Tuesday, June 18, 2024 |
| “Any organization that is dependent on having a founder around is inherently unsustainable.” By Sophie Culpepper. |
What We’re ReadingTwitter / Brian Stelter
Jeff Bezos shows support for embattled Washington Post publisher Will Lewis →“Team — I know you’ve already heard this from Will, but I wanted to also weigh in directly: the journalistic standards and ethics at The Post will not change…You have my full commitment on maintaining the quality, ethics, and standards we all believe in.”WAN-IFRA / Lucinda Jordaan
How one of the world’s oldest daily newspapers reinvented itself, overnight How one of the world’s oldest daily newspapers reinvented itself, overnight →“Faced with impending shutdown, Austria’s 320-year-old Wiener Zeitung underwent a radical reinvention — from government gazette, to publicly-funded, digital-only, multichannel media outlet…Wiener Zeitung is now WZ, an about-face from its roots in print and an aging audience.”The Daily Beast / Harry Lambert
The career that took Will Lewis to the top of The Washington Post →“The episode left Lewis reviled by Murdoch’s rank-and-file. He had to work off-site, and at one point deployed a bodyguard. ‘The journalists thought he was there to give them up and save management,’ says an informed observer, adding: ‘which he was.'”The Guardian / Angelique Chrisafis
Marine Le Pen’s far-right party says it will privatize French public broadcasting if elected →“Sebastien Chénu, the party’s vice-president, said in an interview on France 2 that public TV and radio in France needed ‘a bit of liberty, some oxygen.’ He said certain big programs on national radio stations ‘lean to the left or far left’ and there should be ‘no taboos’ about privatization.”Axios / Mike Allen
The Washington Post has brought back a former senior editor to oversee coverage of its own top execs →“The storied Post newsroom is in an uproar over Lewis’ handling of several internal controversies over the past two weeks. The fracas includes increased scrutiny over Lewis’ role in a phone hacking scandal that rocked Britain’s Fleet Street in the 2000s.”Wired / David Gilbert
ISIS is creating fake CNN and Al Jazeera broadcasts for propaganda purposes →“One video focused on giving ISIS credit for a terror attack that Russian disinformation blamed on Ukraine. ‘It was essentially fake news to debunk fake news,’ says an expert.”The New York Times / Vivek H. Murthy
Here’s why the Surgeon General wants to put warning labels on social media to protect kids… →“Why is it that we have failed to respond to the harms of social media when they are no less urgent or widespread than those posed by unsafe cars, planes or food? These harms are not a failure of willpower and parenting; they are the consequence of unleashing powerful technology without adequate safety measures, transparency or accountability.”Ars Technica / Ashley Belanger
…and here’s why it could hurt kids more than it helps →“Downplayed in Murthy’s op-ed, however, is the fact that social media use is not universally harmful to kids and can be beneficial to some, especially children in marginalized groups.”The Wall Street Journal / Ann-Marie Alcántara
Can you replace Google search with Reddit? I tried it for a week →“As you can see, it isn’t clear-cut. But one thing’s certain: Googling isn’t what it used to be — for better or worse.”Media Voices / Esther Kezia Thorpe
5 things we learned about the state of podcasts from the Digital News Report 2024 →“Perhaps surprisingly given its popularity among young people and the push from platforms like Spotify to increase accessibility and discoverability of podcasts, the share of podcast listening for news shows is still roughly the same as it was seven years ago.” (In 2018, 11% of those surveyed said they’d listened to a news podcast in the past month. In 2024, it was 13%.)The Wrap / Natalie Korach
70% of the unionized editorial staffers at The Daily Beast are taking buyouts →“Twenty-five unionized staffers took the buyouts, equivalent to nearly 70% of the guild, including almost all of the outlet’s senior staffers…’We’re currently watching the collapse of The Beast,’ the individual told The Wrap. ‘There is no doubt the site won’t be able to recover from this.'”The Verge / Tom Warren
Meta releases Threads API for developers to build “unique integrations” →It could “potentially even result in third-party apps for Meta’s competitor to what was previously known as Twitter” — or at least make it easier for audience people to post.404 Media / Emanuel Maiberg
AI images in Google search results have opened a portal to hell →“The news is yet another example of how the tools people have used to navigate the internet for decades are overwhelmed by the flood of AI-generated content even when they are not asking for it and which almost exclusively use people’s work or likeness without consent.”Nieman Reports / Ann Cooper
What the AP’s archives tell us about the press as a political institution →“But while AP’s online ‘morgue’ preserves its journalism, it’s the personal papers and institutional records in the corporate archives that tell the story behind the story — the reporting adventures, the editorial decision-making, relationships with AP members, the administrative governance — that Tunney sought to preserve.”The Wall Street Journal / Sarah E. Needleman and Ann-Marie Alcántara
Social-media influencers aren’t getting rich — they’re barely getting by →“Platforms are doling out less money for popular posts and brands are being pickier about what they want out of sponsorship deals. The real possibility of TikTok potentially shutting down in 2025 is adding to creators’ anxiety over whether they can afford to stick with the job for the long haul.”The Washington Post / Alexandra Petri
Signs your Sinclair station is injecting propaganda into local news →“News that local Little League team won its series concludes with anchor saying, ‘Nice to see one victory that we can call legitimate.'”Talking Biz News / Chris Roush
Dow Jones, union agree to four-year contract →“Once approved, the agreement will run through June 30, 2027, and will end a year of bargaining between the two sides. The tentative agreement provides a combined minimum 8 percent wage increase for the first two years of the contract effective July 1, 2024.”Current / Austin Fuller
Growing costs and falling sponsorship are fueling the waves of layoffs in public media →” Current has tracked more than 400 jobs lost to layoffs or buyouts since March 2023, including at operations as different as NPR, Chicago Public Media, GBH in Boston and WBHM in Birmingham, Ala.”Knight Foundation / Issie Lapowsky
Translating research on digital media into policy and practice →“The clearest evidence that journalists consider this research to be vital is their shared concern about rising political attacks against researchers in this space … ‘If those researchers are being muzzled because of these lawsuits,’ says [Craig] Silverman of ProPublica, “that’s going to have an impact for journalists, as well.'” (The Stanford Internet Observatory, highlighted in this report, is
being dismantled.)
Nieman Lab / Fuego
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