YouSaid · the spoken record

Meredith Artley

lines on the record: 113
first: 2019-01-14
most recent: 2019-01-14
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Exactly Happening. It's been tough, right? I think we've done it. I think there are ways that we're still kind of figuring it out, to be honest. Like when Trump started tweeting, it was this conversation inside our newsrooms and I think others as well, like do we cover every tweet? We should. We should cover every tweet. That's the president of the United States. Like it's by definition newsworthy. Then it became like, hold on, wait, slow down. We're doing stenography journalism right now. Let's chill out. Let's step back.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They just wanted the recent pop. Right. With the recent news Right, the recent like I want it, like the refreshing constantly kind of thing. Exactly. How do you build a newsroom culture that's like that though when we are in this sort of fast-paced news culture? Because it's changed again in the last two years for sure. In the last year, it's been dramatic, the amount of shifting of the news. And when you have a constant breaking news site, you have that.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Our DNA is breaking news. Like, if the world's falling apart, this is where you go to let people know and like what's going on. This is. We're now seeing this huge thirst for audiences, for context and analysis. So that's just a journalistic technique and marrying the art and the science together, we see that working in really big ways. It's kind of a basic thing, no doubt, but frankly there were times, you know, even like earlier this past year where people didn't want context analysis. They just wanted the recent pop”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Anything over 10,000 concurrence for us is considered really good. And Stephen Collinson is getting like 20,000 concurrence this morning before 9 a.m. On an analysis piece about kind of Trump's ragy weekend, another one. And that's interesting to me because what it says to me, especially as a CNNer,”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thing that works, we were actually talking about it in the news meetings this morning the thing that's working really well these days. His context and analysis because the world is so things are so crazy. Like what happened in the news cycle three days ago, you have no idea. I have no idea. Like things are just moving at such a fast clip. So this morning, we have this excellent writer's name is Stephen Collinson. Like a lot of times you will see on mobile or our app or mobile web or desktop or wherever, you will see him like ranking like one of the big stories in the morning usually. And he does analysis for us. And you will see It used to be like a few months ago, his stories would do pretty well. They'd be doing okay. We've got our chart beat app. Can I get geeky here for a second? Yes, sure. Please do.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, in that, what is working today? Because, I mean, a lot of people talk about this idea. We'll get into fake news and things like that, but what works with the user at this moment in time? Because that obviously will change. But what is the best way to reach, say, a qualified reader with a strong story?”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How can we make sure that what we are doing reaches people? It's a little bit of a battle. There's so much out there. And so we've got this big scale, we don't want to be seen as this like ubiquitous bleh.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Damn it, my headline didn't work. But again, these are really, I'm joking, these are really good, healthy examples of like.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And, like, we found that these two other headlines work better than yours did. And it's like, great. I'm glad we're AV testing.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, fine. And like, you know, a lot of times those are really good ideas. But a lot of times. What we can do now, for example, is this is one of my favorite and least favorite things that happened. I will have a really good idea for like, let's go with that headline. Right. Let's use this. Right. And the team will be like, we ran it through some A-B tests”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like, you know, it used to be like we're just going to do a story because the editor says we're going to do a story and that's the end of it. And sometimes that happens. Like, I will do it. Zucker orders up like a million stories all the time. The big boss of CNN.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's kind of it. But then there are other tools and techniques. Like, you can make sure that you are, I don't know, you're optimized for SEO, that you are thinking about, like if there's a story that we see that's doing really well, well, that's a sign that our audiences are interested. Right. Maybe we should do more, right? So that might mean developing that story a little bit more. That might mean doing Know another piece or two sidebars, you know, whatever techniques to understand what our audiences are looking at and what audiences that we might get might be looking at. And then thinking about the journalism that we need to do to support it. It's really nice. Like these days, I feel like the news business is in. Most of us are in a really healthy place when it comes to the art and science, like mixing those two things”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The scale is super important, right? So we talk about, I think it's kind of a common construct these days, but we think about a funnel, right? So that wide funnel with these massive audiences, like millions and millions of people a day, like that's good. We've got that. You got to start there. And so then what can you do to get people further down the funnel? I mean, number one is you can just do like really good essential and engaging journalism and do it well.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, how do you manage to that when you're thinking about your writers and how to deliver news to them? What is what goes into the thinking behind how to catch those people? Because other people have news just like yours.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, some of them might come to CNN.com, which is like a good loyalty sign, but some of them might just see something in a feed pop in on whatever story it is. And be like, oh, I'm on CNN.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's kind of like your favorite children question because the app has a smaller audience, but the audience is super loyal. Like most of the app users are really in it. They open it often. There's signed up for alerts. They're super engaged Some of the web audience web audience is way bigger. That's our scale. That's our ubiquity. But some of that audience is like a one and done. It's a flyby.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the way when you're thinking about your distributor in news, you think about your own and operated property sin, correct? That you want people on them. Which of those are the most important? Is it the app? Is it just the mobile enabled website? Or what do people use more?”