Monday, May 15, 2023 |
| A number of efforts are underway to document not just the content created on the platform but how Black women used it for communication and community — along with the abuse they received. By Jasmine Mithani, The 19th. |
What We’re ReadingCJR / A.G. Sulzberger
A. G. Sulzberger on objectivity →“Independence asks reporters to adopt a posture of searching, rather than knowing. It demands that we reflect the world as it is, not the world as we may wish it to be.”Axios / Sara Fischer
Forbes is being bought by a 28-year-old tech exec — and/or the foreign investors behind him →“The deal structure has the effect of obfuscating how much money foreign groups may put in, which could help alleviate any regulatory concerns. Forbes was ready to sell to the group of mostly foreign investors in March. But management feared regulatory pushback and pivoted, Axios previously reported. Forbes also faced public criticism over the involvement of Indian investment firm Sun Group, which has had ties to Russia.”Semafor / Max Tani
Linda Yaccarino sold ads by saying social media wasn’t safe for brands. Now she’s going to run Twitter →“Yaccarino’s stature reflects her and NBC’s success at holding their ground through a complicated period in recent years…She’s also a rarity in advertising: She’s an unabashed conservative, Fox News consumer, and fan of former President Donald Trump.”The New York Times / Lauren Hirsch and Benjamin Mullin
Vice, a decayed digital colossus, files for bankruptcy →“A group of Vice’s lenders, including Fortress Investment Group and Soros Fund Management, is in the leading position to acquire the company out of bankruptcy. The group has submitted a bid of $225 million, which would be covered by its existing loans to the company. It would also take over “significant liabilities” from Vice after any deal closes.”The Verge / Adi Robertson
Google’s AI pitch is a recipe for email hell →“Good writing can delight us with an intriguing turn of phrase…But Google’s onstage ideas were almost impressive in their ability to serve precisely none of writing’s core purposes. Its examples of ‘Help me write’ calcify the worst tendencies of ‘professional’ communications. They’re bland, bloated boilerplate that turns a human prompt into something that uses more words to say less.”Press Gazette / Bron Maher
Dominion’s CEO says its legal costs in its lawsuit against Fox News reached “tens of millions of dollars a month” →“[CEO John] Poulos also disclosed that Fox wired Dominion the settlement before he had even left the courthouse. ‘That’s when it kind of hit home for me. I put myself in the position of a board seat [at Fox]. You know, they must have been told regular updates on this case for the last two and a half years. And I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when they were called together to approve that wire.'”The Washington Post / Marc Fisher and Naomi Nix
Raw videos of violent incidents in Texas rekindle debate about graphic images →“Newspaper editors and television news executives have long sought to filter out pictures of explicit violence or bloody injuries that could generate complaints that such graphic imagery is offensive or dehumanizing. But such policies have historically come with exceptions, some of which have galvanized popular sentiments.”The Wrap / Rosemary Rossi
CNN CEO Chris Licht reprimanded a reporter for making his coverage of its Trump town hall “too emotional” →“Strongly contradicting his own network’s full-throated defense of the event, [Oliver] Darcy slammed the town hall as a ‘spectacle of lies’ that, he implied, did harm to the country. ‘It’s hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening,’ Darcy said in his Reliable Sources newsletter, which was released just 15 minutes after CNN released a statement touting the event’s success.”The Philadelphia Inquirer / Jonathan Lai
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s operations have been disrupted by a “cyber incident” →“The Inquirer had been unable to print its regular Sunday newspaper, and it was not clear until late Sunday afternoon that it would be possible to print Monday’s editions of The Inquirer and Daily News newspapers. Online posting and updating of stories to Inquirer.com continued, though sometimes slower than normal.”Associated Press / Sonia Pérez D.
Guatemala’s El Periódico newspaper is shutting down today amid its founder’s prosecution →“‘Our team resisted 287 days of persecution, political and economic pressure,’ El Periódico said in reference to the time since [founder José Rubén] Zamora was jailed last year.”Wired / Malcolm Harris
Doug Rushkoff is ready to renounce the digital revolution →“Few thinkers are as consistently productive as Rushkoff — since the mid-nineties he’s put out a book roughly every other year — and for readers who can keep up, that output serves as a real-time tracking of his ideological trajectory, like a radar screen revealing in regular pulses the arc of a missile.”Press Gazette / William Turvill
What drives reader contributions at The Guardian? Investigations and legal attacks →“[Editor Katherine] Viner said that her investigative team has grown to “about four times the size” of when she started in her role in 2015. She revealed The Guardian will soon launch an investigations team in the U.S.”Associated Press
The Philadelphia Inquirer is experiencing a major cyberattack →The company was unable to print Sunday’s paper and is still working to restore print operations. Inquirer employees will not be allowed to use the newsroom offices through at least Tuesday, the paper said. The Guardian / Stephen Marche
The apocalypse isn’t coming. We must resist cynicism and fear about AI →“Remember when WeWork was going to end commercial real estate? Remember when crypto was going to lead to the abolition of central banks? Remember when the metaverse was going to end meeting people in real life? Silicon Valley uses apocalypse for marketing purposes: they tell you their tech is going to end the world to show you how important they are.”Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt
How The Guardian, The Times, The Economist, the FT, and Tortoise became podcasting leaders →“I think it’s just going to get more and more of the mass appeal. I mean, it already is a mass appeal but as I said to new audiences, new people coming into podcasting, older, younger, more diverse audiences as well.”Fast Company / Jared Newman
Are you ready for a free flatscreen TV — with ads you can never turn off? →“Telly has designed a 55-inch 4K HDR TV with a built-in soundbar and a second screen mounted underneath. On that extra screen, users will see a mix of informational widgets and advertisements, which can’t be disabled…’We’re giving the device away for free, and the entire business model is supported by our advertising, data, and affiliate revenue streams…'”The Verge / Emma Roth
Twitter’s new CEO will be Linda Yaccarino, a longtime ad exec for NBCUniversal →Yaccarino’s extensive advertising background could help repair the damaged relationships between Twitter and advertisers that left the platform following Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover. (Yaccarino and Musk
reportedly “also see eye to eye politically.”)The Washington Post / Lori Rozsa and Elahe Izadi
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wanted to rewrite press laws. Conservative media helped kill the effort. →“They were kind of down to try and ‘own the libs,’ and didn’t realize the boomerang effect it would have on conservative media,” said Brendon Leslie, editor in chief of DeSantis-friendly outlet Florida’s Voice. “It was a lose-lose situation.”The New York Times / Connie Wang
Generation Connie →“What gave [the author’s mother] some comfort, though, was seeing Ms. Chung on TV. Here was a woman with a face like hers, with great taste in clothes, who wore beautiful makeup and had stylish hair, yet asked aggressive questions of powerful people, most of whom did not seem to treat Ms. Chung any differently because of her appearance.”
Nieman Lab / Fuego
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