FT closes WhatsApp group

The Financial Times has closed a Whatsapp group through which it shared one free markets story per day with individuals who had signed up.

Freddy Mayhew of The Press Gazette writes, “A message sent to the group this week read: ‘Unfortunately this group will soon close. Thank you for following us and we hope you’ll continue to read our markets stories via other platforms.’

“The FT said a change in policy at the mobile messaging app, which is owned by Facebook, was behind the decision and that it had otherwise been a ‘huge success’ and would not have been closed.

“It claims the audience had nearly tripled in just over a year, since it publicised the service last summer, and with a ‘high volume of valuable traffic’ being sent to the FT’s website.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.