The Weekly Wrap from Nieman Lab

The Weekly Wrap: February 21, 2025 From the week

Meet the journalists training AI models for Meta and OpenAI The gig work platform Outlier is one of several companies courting journalists to train large language models (LLMs). By Andrew Deck.

In Germany, social media algorithms are pumping out huge amounts of far-right, pro-AfD content A new study found that, on TikTok and Elon Musk’s Twitter, nearly 3/4 of all partisan content being pushed algorithmically to German users favored the party best known for its ties to neo-Nazis. By Joshua Benton.

A German news outlet got rid of its comments section — and asks readers to debate instead Commenters get to engage in meaningful discussions, and Der Spiegel’s moderators have a more manageable workload. By Hanaa' Tameez.

A new report suggests journalism support orgs, funders, and local newsrooms unite around four goals “We, as a field, need to be able to make coherent, persuasive, rigorous, and empirical arguments for why local news and information is critical to the health and safety of our communities.” By Sophie Culpepper.

The New York Times will let reporters use AI tools while its lawyers litigate AI tools “Generative AI can assist our journalists in uncovering the truth and helping more people understand the world.” By Joshua Benton.

Blurred lines: When it comes to news habits, age may be more important than nationality A digital media landscape that shapes news habits similarly across borders may be erasing some country-specific patterns. By Sarah Scire.

London’s local news startups find readers willing to payThe American Journalism Project receives $25 million to fund more nonprofit newsrooms and launch the “Knight Resiliency Lab” Highlights from elsewherePress Gazette / Bron MaherChatGPT referrals to top news publishers are growing quickly (but still a minuscule proportion of visits) →“Total desktop and mobile web visits globally referred to 14 leading publishers by the OpenAI-owned ChatGPT rose eight times from 435,000 in August to 3.5 million in January. However that same group of sites received a total of 3.8 billion visits in January, meaning traffic from ChatGPT represented less than 0.1% of all visits.”

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