Monday, February 10, 2025 |
| “No matter what the technology is, we’re going to be using it.” By Hanaa' Tameez. |
|
| “Reducing the information density of teaser elements on paywalled articles and offering discounts may help newspapers increase their online subscriber numbers.” By Sophie Culpepper. |
The (nearly) full list of Good Daily’s AI-generated local newsletters What We’re ReadingArs Technica / Benj Edwards
Who needs TikTok when there’s WikiTok →“It’s a neat way to stumble upon interesting information randomly, learn new things, and spend spare moments of boredom without reaching for an algorithmically addictive social media app. Although to be fair, WikiTok is addictive in its own way, but without an invasive algorithm tracking you and pushing you toward the lowest-common-denominator content. It’s also thrilling because you never know what’s going to pop up next.”Anthropic
Anthropic’s data says AI is primarily used for coding →“The tasks and occupations with by far the largest adoption of AI in our dataset were those in the ‘computer and mathematical’ category…The second largest category was “arts, design, sports, entertainment, and media” (10.3% of queries), which mainly reflected people using Claude for various kinds of writing and editing. Unsurprisingly, occupations involving a high degree of physical labor, such as those in the ‘farming, fishing, and forestry’ category (0.1% of queries), were least represented.”Bloomberg / Alice Robb
How much should authors get paid to license their books for AI? →“‘HarperCollins request re. AI — time sensitive,’ read the subject line. My publisher, I learned, had negotiated a licensing agreement with Microsoft Corp., which wanted to train its AI models on a selection of HarperCollins’s backlist — including my 2018 nonfiction book Why We Dream. Microsoft was offering HarperCollins $5,000 per title; HarperCollins would pass on half of that fee to consenting authors.”Semafor / Ben Smith
Trump chaos is helping The Washington Post regain some ground →“The week of Jan. 27 saw the organization’s biggest audience since the election…That included 15 million unique visitors on the Post’s platforms, as well as 76.9 million uniques off-platform (largely Apple News)…A story following the response to the sudden funding freeze was the Post’s biggest hit since August 2022.”The Wall Street Journal / Isabella Simonetti and Natalie Andrews
“We’ve already won”: Podcasters and influencers gain new standing in Trump’s White House →“Meanwhile, the Department of Defense recently announced an even bigger reshuffling, removing dedicated Pentagon office space for the New York Times, NBC News, NPR and Politico. They will be replaced by the New York Post, One America News Network, Breitbart News Network and HuffPost News, as part of an annual rotation.”On the Media / Micah Loewinger and Brooke Gladstone
How Wired is scooping the competition →“Wired is fundamentally a tech publication. These are people we have been covering for many years. We understand how they like to run their companies, what they value. We have been listening to their thoughts about government, about regulation for years and years and years. Now they are in a position to make the world run that way. Because we have done that work, we’re able to see, in the words of Wayne Gretzky, where the puck is moving next.” — Wired reporter Vittoria ElliottThe New Yorker / Jill Lepore
The editorial battles that made The New Yorker →“Most editors remain unsung. To be unknown is, ordinarily, to be underestimated…Editing, though, is a dying art. And it’s this decline that justifies breaking Harold Wallace Ross’s rule about never writing about writers and never naming editors…in an age of tweets and TikToks and Substack posts and chatty podcasts, a vanishingly small percentage of the crushingly vast amount that is published on any given day has been edited, by anyone. A whole lot of people are wandering around in hospital gowns with their butts out, patootie to the wind.”The New York Times / John Koblin
Who’s watching what on TV? Who’s to say? →“People now watch so many programs at so many different times in so many different ways — with an antenna, on cable, in an app or from a website, as well as live, recorded or on-demand — that it is increasingly challenging for the industry to agree on the best way to measure viewership. In some cases, media executives and advertisers are even uncertain whether a competitor’s show is a hit, or something well short of that.”Columbia Journalism Review / Jon Allsop
Covering the “Mad King” →“The press might lack the power even of the courts, but we are still a check on government, even if only through our choice of words and the stories we decide to prioritize, and we can and should be clear-eyed and open-minded about what Trump might actually be able to achieve without rhetorically imbuing him with powers he doesn’t actually have.”404 Media / Emanuel Maiberg
Microsoft study finds AI makes human cognition “atrophied and unprepared” →“‘The data shows a shift in cognitive effort as knowledge workers increasingly move from task execution to oversight when using GenAI,’ the researchers wrote. ‘Surprisingly, while AI can improve efficiency, it may also reduce critical engagement, particularly in routine or lower-stakes tasks in which users simply rely on AI, raising concerns about long-term reliance and diminished independent problem-solving.'”The Washington Post / David L. Stern and Robyn Dixon
Independent media in Russia, Ukraine lose their funding with USAID freeze →“‘We risk losing the achievements of three decades of work and increasing threats to Ukraine’s statehood, democratic values, and pro-Western orientation,’ Detector Media, a journalism watchdog, said in a statement on its website.”The New York Times / Amanda Holpuch
A cyberattack is disrupting the publication of Lee newspapers across the U.S. →“Lee Enterprises is the parent company of more than 70 daily newspapers, such as The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and nearly 350 weekly and specialty publications in 25 states, including Alabama, New York and Oregon.” Some of the newspapers got around the attack by printing smaller issues; all of them could still publish online and reported on their own experiences of the cyberattack, though some customers had issues accessing their online accounts as well.
Nieman Lab / Fuego
Twitter / Facebook
View email in browser
Unsubscribe
You are receiving this daily newsletter because you signed up for for it at www.niemanlab.org.
Nieman Journalism LabHarvard University1 Francis Ave.Cambridge, MA 02138
Add us to your address book
͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
