Thursday, February 27, 2025 |
| Most news publishers stop short of producing content for an individual journalist’s accounts. “Because, as the thinking goes, what happens if that person leaves and takes all their audience with them?” By Sarah Scire. |
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| The Media Power Collaborative compares local news to public goods like safe roads and public education. Will excluding newspaper chains and hedge fund owners make public funding for local news any easier to achieve? By Sarah Scire. |
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| Plus: Dilemmas about disclosing AI use, the state of job satisfaction for Black journalists, and the growing challenges facing reporters in rural America. By Mark Coddington and Seth Lewis. |
What We’re ReadingWSJ / Alexandra Bruell
Google Search tweaks have devastated a once-lucrative corner of the news media world →“Google changed its rules around how product-review sites appear in its search engine … The goal, Google has said, was to give users higher-quality search results. The outcome was a crisis for some sites. Traffic for Forbes Advisor, a personal-finance recommendation site, fell 83% in January from the same month the year before, according to data firm Similarweb. CNN Underscored and Buy Side from WSJ, which is operated by Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones, were both down by more than 25% in that period.”The Cut / E.J. Dickson
Celebrity coverage is helping Candace Owens go mainstream →“Since Owens started covering the Lively-Baldoni case, her YouTube channel has exploded in popularity, allowing her to attract a much larger fan base than the audience of hardcore conservatives she has amassed over the years. Each episode about Lively and Baldoni racks up at least 1.5 million views; in the past month alone, Owens has amassed more than 450,000 new subs on YouTube, and her total video views have quadrupled since this time last year”The Verge / Emma Roth
Gayle King is going to space on Jeff Bezos’ next rocket…along with Katy Perry and Lauren Sánchez →“The crew will include research scientist and activist Amanda Nguyen, film producer Amanda Nguyen, and former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe. Sánchez first revealed her plans to lead an all-female Blue Origin mission in 2023, but she didn’t mention who she would take on the flight at the time.”The New Yorker / Lauren Michele Jackson
The end of seriousness →“This is where America lives and what America does. Nothing is funny, but everything is. And therein lies a sense of impotence, because our ability to discern the consequential ghoulishness of this nation’s policies — ‘LOL that’s crazy!’ — doesn’t in and of itself constitute resistance. Those who feel they can’t do, laugh.”Politico / Ben Johansen
White House Correspondents’ Association is refusing to coordinate pool reports after the Trump takeover →“This board will not assist any attempt by this administration or any other in taking over independent press coverage of the White House,” WHCA President Eugene Daniels, a POLITICO journalist, said in a statement to association members. “Each of your organizations will have to decide whether or not you will take part in these new, government-appointed pools.” The Guardian / Rachel Savage
The US embassy in Namibia is scrutinizing news outlets there about ties to Western media →“The Namibian, an independent newspaper, was asked by a US embassy staff member on 18 February via email: ‘Are you or any of your services associated/affiliated with the following companies: The Economist, the New York Times, Politico, Bloomberg News Feed, Associated Press, or Reuters? If so, could you please explain how? ie Do you re-run their stories or are you a subsidiary of the publication?’…‘We are an independent news organization,’ [said the Namibian’s editor, Tangeni Amupadhi]. ‘Not even in our country do we allow our government to insist on us having to be aligned with their agenda.’”The New York Times / Michael Levenson
Mississippi judge lifts order that forced newspaper to remove an editorial →“As I warned them, it blew up in their face and it created a national outcry,” said Wyatt Emmerich, the president of Emmerich Newspapers, which owns the The Press Register. “It embarrassed the city, and they realized what they had done was a mistake.”Axios / Sara Fischer
NOTUS launches new initiative to provide Washington coverage to local newsrooms →“The NOTUS Washington Bureau Initiative will provide exclusive coverage tailored to specific local audiences, in addition to broader Washington coverage…Its pilot partners include Verite News in Louisiana, The Assembly in North Carolina, Oklahoma Watch, Times of San Diego, Santa Barbara News-Press, San José Spotlight, and Stocktonia in California.” Voice of America / Agence France-Presse
Vietnam sentenced a leading journalist and former Nieman fellow to 30 months in prison over Facebook posts →“Huy Duc worked for influential state-run newspapers before authoring one of Vietnam’s most popular blogs and Facebook accounts, where he criticized the country’s communist leaders on issues such as corruption, media control and relations with China. The court in Hanoi convicted the 63-year-old of ‘abusing democratic freedoms.’”ABC News / Thalia Beaty
MacArthur Foundation, one of nonprofit journalism’s biggest backers, to increase giving for two years →MacArthur president John Palfrey called on other foundations to join them in the commitment to increase their giving in response to Trump’s federal cuts and spending freezes.AP News / David Bauder
Not known for political coverage, Wired takes a leading role in tracking Elon Musk’s team →“Wired gained 62,500 new subscribers in the United States during the first two weeks of February alone.”
Nieman Lab / Fuego
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