as parent company Condé Nast streamlines its editorial structure worldwide, reports Chantal Fernandez of BusinessofFashion.com. Read more here.

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