Thursday, September 21, 2023 |
| “When our models noticed stocks of companies moving in ways that typically indicate news, our system pinged the relevant beat reporter in Slack so he or she could hit the phones and see what’s going on. It’s a great way to break news.” By Louise Story. |
In another warning sign for nonprofit local news, The City cuts costs What We’re ReadingVanity Fair / Charlotte Klein
The New York Times asks reporters to write new “enhanced bios” →“We want to get moving quickly on this,” the internal email states. “The masthead feels it’s especially important to highlight the human aspect of our work as misinformation and generative AI proliferates.” (“Bio pages also rank highly in Google.”)The Wall Street Journal / Joe Flint and Amol Sharma
Rupert Murdoch to step down as chair of Fox and News Corp after seven-decade career →“His eldest son, Lachlan Murdoch, who has served as co-chair of News Corp, will become sole chair of that company and will continue as Fox Corp. Executive Chair and CEO.”Current / Tyler Falk
CPB awards $2.25M to seven public radio stations to bolster statehouse reporting →“The two-year grants require the stations to share their state government coverage with public media and other outlets across the state. In Connecticut, for example, the reporting will be shared with WSHU in Fairfield, Conn.; public media stations in the New England News Collaborative; Spanish-language news outlets; and the nonprofit digital news organization CT Mirror. “Mediaite / Diana Falzone and Aidan McLaughlin
Project Veritas suspends all operations →“Six staffers were laid off from the embattled organization this week, sources said, including all remaining journalists and one development associate. One former Project Veritas staffer said just 11 people remain on the non-profit’s payroll, including CEO Hannah Giles.”Rest of World / Andrew Deck
Why Silicon Valley’s biggest AI developers are hiring poets →“If you can properly generate tabloid headlines in French, that’s one thing. But if [a product] can replicate [Victor] Hugo’s style or somebody famous, that gets a different kind of credibility,” Dan Brown, a professor at the University of Waterloo who researches computational creativity, told Rest of World. “Replicating classical language forms is a way of looking prestigious.”The Verge / Mia Sato
YouTube is going all in on AI →“AI tools will also begin informing what kind of content creators make. A new AI feature in YouTube Studio will generate topic ideas and outlines for potential videos. The AI suggestions will be personalized to individual creators, YouTube says, and based on what’s already trending with audiences. Additionally, an AI-powered music recommendation system will take a written description of a creator’s video and suggest audio to use.”Tampa Bay Times / Jay Cridlin
Lucy Morgan, Pulitzer-winning force of Florida journalism, dies at 82 →“I have always liked to be underestimated,” Morgan once said. “To be a Southern woman in a Capitol full of good old boys is an advantage. When they find out I’m serious, it’s too late.”The Boston Globe / Mike Damiano and Hilary Burns
Boston University announces inquiry into Ibram Kendi’s Antiracist Center, home to The Emancipator, after mass layoffs →Kendi laid off more than half the center’s staff. The Emancipator, a digital publication launched in partnership with The Boston Globe,
became part of BU in March.Center for Media Engagement / Caroline Murray, Emily Graham, Yujin Kim, Natalie Jomini Stroud, and Taeyoung Lee
Migration narratives in Chicago media →“To better understand Chicago’s migration coverage, the Center for Media Engagement investigated how 23 local news outlets covered migration in their online articles and social media channels from June 2021 through July 2022. For comparison, we analyzed how eight news outlets in Toronto, Canada covered migration.”Second Rough Draft / Richard J. Tofel
What about philanthropy for for-profit news? →“Fully 37% of for-profit newsrooms receiving philanthropic contributions don’t publicly disclose a list of donors; another 20% disclose only some. Another 17% of the people completing the survey didn’t even know their own company’s disclosure policies. Only 26% disclosed most or all contributions.”The New York Times / Cade Metz and Tiffany Hsu
ChatGPT can generate images now, too →“Called DALL-E 3, it can produce more convincing images than previous versions of the technology, showing a particular knack for images containing letters, numbers and human hands, the company [OpenAI] said.”
Nieman Lab / Fuego
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