Tuesday, December 17, 2024 | “Ask someone in your life under 40 where they get the news. Odds are they’ll mention a non-newsroom podcaster or YouTuber.” By Julia Munslow. |
| “To be clear, many within these organizations have already shown a willingness to hold back in favor of access to political elites — so these actions by owners and CEOs will be more of an alignment of goals than a top-down push.” By j. Siguru Wahutu. |
| “Visual investigations are poised to move from niche desks to standard operating procedure in newsrooms in 2025.” By Ståle Grut. |
| “Factual accuracy is a necessary but insufficient goal of professional journalism. Journalists need to compile facts into a vision of reality that is more compelling than that offered by right-wing media and by Donald Trump.” By A.J. Bauer. |
| “We can continue to complain about this new generation of content creators and how those in power use them to amplify their messages of hate — or we can adapt and fight for truth, freedom of expression, and democracy.” By Mael Vallejo. |
| “We need to have deep conversations about how we are doing, not just water cooler moments in the newsroom.” By Mar Cabra. |
| “This year, I predict that you — yes, you — will stand up, speak up, and do the right thing for the communities we aim to serve.” By Robert Hernandez. |
| “This moment will inevitably require newsrooms, and journalists, to change. But when hasn’t that been the case?” By Rachel Lobdell. |
| “Newsrooms will need to create new products in the broadening domain of what used to be called fact-checking.” By Renée Kaplan. |
| “Journalists have been dehumanized and treated as enemies when they are truly in service of society, shining a light on what is happening in the world around us.” By Juanita Islas. |
| “The facts about the current state of the news business are well known — to the point where they’re not exactly news.” By Nancy Watzman. |
| “Journalists will continue to take matters into their own hands — or spreadsheets — either as entrepreneurs striking out on their own or innovators in established and legacy institutions.” By Shira T. Center. |
| “It will combine compelling imagery, quality news gathering, and timely reporting to bring the clarity and scope we currently expect from television news directly to our personal devices.” By John Saroff. |
| “2025 will be a year with fewer shooting stars, but we’ll start building constellations in a broader night sky.” By P. Kim Bui. |
| “If we are to reap the rewards that AI can afford us, we will need to be able to source the origin of information down to the very last word.” By Traci Mabrey. |
| “The industry will need to sift through the irrational exuberance around AI and drive more discipline around spend.” By Artem Fishman. |
What We’re ReadingNBC News / Katherine Doyle
Trump files suit against the Des Moines Register for…writing about a poll →“‘The odds of success here are slim to none, but winning in court is not likely the real goal of this lawsuit,’ said Clay Calvert, a media law expert and professor at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. ‘The true motivation is to intimidate the press and journalists. I unfortunately suspect this lawsuit is just a harbinger of things to come.'”The Washington Post
The Washington Post is launching an AI-heavy, subscriber-only comments system →“AI-generated questions will appear with most journalism to offer subscribers a conversation starting point…Subscribers can immediately understand their peers’ dominant takeaways and reactions to the journalism through Al-generated summaries of the comments.”The Washington Post / Jeremy Barr
CNN says it was misled by the man freed in a Syria report with Clarissa Ward →“The man identified himself during the segment as ‘a civilian’ named Adel Ghurbal, who was taken by the intelligence service from his home three months ago and interrogated…But the network reported on Monday evening that the man’s name is actually Salama Mohammad Salama and that he served as a lieutenant in the Assad regime’s Air Force Intelligence Directorate.”The New York Times / Danielle Kaye
Ozy’s Carlos Watson is sentenced to almost 10 years in prison →“…for trying to defraud investors and lenders by lying about the company’s finances…following a two-month trial during which witnesses detailed an impersonated phone call, fabricated contracts and misleading claims about Ozy’s earnings from 2018 to 2021.”Editor & Publisher / Bob Sillick
News delayed: How USPS policies are testing small publishers’ resilience →“According to [Matt Paxton, publisher of the Lexington (Virginia) News-Gazette], the erosion in distant mail service is a specific issue affecting many small, local newspapers, including his, because periodical rates have increased multiple times in 2023-2024. For approximately 20 years, he has continuously received complaints from subscribers about waiting days for their newspapers or receiving multiple issues in one delivery.”El País / Quino Petit
83% of Spanish journalists believe that society’s image of them is negative, according to a new report from the Madrid Press Association →Translated from Spanish: “For 96.5% of those surveyed by the APM, the media are a reflection of political polarization in Spain. And while 87% consider them to be participants in the climate of accelerated tension, only 13% think that these same news outlets are victims of the general anger. If for 43% [of respondents] social networks are the main means of increasing environmental tension – followed by television at 36%; the press at 8%; and radio at 6% – 48% believe that all of them, to a greater or lesser extent, encourage tension.”The Verge / Jay Peters
Mark Zuckerberg says Threads has more than 100 million daily active users →“In recent weeks, Meta has been very vocal about Threads’ growth after a lot of people flocked to Bluesky. While Bluesky tracker says that that platform currently has a little over 25 million total users, Zuckerberg shared Monday that Threads has more than 300 million monthly active users.”404 Media / Joseph Cox
Cellebrite unlocked this journalist’s phone. Cops in Serbia then infected it with malware. →“The report is significant because it shows that although Cellebrite devices are typically designed to unlock or extract data from phones that authorities have physical access to, they can also be used to open the door for installing active surveillance technology.”The Washington Post / Erik Wemple
ABC News not only settled a defamation suit with Trump, it paid out $15 million. What? →“Here’s the peculiar dimension of this whole affair: The posture of ABC News progressed from unreasonably dismissive (rejecting legitimate demands for correction) to unreasonably accommodating (giving away the store to Trump via $15 million, a note of contrition and so on).”Axios / Mike Allen and Sara Fischer
The Washington Post’s top editor prospects flee after hearing its business strategy →“The situation at the Washington Post is so dire that two candidates to run the paper — Cliff Levy of the New York Times and Meta’s Anne Kornblut, a former Post editor — both withdrew from consideration for the top newsroom job over the paper’s strategy, sources involved in the process say.”BBC / Julian Fowler
Northern Ireland police acted illegally by spying on journalists, court finds →“The landmark ruling was made by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) in a case brought by Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney. It found that the actions of police when mounting an undercover surveillance operation were disproportionate and undermined the domestic and international protections available for the media.”
Nieman Lab / Fuego
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