Wednesday, September 27, 2023 |
| Generative AI systems act like “stochastic parrots,” using statistical models to guess word orders and pixel placements. That’s incompatible with a free press that commands its own words. By Mike Ananny and Jake Karr. |
What We’re ReadingDeadline / Ted Johnson
CNN Max launches, with a schedule that mirrors much of its linear lineup →“The streaming service, currently in open beta form, is a hub on the Max platform and available to all subscribers. It also includes about 900 hours of programming from CNN Originals, including shows like Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace and Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown and Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.”Semafor / Max Tani
Fox slashes ad prices for second debate as primary turns into “snoozer” →“Semafor reviewed the rates the network shared with one prospective ad buyer for both the first and second GOP primary debates. For the first debate, the cost of a single 30-second spot topped $495,000. But the same 30-second spot during Wednesday night’s contest would cost just over $200,000.”The Verge / Jay Peters
Artifact is becoming Twitter, too →“You’ll be able to directly make posts on Artifact, making it a more direct competitor to apps like X and Instagram.”Huck / Emma Garland
Inside the independent magazine that wants to “save Wales” →“We’ve had a lot of people comment on how ‘different’ the magazine is but actually, if you look at it, a lot of it is just about people’s everyday experiences — playing Minecraft, walking around the woods, being sad when you go back home for Christmas, that kind of thing. But you don’t usually get that with magazines because the format is always geared towards the idea of celebrity. We just treat our mates like celebrities, I suppose.”Columbia Journalism Review / Derek Kravitz
Failures like Rolling Stone’s do not happen in every newsroom →“If unverifiable accounts were published with any frequency, the bleak state of American journalism would be even bleaker, with many fewer newsrooms staying afloat.”Slate / Paola de Varona
The 23-year-old getting her generation hooked on…newspapers? →“Print media gives us the opportunity to sit down, and decide when we want to feel the emotions we want to feel, rather than letting some arbitrary algorithm decide how we should feel.”Medium / Center for Cooperative Media / Will Fischer
El Tímpano’s Madeleine Bair on collaborating with local communities to tell impactful stories →“Through our Spanish- and Mam-language reporting, we’ve informed our audience about the risks of breathing polluted air, ways to protect their health, and how to learn the quality of the air they breathe. But our reporting also uncovered the fact that a lot of emergency preparedness resources such as trainings and notifications simply aren’t available in Spanish.”Washington Post / Joseph Menn and Gerry Shih
Under India’s pressure, Facebook let propaganda and hate speech thrive →“All of the hard questions around tech come to a head in India.”The Atlantic / Martin Baron
How we got “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” and other stories from eight years running The Washington Post →“In the end, we settled on ‘A free people demand to know’…Late that evening, Bezos dispatched an email in the ‘not what you’re hoping for category,’ as he put it. He had run our consensus pick by his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott, a novelist and ‘my in-house wordsmith,’ who had pronounced the phrase clunky.”
Nieman Lab / Fuego
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