The Weekly Wrap: November 15, 2024
Are you changing the way you read (or write) news? How?
On Monday we ran “I’m a journalist and I’m changing the way I read news. This is how.” In it, I talk a bunch about my kids. I also talk about how reading news on social media has made me less happy. And I talk about how I’m looking for useful, appealing ways to teach kids about news.
I worried about what the reaction to the post would be. I thought other journalists would yell at me for being a news avoider.
Instead, I got more positive emails about this post than any other story I’ve written ever. Some journalists told me that they are also parents and have also noticed that reading news when they’re around their kids affects the way they parent. Others were especially interested in media literacy for kids — in elementary school, middle school, high school. They, like me, want to know who’s doing it well and how. I’m so excited to dive into reporting on this over the next year.
The part of the article that seemed to resonate with people the most was “I’ll read news, not other people’s reactions to news.” Adding on to this, I came up with some new ~~personal~~ social media policies this week — the main one being that I’m unfollowing anyone who shares a news story with only the phrase “can’t tell you how bad this would be,” or “lol nothing matters,” or a , or similar. (Siren emoji exception if the news broke in the last one minute?) Our skeets can be better, more informative and helpful, than this. (Never forget it was a Bluesky post that inspired The Onion to buy Infowars…)
If you’re changing the way you read news, let me know. If you are reporting news differently, I’d love to hear that too.
— Laura Hazard Owen
From the week
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| One variety of “fake news” is taking possession of a far more insidious one. By Joshua Benton. |
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| Guardian reporters may still use X for newsgathering, the company said. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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| “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink…Journalists need to understand how distributing true and useful information out into the world can be its own rewarding service — no matter what happens next.” By Michael J. Socolow. |
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| Sometimes it’s healthy to do something you love less, and differently. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
Among apps vying to replace Twitter, Bluesky may have the news and innovation edgeThe New York Times tech guild’s election-week strike is over, without a contract Highlights from elsewhere
Bloomberg / Peter BlumbergX is suing to block a California law aimed at curbing deceptive AI-generated election content on social media →“The law, which requires large online platforms to remove content deemed ‘materially deceptive,’ will lead to widespread censorship of political speech, according to the complaint filed late Thursday in Sacramento federal court.” Governor Gavin Newsom signed the act — and two related measures — into law in September.
NBC News / Kat Tenbarge and Kevin CollierTwitter’s post-election user exodus is the largest since Elon Musk took over →“According to data from Similarweb, a third-party company that tracks social media analytics, daily traffic to Bluesky jumped above that of Threads on Nov. 6. Bluesky is currently the no. 1 free app on Apple’s App Store, directly ahead of Threads.”
Digiday / Sara GuaglioneNews publishers didn’t sustain a traffic bump in the 2024 presidential election week like they did in 2020 →“Traffic from the day before Election Day 2024 through Saturday had 20.9% less traffic to the top 50 websites when measured against the comparable six days in 2020, according to Similarweb data shared with Digiday.”
CJR / Paul BeckettAn inside look at The Wall Street Journal’s campaign to free Evan Gershkovich →“Were discretion and caution the order of the day, or would trumpeting the injustice that had been meted out on our colleague accelerate his return? A phone call to a senior government official who knows this terrain provided the answer: ‘There are times to be quiet and there are times to be loud — and this is a time to be loud.'”
The Verge / Jay PetersThe Wall Street Journal is testing AI article summaries →“The summaries appear as a ‘Key Points’ box with bullets summarizing the piece. The Verge spotted the test on a story about Trump’s plans for the Department of Education, and the Journal confirmed it’s trialing the feature to see how readers respond.”
Semafor / Max TaniAl Jazeera Gaza team stops broadcasting over unpaid bills →“In an email obtained by Semafor titled ‘Suspending Operations,’ and sent to hundreds of network staff on Tuesday, one of Al Jazeera English TV’s Gaza-based correspondents Hani Mahmoud said that the team based in Gaza would no longer be broadcasting on air until the network paid its bills. Mahmoud wrote that due to the delay of fuel payments by the Qatar-backed satellite television organization, Al Jazeera’s employees can no longer drive vehicles between their homes and broadcast locations — and don’t want to risk traveling by public transportation … One person familiar with the situation told Semafor that in addition to missed expense repayments, staff in Gaza had also struggled to receive payment in recent months.”
The Verge / Emma RothGoogle is testing the “impact” of removing EU news from search results →“While the ‘test’ is supposed to determine how it will impact traffic and the overall search experience, it won’t show up for everyone. Google will only remove EU news articles from search results, Google News, and Discover for one percent of users in Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. Google says it’s running the ‘time-limited’ test because EU regulators and publishers ‘have asked for additional data about the effect of news content in Search.'”
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