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We do a lot of okay, let's talk about like, you know, what we're doing on SEO or what we're doing with Google on AMP or what we're doing on social that does more than cause someone to hit a thumbs up or a thumbs down.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, there's still a lot of people who do that. Right. I mean, that's one of everyone was saying a while ago that the homepage is dead or people wouldn't have homepages. That has just not been our experience. It's so old school. Yeah, yeah, I know. I know. People go to CNN.com. Like they type it in. Right. That's a huge amount of audience. But there's also, again, to the point about being addicted to like what audiences do and the data.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're going to be way more focused. We've already kind of been in this space for a while now, but we're going to be way more focused on what we can actually control, what we own, our sites, our apps, partnerships and relationships that we have with social platforms and other companies that are kind of on our own terms. CNN's so huge that we've got that leverage. Right. So that's good. I mean, and that's a benefit that you can't take for granted. There's a lot of other smaller sites that are doing great work that don't have that leverage and don't have that benefit. We have it and like we better use it.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Properties, like it doesn't make sense, it doesn't grow a business that supports journalism that you exist to do. So that was kind of where it used to be. I think where it's going now, especially in light of what's happened with the social platforms.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we had that mantra a little bit too. And it's a short sighted mantra because if you do that and you're just where the people are and you're not actually thinking about your own operated.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's changed so much in terms of how we used to be the super popular thing to be like, let's be where our audiences are. Like almost at every cost. So let's be out on every single social platform.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're here with Meredith Artley. She's the editor in chief of CNN.com and the senior vice president of CNN Digital Worldwide. We're talking a little bit about how she got to where she got, but talk a little bit about the news business now because the way people get their news and how people consume it has changed pretty drastically in the past couple of years. Talk a little bit where you think it's going and how you all are thinking about how you deliver it to people. Because obviously mobile is probably the most important part, but perhaps not. Maybe it's Facebook, maybe it's Twitter, maybe it's other places.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that's just wonderful, right? And there's different ways to think about video, right? So, you know, there are video journalists who do video just for scene in digital. There are video journalists who kind of specialize in doing video for social or YouTube or whatever it might be. And then there are video editors who Pull the right moments from air or who go and tap into the archives. I mean, we're sitting on since 1980, like a gold mine of archive video history of the world, right? So there's all these different ways that we can kind of play with video.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know, it's. The plus side is video is in our DNA, right? Like that's just who we are. So the whole Pivot to video conversation was like we can just stand in the same place where we've been. And it's really good.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I've got you to look at an organizational chart, I've got like 350-ish people or so on my team proper. And those are like writers, reporters, editors, producers who might work in politics or business or out of our London or Hong Kong teams for international or work on our social media teams. I have those people, but I think of my team air quotes is like way bigger than that because my job is actually To run the journalism and work with the journalists who fuel CNN digitally worldwide. There's thousands of journalists at CNN, and a lot of them these days continuing that story of like. Integration, there's so many people that aren't on my team technically, but they spend twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five percent of their time working for digital.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The newspaper sites and brands like Resurgent on Digital. That's a really good thing. It was BuzzFeed for a while. It's not BuzzFeed so much anymore. Yeah, it's just, you know, there's a lot of different ways to kind of slice and dice it by just about every metric. We're number one in everything, social, millennial reach, video time spent. Like it's just, it goes on and on.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, we're kind of battling it out. You can look at all these different metrics, but we've been. Battling it out. I mean, not to sound overly cocky, but it's not that close. We've had moments where it's been close. But, you know, in the last year or so, it's been, you know, the times, the post, like, and it's great. Yeah, I love to see”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, talk about what your job is. Explain what CNN does. Because people, I don't think people do realize how widespread it is because most people think of Yahoo. I'm trying to think of the news sites that people think are biggest New York Times.com. What would it be Yahoo News, some version of Yahoo Yahoo Finance, there would be Wall Street Journal, there'd be what else?”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love, like, again, like going back to the early days, like any of the competitive data you saw, like CNN was always number one. I love. Is not just a journalist, but a human that if something happened in the world, like that's where you went. And I was like, God, wouldn't that be incredible? To run CNN digital, right? To just do everything, all the Journalism and distribution and programming that you could possibly think of, it's always been strong, but I felt like there were more things that could be done.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I got back from maternity leave in LA. I've got a nine-year-old son now. And there was one voicemail and a little light on my desk phone. And it was from the executive recruiter at Time Warner. And I was like, Time Warner, I don't want to go to a cable company. And then I was like, oh.