Wednesday, March 13, 2024 |
| “Demand has gone down for printed newspapers, but the supply chain for providing newspapers in a printed format is collapsing faster than the natural interest in a printed newspaper.” By Corey Hutchins. |
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| “I’m only speaking for myself today, but this certainly reflects how I’m thinking about the role AI could play in the Times newsroom and beyond.” By Zachary M. Seward. |
What We’re ReadingBusiness Insider / Peter Kafka
Who could have possibly foreseen that Elon Musk would be capricious and erratic except for Everyone Who Has Watched Him For Years? →“Former CNN anchor Don Lemon says Elon Musk has canceled his Twitter talk show before its scheduled debut. Lemon says Musk, who courted him to come to Twitter, didn’t like the interview Lemon had just conducted with Musk.”Foreign Policy / Amelia Lester
Princess Catherine, BBC Dad, and the new picture perfect →“The public’s reception to two families, both alike in virality, illustrate this phenomenon. ‘BBC Dad’ is no longer the aberration. He’s the norm. And until the Waleses embrace this new world, conspiracy will swirl in the information vacuum they’ve created.”Media Nation / Dan Kennedy
Startup news leaders tell journalism students how to get that first job →“About a dozen years ago, Thomas MacMillan told me how he got hired at the New Haven Independent, one of the original nonprofit digital-only local news sites. He was working at a non-journalism job and started doing some interning. He asked the editor, Paul Bass, how he could turn that into a staff job, and Bass’ unconventional answer was that MacMillan should write a grant to fund his position. MacMillan did it [and] got hired. ‘It’s really fun for me to feel like we’re on a rising star rather than a sinking ship.'”The Cut / Brittney Oliver
How the 19th’s editor-at-large Errin Haines gets it done →On the advice she would give aspiring journalists: “Bet on yourself. You don’t know what will happen with these companies; you don’t know what will happen with this industry. But if it is in you to tell stories, then that’s what you should do. Count your lived experience as an asset to your storytelling, not a liability.”404 Media / Jason Koebler
The U.S. wants to ban TikTok for the sins of every social media company →“The situation is an untenable mess. A TikTok ban will have the effect of further entrenching and empowering gigantic, monopolistic American social media companies that have nearly all of the same problems that TikTok does. A ban would highlight, again, that people who use mainstream social media platforms run by corporations do not actually own their followers or their audiences, and that any businesses/jobs/livelihoods created on these platforms can be stripped away at any moment by the platforms or, in this case, by the United States government.”The Boston Globe / Steven Porter
The University of New Hampshire is cutting its “unsustainable” English/journalism major →Journalism education at UNH will continue, though faculty and students alike are worried about the industry at large. “I have had doubts in this past year,” one student told the Boston Globe, “just because of how the program is kind of training people to work in traditional newsrooms, when not a lot of the journalism jobs or journalism-adjacent jobs are in physical newsrooms.”Columbia Journalism Review / Jon Allsop
Q&A: Ukraine’s Media Development Foundation on news deserts in wartime →“Surprisingly, the challenges currently faced by the local media industry in the US and Western Europe are very similar to what has been happening in Ukrainian local news for the last decade. One major difference is that we only had thirty years to build a free press [following the collapse of the Soviet Union], so there was almost no ‘great golden age of journalism’ in Ukraine to feel nostalgic about. That also makes for a much lower base from which we measure overall decline.”The Verge / Wes Davis
Meta is ready to drop news in Illinois if forced to pay local publishers →A Meta spokesperson told The Verge that people don’t go to Facebook and Instagram for news and “we will be forced to make the same business decision that we made in Canada to end the availability of news in Illinois” if the law passes. Al Jazeera / Kunal Purohit
Bollywood is pumping out pro-Modi films ahead of India’s election →“A slew of new films, timed with the elections and often helmed by major production houses, are relying on storylines that overtly either promote Modi and his government’s policies or target rival politicians. Not even national icons like Gandhi or top universities like [Jawaharlal Nehru University] are spared – the institution has long been a left-leaning bastion of liberal education, often antagonistic to the BJP’s Hindu majoritarianism.”The New York Times / Sapna Maheshwari, David McCabe, and Annie Karni
The House passed a bill to either ban or force a sale of TikTok →The bill had broad bipartisan support, passing by a margin of 352-65, but is likely going to have a harder time in the Senate. Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, “has been noncommittal about bringing it to the floor for a vote.” Politico / Mathieu Pollet
EU lawmakers adopt media freedom law →“The new law will ban governments from going after journalists to reveal their sources by deploying spyware on their phones, though some exceptions to the ban apply. It will also introduce transparency requirements for media ownership and state advertising, procedures to check media concentration, as well as a new layer of protection for news outlets from arbitrary takedown decisions made by big online platforms.”Aftermath / Luke Plunkett
Games journalism: An FAQ →“I think talking about games journalism can be (very occasionally) healthy, because while the job can be important (reporting on serious issues, providing worthwhile criticism), it’s also something of a punchline thanks to the industry’s well-publicised shortcomings (overly-positive reviews, reliance on access, etc).”
Nieman Lab / Fuego
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