The Weekly Wrap: July 19, 2024
A software update ground the world to a halt
A single software update seems to have disrupted IT systems globally and TV broadcasters in Australia, France, and the U.K. were among the first to flag the widespread blue screen of death (BSOD). The U.K.-based Sky News apologized to viewers for being unable to broadcast on Friday morning. The station was back on air a little before 9 a.m. local time but “with a stripped-back studio, a lack of chyrons, and presenters apparently reading from printed papers rather than an autocue.”
The outage is affecting a number of airports, banks, hospitals, and governmental services around the world. But, hey, Nieman Lab is up and running! Here’s what we published this week.
— Sarah Scire
From the week
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| “The strength of weak ties” applies to misinformation, too. By Joshua Benton. |
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| Nonprofit newsrooms are competing for limited funding and attention spans, grappling with diminishing returns on social, and trying to address low trust in media. It’s forcing outlets large and small to adapt to survive. By Sarah Scire. |
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| “We talk to a lot of towns where there is no newspaper anymore; there’s no community center anymore; the town store shut down. And this is kind of it.” By Sophie Culpepper. |
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| Ziff Davis can’t lay off workers or decrease their salary due to generative AI, according to the tentative contract. By Andrew Deck. |
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| “I’ve joked about Businessweek(ish); I don’t think that one was really considered.” By Sarah Scire. |
Nearly all local online newsrooms produce newsletters, a LION report findsNow you can get news on your vapeWith Carlos Watson’s conviction, the Ozy story reaches its poetic ending Highlights from elsewhere
BBC / Matt Murphy and Robert GreenallU.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich sentenced to 16 years on espionage charges →His employer, The Wall Street Journal,
has been advocating for his release and called the verdict a “disgraceful, sham conviction.” The BBC reports that “Russian observers say a quick conviction could mean that an exchange is imminent. According to Russian judicial practice, an exchange generally requires a verdict to already be in place.”
The Verge / Jay PetersGoogle’s AI results are showing up less frequently in searches, a study found →“The data, collected by BrightEdge and reported on by Search Engine Land, suggests that Al Overviews dropped from appearing in 11 percent of queries on June 1 to 7 percent of queries on June 30. BrightEdge’s data also indicates that Al Overviews cite Reddit and Quora dramatically less than they did before.”
Press Gazette / Charlotte TobittThe London free daily Metro has gone from “in no way sustainable” to profitable →“We give the people what they want. We don’t take ourselves too seriously when appropriate. I think it’s Metro’s role to provide the UK with access to free, impartial and trustworthy news. But it’s news and entertainment.”
The Verge / Emma RothInstagram will help researchers study if it’s hurting teen mental health →“Researchers will gain access to Instagram data for up to six months, which may include information on how many accounts a teen follows, how much they use Instagram, their account settings, and more. However, Meta notes it won’t provide access to a user’s demographic information, nor will it include the contents of their posts, comments, or messages.”
Axios / Sara FischerLocal coverage of Trump rally shooting all looked the same →“Axios analyzed the home pages and lead stories of the largest news website in each U.S. state from 9:30p.m. to midnight on Saturday. Many local outlets posted the same stories, photos and headlines aggregated from a central desk at their parent company, such as Gannett, Lee Enterprises or Advanced Publications.”
Reuters / Inti LandauroSpain proposes tightening rules on media to tackle fake news →The proposed rules “would bring Spain in line with the European Media Freedom Act approved in March. That act is
designed to regulate the media but also shield journalists from state spying or being forced to reveal their sources.”
Defector / Alex Sujong LaughlinBuzzFeed is the reason it can’t sell “Hot Ones” →“With its lines of merch, games, and hot sauces, Hot Ones is playing all the BuzzFeed hits, but with one crucial difference—it’s relevant. But that relevance isn’t worth the cost of BuzzFeed’s debt, which threatens to obliterate the husk of BuzzFeed that’s leftover from the last seven years.”
The Washington Post / Paul FarhiHow the media’s wait for the facts in Trump shooting fed a backlash →“Given the enormous stakes involved in Saturday’s shooting, reporters generally exercised discipline, limiting themselves to what they could see and hear….Few of the initial accounts of the shooting — which injured Trump slightly; killed a Pennsylvania man, Corey Comperatore; and critically wounded two others — were outright wrong. Instead, readers jumped on the stories’ hesitant approach.”
Proof News / Annie Gilbertson and Alex ReisnerTech companies used thousands of swiped YouTube videos to train AI →“Our investigation found that subtitles from 173,536 YouTube videos, siphoned from more than 48,000 channels, were used by Silicon Valley heavyweights, including Anthropic, Nvidia, Apple, and Salesforce. The dataset, called YouTube Subtitles, contains video transcripts from educational and online learning channels like Khan Academy, MIT, and Harvard. The Wall Street Journal, NPR, and the BBC also had their videos used to train AI, as did The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, and Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
The Washington Post / Elahe IzadiFormer DCist staff launch the 51st, a worker-run local news site for Washington →“Worker-run newsroom: When?” Maddie Poore asked her old co-workers on the night they gathered to commiserate over the closure of DCist. “When are we going to do this? We need this as a city.”
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