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Beyond pageviews: Small news nonprofits develop their own metrics to measure impactâIf you donât decide how youâre going to measure your success, somebody else will decide for you.â By Sophie Culpepper. |
Has the “gentle singularity” already begun? And when did the singularity become “gentle”?On rebranding humanity’s demotion as a species as marketing. By Joshua Benton. |
“With Simple Article Summaries, you propose giving one singular editor with known reliability and NPOV issues a platform at the very top of any given article, whilst giving zero editorial control to others. It reinforces the idea that Wikipedia cannot be relied on, destroying a decade of policy work.”
The New York Times / Steven Lee MyersFake images and conspiracy theories swirl around the L.A. protests →“The flood of falsehoods online appeared intended to stoke outrage toward immigrants and political leaders, principally Democrats. They also added to the confusion over what exactly was happening on the streets, which was portrayed in digital and social media through starkly divergent ideological lenses.”
PressThink / Jay RosenAfter 39 years at NYU, Jay Rosen is retiring →“I was greatly moved by a single sentence from the British sociologist, Raymond Williams. ‘There are in fact no masses; there are only ways of seeing people as masses.’ I agreed with that, and I wanted to refine and extend what Williams was saying there. There is no public until we start seeing people as a public. And if we fail to do that, support for public service journalism is likely to fade over time.”
Axios / Sara FischerDoctors hate him! Chumbox pioneer Taboola has one weird trick for local news sites (it’s AI) →“Taboola knows what’s trending on the internet…This is the core business of the company, so we’re taking advantage of that, and we’re trying to stimulate consumers to create a new habit.”
Associated Press / David BauderWith reporters shot and roughed up, advocates question whether those covering protests are targets →“Journalists have been pelted with rubber bullets or pepper spray, including an Australian TV reporter struck while doing a live shot and a New York Post reporter left with a giant welt on his forehead after taking a direct hit…The advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said there have been at least 31 attacks on journalists â 27 from law enforcement â since the demonstrations started.”
The Verge / Alex HeathSnap will start selling AR glasses next year →“The coming release is part of CEO Evan Spiegel’s decade-plus bet on what comes after the smartphone…While he’s resistant to offer more details about the hardware, people who have seen prototypes of next year’s glasses tell me they’re noticeably thinner and lighter than last year’s version, which was only available to developers who applied to rent them.”
The Washington Post / Scott NoverThe U.S. granted these journalists asylum. Then it fired them. →“‘The people who were working on my team, journalists who, because of their job, endured the impossible just to be able to support the truth in their countries,’ [former Nieman Fellow Fatima] Tlis said. ‘Still, after all of that they remained true to their profession, to their mission, and wanted to continue fighting lies and falsehoods and unmasking disinformation. Those people are getting fired right now.'”
The Wall Street Journal / Joe FlintThe M&A deal machine is revving up in the media and entertainment industries →“The ranks of media owners and entertainment companies are poised for their biggest makeover in a generation…[but] run-ins with President Trump have chilled some companies’ appetite for dealmaking, according to industry officials and analysts.”
The Guardian / Kaamil AhmedThis Palestinian journalist has lost his wife, three children (one also a journalist), and a grandchild in the Gaza war →“At least 225 Palestinian journalists and media workers are known to have been killed in Gaza since the start of the Israeli onslaught, according to the Palestinian Journalistsâ Syndicate, and many of the most experienced have had to leave because of the danger they faced.”
Associated Press / Mike SchneiderA Florida government agency has tried to tell the Orlando Sentinel to “cease and desist” its reporting →“The Orlando Sentinel received the letter on Friday from the state Department of Children and Families…The letter claimed that the newspaper’s Tallahassee reporter had used threats to coerce foster amilies into making negative statements about the Hope Florida Foundation when he contacted them about the welfare nonprofit behind the signature initiative of Casey DeSantis, Florida’s first lady.”
Wired / David GilbertAI chatbots are making L.A. protest disinformation worse →“In the midst of fast-moving and divisive news stories like the LA protests, and as companies like X and Meta have stepped back from moderating the content on their platforms, users have been turning to Al chatbots for answers â which in many cases have been completely inaccurate.”
The Verge / Jay PetersApple News Plus is adding another game to keep readers returning daily →“Apple News Plus subscribers will get access to a new daily puzzle game called Emoji Game. ‘Emoji Game brings to life one of users’ favorite ways to communicate in a fun and engaging way, with players challenged to use emoji to complete three phrases, with the goal of solving the puzzle in as few moves as possible,’ Apple says.”
The Wall Street Journal / Suzanne Vranica, Dana Mattioli, and Jessica ToonkelThe sales pitch from Elon Musk’s Twitter: Give us your ad business or we’ll sue →“The threat came from X, the social-media platform that has been struggling to resuscitate its ad business after many corporate advertisers fled…All told, at least six companies that had either received lawsuit threats or were motivated in part by pressure tactics have struck ad deals with X, according to people familiar with the negotiations.”
Press Gazette / Charlotte TobittBritish local publisher Reach is betting on Substack to increase its, er, reach →“In 2023 Reach launched around a dozen paid-for newsletters on Substack as an experiment and this year so far it has launched more than that number again, but this time for free…Thompson said the drive is reaching people who may not have a relationship with a Reach brand already, especially in topics that they might not realize it covers.”
The Verge / Jess WeatherbedAmazon is about to be flooded with AI-generated video ads →“Amazon Ad’s Video Generator, a free advertising tool introduced in beta last year, now has some new tricks and is generally available for sellers in the US to create ‘photorealistic video assets’ in five minutes or less.”
Press Gazette / Charlotte TobittAnother British tabloid has finally stopped putting scantily dressed women on Page 3 →“The Daily Star used to have topless models on page three but shifted to a clothed (bikinis or underwear) format in 2019 following ‘reader feedback.’ The Sun published its own last nude page three photo in January 2015 amid the No More Page 3 campaign. The sensationalist Sunday Sport is the only remaining print newspaper to publish topless photos.”
Futurism / Maggie Harrison DupréPeople are becoming obsessed with ChatGPT and spiraling into severe delusions →“During a traumatic breakup, a different woman became transfixed on ChatGPT as it told her she’d been chosen to pull the ‘sacred system version of [it] online’ and that it was serving as a ‘soul-training mirror’; she became convinced the bot was some sort of higher power, seeing signs that it was orchestrating her life in everything from passing cars to spam emails.”
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