Monday, April 3, 2023 |
| The news and data giant has — with a relatively small team — built a generative AI that it says outperforms the competition on its own specific information needs. By Joshua Benton. |
News now makes up less than 3% of what people see on Facebook What We’re ReadingPolitico / Steven Waldman
There’s already a solution to the crisis of local news. Just ask this founding father. →James Madison: “Whatever facilitates a general intercourse of sentiments, as good roads, domestic commerce, a free press, and particularly a circulation of newspapers through the entire body of the people, and Representatives going from, and returning among every part of them, is equivalent to a contraction of territorial limits, and is favorable to liberty.”The Verge / Jon Porter
Twitter had a very messy weekend →“April 1st was the day Twitter said it would begin winding down its legacy verified program. But like most things done at the company under Elon Musk’s leadership, the process appeared to be chaotically executed, and subject to the whims of its new CEO.” Victim of one of those whims: The New York Times.All Access / Perry Michael Simon
The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act has been reintroduced In the Senate →“… the bill to allow news organizations, including broadcasters, to collectively negotiate terms of distribution with social media platforms.”The New York Times / Lydia DePillis
Local TV news is at center of the fight over noncompete clauses →“‘The vast majority of people who work in this country, if they find themselves in a bad situation and they don’t like it, they have options to leave, and they don’t have to move,’ said Rick Carr, an agent who represents broadcast workers. ‘And TV doesn’t allow that.'”Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism / Maurice Oniang'o
How a new generation of women are driving a golden age of data journalism in Kenya →“One of the major challenges Kenyan data journalists face is that most of the data they need is documented in analog formats. Sometimes they are forced to deal with data that is handwritten in a book, sometimes unintelligible or missing some key information due to a torn page.”Financial Times / Anna Nicolaou
Is “Succession” the end of Peak TV? →“With Wall Street cheering them on, America’s largest studios threw tens of billions of dollars towards producing new shows and movies in a land-grab for streaming subscribers. It was halcyon days for any half-decent script idea, and allowed consumers to enjoy more television than ever before at a fraction of the costs of traditional TV. That extravagance came to an abrupt stop last year, seemingly in lockstep with the beginning of the US Federal Reserve bank’s most aggressive streak of rate rises in decades.”Bloomberg / Ashley Carman
Tensions flare inside NPR after staff layoffs and town halls →Executives said NPR had “stopped production on the seasonal podcasts because they weren’t generating enough revenue to justify their limited production. People I spoke with noted this feedback had never been shared with the editorial teams prior to that moment.”Slate / Luke Winkie
Wordle has become a giant daily content engine for digital publishers →“This is not the most invigorating part of Hill’s job. Nobody in the media aspires to write hundreds of bespoke Wordle guides, day after day after day. But Hill approaches his duty with monklike discipline because the traffic is just that good.”The Washington Post / Mike Hume
Looking back at Launcher, The Washington Post’s just-closed gaming vertical →“Start with the definition of a ‘gamer.’ A gamer is anyone who plays video games. Full stop. There are no other conclusions to be drawn about their social habits, profession, culinary tastes, education level, anything. Gaming is one aspect of a person’s life. We wouldn’t regard ‘TV viewers’ as some kind of monolith. Why do so with games?”The Guardian / Nadeem Badshah
BBC journalists plan to strike during local elections May 5 over radio cuts →“The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said the broadcaster’s management wants local radio stations to share programmes across the network from 2 p.m. on weekdays and at weekends, going from more than 100 hours of local programming on every station each week down to a minimum of 48.”The New York Times / Maya Salam
Why the interview questions on “Hot Ones” are so good →“If you’ve pictured [host Sean] Evans going into hiding for a week before each interview to consume every part of his upcoming guest’s career, you wouldn’t be wrong. But he also gets a lot of help from his brother, Gavin Evans, the show’s researcher, who compiles a dossier on each celebrity that might be 50 pages long — no magazine profile, podcast interview, IMDb entry, Wikipedia page or archived local news story is left unplumbed.”Engadget / Karissa Bell
A new Twitter alternative is trying to lure users about to lose their old blue check →“T2 is part of a growing crop of Twitter alternatives that have sprung up in the wake of Musk’s takeover. The platform…is intent on recreating the ‘public square’ associated with the pre-Musk Twitter. In fact, founder Gabor Cselle has been pretty clear that he intends to create ‘a pretty straightforward copy of Twitter with some simplifications’ rather than an entirely new experience.”NBC News / Dareh Gregorian and Jane C. Timm
In a loss for Fox News, a judge has allowed Dominion’s defamation case to go to trial →“‘The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,’ [Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric] Davis wrote in his 81-page ruling, emphasizing the word ‘crystal’ in his ruling.”The New York Times / Michael Crowley, Ivan Nechepurenko, and Anton Troianovski
An espionage charge adds a hurdle to freeing a Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia →“The Russian authorities have accused the reporter, Evan Gershkovich, of trying to gain illicit information about the country’s ‘military-industrial complex.’ In the Kremlin’s eyes, experts say, that puts him in a special category of prisoners — one quite different from that of two Americans whom Russia has released since the start of the war in Ukraine.”BBC News
The BBC has hired a former ITN boss to review its contested social media policies →“The review will examine what freelance presenters working outside news, current affairs and factual journalism should be allowed to say on their personal social media accounts.”The Guardian / Tom Dart
Local TV broadcasters are crucial for MLB. Now many are in trouble. →“While local rights represent about 15% of income for the NHL and NBA, MLB relies on local media for nearly a quarter of team revenues and its 162-game regular season makes it a cornerstone for sports channels who can bank on the league for hours of live action nearly every day.”The Verge / Mitchell Clark
Twitter’s $1,000 checkmark will be free for the 10,000 most-followed companies →“For example, a newsroom like The Verge could verify the journalists working for it, proving that the person reaching out for an interview actually does work there. (Though, to state this clearly, Vox Media currently has no plans to do this.)”Agence France-Presse
Burkina Faso expels reporters from two French newspapers →“The authorities summoned the two journalists [from Le Monde and Libération] on Friday evening and gave them 24 hours to leave the country. They landed in Paris on Sunday morning.”Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt
The U.K. site Gal-dem closes after eight years →“Gal-dem, an online magazine brand staffed by and telling the stories of women and non-binary people of colour…told readers on Friday afternoon that ‘continuing to operate as a business is unfortunately no longer feasible.'”
Nieman Lab / Fuego
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