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They were like, we need you to run like the morning news meeting for the whole organization. Oh, that means we actually need the newspaper people to come in before 11 o'clock in the morning, right? So there were some of these shifts that were so the things you wouldn't see unless you were just inside the beast that were really important like steps along the way. And so I feel like all of the story for newspapers has been this momentum that's been slowly, slowly building and I've seen it. And then I think you're right. Like four or five years ago was when it was like, ah no, the future is digital. And like it's right here. You can see it on the spreadsheets. You can see it in the audience and the revenue. Like it's there. But that broke open because of”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know that it's been transformed. You're right. You know, there was. To me, the LA time, the big lesson there was personally, it was a story of, oh, they want me, like, they're going to name me as one of the managing editors of the paper. They're going to put me in the newsroom like this continued story of you're starting to get it. You're starting to get it.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I loved it there. Making the stuff. What were the challenges of moving into the digital age with these? Because all these companies, when Sam Sell came in, the idea was that it was going to be a more digital Los Angeles times, that it was, they were going to serve different communities. And there was lots of talk about how digital was going to transform the LA Times, which it never really did.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's right. I mean, I feel like there were so many increments and steps along the way. The LA Times was I mean, it was awesome because that was local. As big as LA is. It was still local. And you got to, I got to go from just global in general with the IHT to like, let's see what it's like to serve a community. That was just a really fun exercise to use the internet for that purpose. Like, if there was an earthquake, we would just tweet out, like, did you feel it? And then we'd like do a story of what people felt and they'd send us photos, like some very rudimentary things, but they were actually interesting ways to tell a story that the paper had never done before. So yeah, I just, you know, there were like three or four rounds of layoffs at the LA Times. There were Sam Zell came in and out, and it was complete chaos.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I fell in love with it. So I was Running digital, and what was the challenges there? Now, this was again in a time frame where newspapers still were slow to get there, it seemed like. They didn't until... I would say five years ago.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then I got a call from LA saying, Do you want to run LATimes.com? It's the top editor. And I said, absolutely. So that was, I'd never been in LA before. I'd never worked at the LA Times. I thought this is going to be crazy. We're going to go in the land of.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And two was there was something about being outside of the US and like some more just experimentation that was happening across parts of Europe and Africa and Asia and mobile was early there. So there were some interesting ways to play with what was happening internationally. Plus, the people at the IHT, like, I just set up a bunch of blogs for let's have a Formula One blog and let's do like, let's talk about foreign affairs. And everyone was just kind of game. It was smaller and it felt like we were all kind of in it together. So that to me was like the first taste of like I can now see what a modern newsroom might look like where people aren't like one is digital and one is print where we're actually kind of doing some things together and hey, that actually works.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I was there for like a hot second when it was co owned by the post and the Times, to your point. And then the Times took it over fully. And I feel like it was friendlier there, frankly. I think once some time had passed and you didn't have to evangelize about the importance of the internet in newsrooms as much.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And what was the attitude still at the main newspapers? This would be the New York Times because that was one of the owners of the international and it ended up being the only owner of the International Heritage Tribune. What was the attitude of them towards digital still, even during these years? This was after the fall, right?”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, let's do that, right? So that was great. So that was in some ways kind of a It was a smaller team. I wasn't doing just journalism there, right? I ended up running the technology piece and the sales piece, just tiny, tiny team. But that was great because I got to see life outside of the American lens and we experimented with like Nokia on mobile stuff and like language and translation software. And it was super.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In 2002, it was very clear that the website wasn't going away, the internet wasn't going away, it was going to grow in importance, so we're going to bring in someone from the paper. And I was like, oh, that's a ceiling. That's what this feels like.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's right. So that's why I tell the story about doing the schedule piece because that's what led to do the work that other people don't want to do and learn how everything is set up. And that's how I got into the management piece of it. So by the time it had been seven years and Bernie had left and there was an opportunity, I wanted to run the site. And they were like, now you can't yet. Like we need to bring in someone at the paper. Right. We need to bring someone over from the paper because”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Here to do journalism in play. But you were putting stuff on the website. What was the thing? So then you moved to the International Herald Tribune. To do the same thing. Because that was a paper that you got in Europe when you couldn't get any other news. You got the International Trade Union, which was an amalgamation of the Times, the Washington Post. I think LA Times was in there too.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that was a big lesson for me because I didn't, of course, I didn't want to do a schedule, I came here to like do journalism in play.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do like the schedule. Can you please just like We were getting more than 10 people on the team, and we needed to schedule out. So we had like 24 or 27 coverage.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I just grew up there. I was at the New York Times for seven years at digital, and then later I went to Paris and worked for the International Herald Tribune, which had that Times connection. But it was one of my favorite things is very early there people asked me to.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah. So we were, you know, that's back when the paper was at a different location, and the site was at a different location. And every now and then, you know, somebody from the paper would come over to observe what we were doing. And, you know, it was great. I mean, we really got to experiment and play. And it's also where I got to kind of grow up as like.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally. Yeah. Martin was the Martin was the big boss. Right. And so Martin just kind of encouraged that. We were very much a separate entity. Yes.”
2019-01-14 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: CNN.com editor in chief Meredith Artley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT