“The Melrose Update Robocast was made by dropping public documents into an artificial intelligence program that then generates a conversation about the issues with these fake people. Its creator isn’t trying to hide that, even leaving in small quirks to signal an inhuman feel, like the AI-generated logo that adds an extra ‘e’ to the end of Melrose.”

“In the aftermath of the hurricanes, AI-produced images spread across the internet. Some seemed harmless enough: a dog rescuing a child from a flood, for example. Another viral post misleadingly showed Disney World flooded out in Florida, and a costumed worker carrying a child through knee-high water. Conservative politicians, however, have shared such images as if they’re proof of the Biden administration’s failure to respond to the disasters.”

“To date, Amazon and most of its Big Tech peers have avoided producing their own real-time news coverage, which is both expensive and sometimes controversial for firms that like to remain apolitical.”

“There are, as I see it, three issues here: 1) the decision to so heavily front-load grants without warning the field that it was doing so; 2) the administrative shortcomings Knight now acknowledges; and 3) the decision to now launch a strategic review of journalism grant-making attendant with a partial pause, without any general announcement of that fact.”

“BBC News has traditionally appointed royal correspondents, but the corporation decided to hire an editor last year ahead of the retirement of Nicholas Witchell, a 25-year veteran of the beat.”

“If you’ve suspected that you’re yelling into a void about the election on Instagram, Facebook or Threads, it might not be your imagination, either. Downplaying politics is a business and political strategy from Meta, the social media giant. And users just have to accept it.”

“That unfolded during the hours of programming that followed the interview, during which hosts and producers clipped the least flattering moments from the conversation and presented them to viewers with a slathering of spin.”

“The site initially published a cropped image of a body lying on a wooden deck, saying that it was at a hotel in Buenos Aires, where Mr. Payne died. TMZ said it had identified him from his distinctive tattoos. ‘We’re not showing the whole body, but you can clearly see his tattoos — a clock on his left forearm, and a scorpion on his abdomen,’ text accompanying the photo said, according to screenshots of the article circulating online.”

“Over the course of that three or four years of study, we’ve given those students a taster of what Economist journalism is and what quality journalism is. And then at that point, they either move on to Espresso or, fingers crossed, they go for a core Economist subscription.”

“Some Meta employees have started posting that they’ve been laid off. Among them is Jane Manchun Wong, who gained notoriety for reporting on unannounced features coming to apps before joining the Threads team in 2023.”

“‘We nibble at the edges,’ says Hell Gate staffer Max Rivlin-Nadler. ‘But we nibble a lot.'”

“The report, based on 122 interviews, concluded that ‘known perpetrators’ of inappropriate workplace behaviors were not dealt with. Instead, staff who were victims of the perpetrators were simply warned to just avoid them. The report does not name individuals, but it found some ‘leaders’ attempted to cover up inappropriate workplace behaviors or discouraged the reporting of incidents.”

“The lawsuit, filed in Wake county superior court, comes less than four weeks after a television report that led many fellow GOP elected officials and candidates, including Donald Trump, to distance themselves from Robinson’s gubernatorial campaign. Robinson announced the lawsuit at a news conference in Raleigh.”

“Thompson recently gave Jake Tapper a new three-year deal, but without an increase in pay, leaving the host of The Lead — and CNN’s chief Washington correspondent — making around $7 million a year, I’m told. Blitzer also has been renewed with a three-year deal at his previous salary (about $3 million).”

“Privately-owned Boston Globe Media does not publish financial results but today has close to 1,000 employees, with 261,000 digital subscriptions and 75,000 in print…’The first important decision was separating Boston.com from The Globe. One would be free and one would be a premium paid reader revenue-focused site which was Globe.com.'”

…the Post-Dispatch will close its Maryland Heights press, laying off 72 employees. Though it will still be printed seven days a week and be delivered at the same time to subscribers, the paper will be missing a few developments. Earlier press deadlines mean that news that breaks in the evening will not be included in the morning paper. That loss includes reports from Cardinals night games and other sports.”

“‘Frankly, the technology just wasn’t ready’ before now, says Kevin Keith, who runs Kindle products for Amazon. ‘And we now think the tech is ready.’ (Kobo, Remarkable, and others might disagree that it wasn’t ready before.)”

“The ads promoting The Daily Scroll have appeared on screens at least 700 million times, according to data from Meta’s Ad Library, with about 97% of views coming from seven battleground states: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina.”

“The conversation around search advertising has reached a new fever pitch thanks to recently launched AI-powered tools like Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews. Despite the buzz, some marketers and advertisers remain uncertain about AI tools in search, citing too many unknowns.”

“A judge invoked sentencing enhancements for elements including use of a deadly weapon, laying in wait and the age of the reporter to add eight years to the minimum 20-year sentence that a jury set in August after finding Robert Telles guilty of murder” of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German.

“In video demos and an overview document provided to people interested in using a prototype of the app that have been viewed by 404 Media, Impact shows how it can send push notifications to groups of supporters directing them at a specific social media post and provide them with AI-generated text they can copy and paste in order to flood the replies with counter arguments.”

The Verge’s David Pierce sat down with Kevin Rose, co-founder of Digg, to talk about how the site, for a time, became the “homepage of the internet,” the thumbs-up upvote icon, and what Rose would do if he were to relaunch Digg today (AI for content moderation, “Wikipedia-style” community support instead of ads).

“Launching an app has been the number one request we get from our readers,” [Eater editor in chief Stephanie Wu] said. “People understand the utility of Eater Maps, and now they have an easier way to access them.”

“This is about us getting our house in order. It’s about fixing the foundations in order for us to be able to grow regardless of the news cycle.” (Also: The Post told employees it is growing for the first time since 2021, adding more than 4,000 subscribers so far this year.)

“That number includes full-time employees, vote count reporters, and contractors. The stakes are higher than ever for AP, which has seen its customer base for election data grow by 30% following the 2020 election.”

“For the third consecutive year, more U.S. adults have no trust at all in the media (36%) than trust it a great deal or fair amount. Another 33% of Americans express ‘not very much’ confidence.” (Could that be a good thing?)

“To look at cities that used to be served by newsrooms of 300, or 500 journalists, now reduced to virtually nothing, is terrible. This is the way democracy decomposes. We’re sleepwalking into an absolute disaster,” editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg said. “Jefferson had it right almost 250 years ago when he said he’d rather have newspapers without a government than a government without newspapers.”

“Today, every member of the House, some themselves targets of sharp investigative reporting or frequent critics of the news media, has supported swift passage of the PRESS bill. There are three Republican sponsors of the bill in the Senate, but it is opposed by a small clutch of conservative senators — most notably Tom Cotton, a hard-right Republican from Arkansas — attempting to keep the legislation bottled up in the Judiciary Committee.”

“The new deal raises the previous salary floor from $60,000 to $63,000 if the contract is ratified, with $2,000 bonuses awarded to staffers making less than $65,000 a year, the union stated…The deal arrives a little over a week since The New Yorker Union threatened a strike in advance of the publication’s annual festival, which is scheduled to take place between Oct. 25 and 27.”

“Photographers may aspire to capture scenes that galvanize public opinion and pressure world leaders to act to end wars, but few images — if any — have ever done this. The most graphic and disturbing images from Ukraine and Gaza have hardly slowed the carnage. So I focus on gentle interactions, quiet conversations and gestures. I’m steadily amazed by the openness and candor with which people share their lives and experiences, no matter how traumatic.”

“The commercial, which is a minute long, begins with shots of people with duct tape over their mouths while the narration tells viewers that ‘Big Tech is suppressing free speech’ and that ‘there’s a place where your voice matters, a place where freedom of expression is cherished and the love of our country unites us.'”

“Condé Nast’s high-profile head of diversity quietly stepped down in June amid bitter internal tensions over alleged antisemitism and divisive arguments about the war in Gaza … In September 2020, Condé Nast hired its first head of diversity, equity and inclusion. It was a point of pride for the magazine publisher: Yashica Olden, a veteran DEI officer, became the highest-ranking nonwhite employee at a company that had been roiled by a year of internal frustrations around race.”

“Her newsletter, Fresh Hell, is set to debut on Tuesday. In an introductory note to readers, she said the title referred to the experience of waking ‘every day to a news alert from Hades.’ The newsletter, she said, would be written mostly in weekly ‘notebook form,’ rather than ‘Big Think columns.'” (Note: the Times reports Substack did not offer Brown payment, as it did for other writers years ago.)

“No other Muslim-majority country imposes similar restrictions, including Iran and Saudi Arabia. During their previous rule in the late 1990s, the Taliban banned most television, radio and newspapers altogether.”

“All BBC divisions have been told to reduce content creation by one-fifth. The newsroom cuts announced on Tuesday include closing the bespoke Asian Network News service, axing the HARDtalk long-form interview program, and synchronizing the production of news bulletins used on Radio 5 Live and Radio 2.”

“Most of the publication will be free to read. But it will offer several subscription tiers for those who want a deeper experience. A basic subscription ($70 a year) includes unlimited access to the site and the ability to comment on the site. The highest tier, Super Deluxe Remastered Hi-Fi Membership ($1,000 a year), includes a handmade mix CD or cassette or streaming playlist made by a Hearing Things editor, as well as quarterly hangouts with the staff.”

“The New York Times sports publisher The Athletic partnered with the sports streaming service Fubo on Tuesday …The multiyear tie-up will first see Fubo integrated into live game blogs, with future plans for further placements in preview articles, newsletters, and product sections of the site. Both parties declined to provide commercial details of the deal.” Read the press release here.

“Spotify’s audiobook push follows a years-long foray into podcasting that’s only now starting to become profitable. But audiobooks aren’t expected to weigh on costs as much upfront.”

“Perplexity and its business partners have been unjustly enriched by using, without authorization, The Times’s expressive, carefully written and researched, and edited journalism without a license,” the publisher wrote.

“In one of the lawsuits, filed by the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office, the redactions were faulty. This was revealed when Kentucky Public Radio copied-and-pasted excerpts of the redacted material, bringing to light some 30 pages of documents that had been kept secret.”

The magazine is increasing its pace of publication from 10 issues to 12 per year. The Atlantic returned to profitability earlier in 2024 and said it had crossed the one million subscriptions mark.

“Federal Communications Commission chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel denounced former President Donald Trump’s ‘threats against free speech’ Thursday after he attacked CBS and called for the network to ‘lose its license’ over a recent “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.”

“[The] efforts have often pierced the fog of war, but also revealed some of the limitations of OSI when presented with conflicting evidence.”

“Some users complain their accounts are being deleted or restricted for linking to articles with controversial topics. Instagram and Threads boss Adam Mosseri is directly replying to some complaints and said he’s ‘looking into it.'”

“We’ve long arrived at a place where Americans, now polarized beyond recognition, prefer news sources that align with their ideology, if they even consume much news at all. This is, of course, a damning reality for the traditional news business.”

“The partnership addresses clear, increased demand for women’s sports coverage, particularly across Yahoo Sports platforms. Views of women’s sports articles on Yahoo Sports are up 253% over the last 12 months. In addition, seven of the top 10 most-viewed articles on Yahoo Sports in August were about female athletes.”

“Jason Scott, an archivist and software curator of The Internet Archive, said the site was experiencing a DDoS attack, posting on Mastodon that ‘according to their twitter, they’re doing it just to do it. Just because they can. No statement, no idea, no demands.’”

“A lot of countries in the Caribbean don’t have dedicated environmental writers or reporters, or environmental news is still not a mainstream thing,” Cari-Bois coordinator Tyrell Gittens told the Latin American Journalism Review. “We have been trying in some countries to get writers and it has been exceptionally difficult. So, I think there is an opportunity to train writers there because there’s clearly a gap that still needs to be filled.”

“The internal performance report also shows operating profit of £30m, which chief executive John Ridding described as ‘healthy’ and ‘keeping us on track for our medium-term targets and a sustainable operating margin.’ Operating profit was £28.7 million in 2022, meaning 5% annual growth.”

“Ukrayinska Pravda alleged that government officials are hindering its work by blocking interviews, pressuring businesses to withdraw advertising, and initiating ’emotionally-charged communication’ between President Zelenskiy and its journalist, Roman Kravets, during an August press conference.”

“Everything from Infowars’ brand name, production rights, archive library, social media accounts, cameras and microphones, ecommerce site and customer lists to hundreds of domain names are up for grabs, according to auction firms Tranzon Asset Advisors and ThreeSixty Asset Advisors. Assets can be bought by the piece or as a package.”

“Brazil has 5,390 active online news sites, according to the most recent edition of the News Atlas, which maps local journalism in the country. However, it’s not possible to know which are actually committed to their audience and, consequently, to the quality of the information they produce. A new initiative aims to add a layer of verification to the Atlas mapping, certifying Brazilian online news outlets based on transparency and credibility indicators.”

“I do hope the takeaway of funders, both institutional and individual, from this is to lean in, not away. If a mess like that now unfolding in the nation’s media capital can happen here, it’s proof anew that we need more watchdogs everywhere.”

“Musk’s company ultimately complied with all of de [Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes’] demands. They included blocking certain accounts from the platform, paying outstanding fines and naming a legal representative. Failure to do the latter had triggered the suspension.”

“I don’t think characterizing younger journalists as ‘disloyal’ is fair — I think that the economic state of the industry makes it harder and harder to have a stable career,” Sonia A. Rao said. “I want stability! But I also want to be paid enough to pay my bills and not go into debt. I think it’s becoming increasingly impossible to have that without jumping around a little bit between jobs.”

“‘When you build your sandcastle on someone else’s beach, it’s their beach at the end of the day; the rules can change and the tide can come in and wash away your work,’ warns Frank Mungeam, director of innovation at the Local Media Association.”

The 24-page newspaper guide collects the local news site’s coverage on the mayor’s race, supervisor races, and campaign finance coverage. “We left copies at libraries, cafes and restaurants, shopping malls, hospitals, senior centers, San Francisco State University and City College — we even braved the Fell Street DMV waiting room.”

“Lorenz has long been a vocal critic of traditional journalism’s slowness to embrace digital channels such as YouTube and TikTok that increasingly dominate young audiences’ attention. Her path through legacy media institutions was wandering and marked by public scrutiny.”

“To fix this, the government says it’s considering remedies that would ‘create more competition and lower the barriers to entry, which currently require rivals to enter multiple markets at scale.’ That could include addressing Google’s use of AI to protect its monopoly power in this market, it says.”

“Word came down that the powers at be inside 30 Rock had opted to effectively sit on the film, setting the documentary’s network premiere until after the election in December, a bizarre decision that frustrated the filmmakers and has raised questions among staffers internally.”

“Each cog in the anti-solar machine — the opposition group, the texts, the newspaper, the energy publication — was linked to the others through finances and overlapping agendas, an investigation by Floodlight, ProPublica and The Tow Center for Digital Journalism found.” (Previously.)

“OpenAI’s head of media partnerships has said the company does not currently intend to share ad revenue from its SearchGPT product with publishers whose content it surfaces…But he added that the matter was ‘an evolving space for us right now’ and that it was in OpenAI’s interests to provide enough value to stop publishers opting out of appearing in SearchGPT results.”

“Plaintiffs are considering behavioral and structural remedies that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play, and Android to advantage Google search and Google search-related products and features — including emerging search access points and features, such as artificial intelligence — over rivals or new entrants.”

“…over the threat to editorial impartiality and influence, as the New York Sun owner, Dovid Efune, is poised to enter exclusive talks to buy the Daily and Sunday Telegraph. British-born Efune regularly posts hardline views about the situation in the Middle East, sparking alarm among staff as it looks increasingly likely that he will become their new proprietor, having tabled a £550m bid.”

“YouTube is ‘reducing elements on the ads player’ so that ‘viewers can engage more deeply with the ad through a cleaner experience’…The distinction here seems to be that the skip button isn’t being removed, but it may not be presented in the same manner that it used to.”

“Shari Redstone, the media mogul whose Paramount empire controls CBS News, criticized the network’s leadership on Wednesday for its decision to reprimand a star morning show anchor over his handling of an on-air interview with the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates.”

“We need to make more of shifts where people are not going out as drivers of volume. In practice, if you’re on a general shift and you’re not on a job, it should be at least eight stories a shift.”

“It is absolutely the worst I have ever seen,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters.

“In many cases, WikiProject AI Cleanup finds AI-generated content on Wikipedia with the same methods others have used to find AI-generated content in scientific journals and Google Books, namely by searching for phrases commonly used by ChatGPT.”

“OpenAI announced a partnership with Hearst, the media conglomerate behind outlets like the Houston Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Elle and others.Under the partnership, OpenAI’s products, such as ChatGPT and SearchGPT, will be able to display content from more than 20 magazine brands and more than 40 newspapers.”

“There are more than 1 million licensed radio amateurs in the US like Witherspoon and Roberts, according to a Federal Communications Commission spokesperson who spoke to WIRED last week. Some amateur radio bands are short bands, reaching only small communities of people, while others cover hundreds and even thousands of miles. When communication infrastructure fails, like cellular networks during a natural disaster, the FCC allows for amateur radio operators to assist in recovery efforts.”

“Fox News Media will launch a daily Spanish-language news show called ‘Fox Noticias’ that will air on Fox Corp.’s Spanish-language sports cable network Fox Deportes, executives told Axios. Ahead of the debut next week, Fox News will also unveil a Spanish-language version of its website … The new show, airing weekdays at 4pm ET beginning Oct. 15, will be hosted by ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy.”

“On Tuesday, the paper will begin beta testing a new puzzle called Zorse, Semafor has learned. It will be a ‘phrase guessing game where every puzzle is a mash-up of two phrases,’ the company confirmed in a statement. ‘Similar to how The Times treats its other games when they’re in beta, we’re hoping to learn how players engage with Zorse and look forward to hearing their feedback.’ For now, the game will only be available to players in Canada, the company added. The name Zorse identifies the offspring of a zebra and another equine — likely hinting at the game’s mash-up nature.”

“Trump has said Harris doesn’t do interviews because she can’t handle them. He has declined to participate in a second debate with Harris. So the Monday night election special may have been the last opportunity between now and Election Day for a national audience to hear from both candidates on a range of issues, including the economy, immigration, reproductive rights and the wars in the Middle East and Europe. Both campaigns understood this special would go ahead if either candidate backed out.”

“The Content Authenticity web app can be used to widely apply attribution data to content that contains the creator’s name, website, social media pages, and more. It also provides an easier way for creatives to opt their work out of AI training en mass compared to laboriously submitting individual protections for their content to each AI provider. The web app will act as a centralized hub for Adobe’s existing Content Credentials platform.”

“‘War’ reveals new details about Donald Trump’s private conversations with Putin — and a secret shipment of Covid-19 testing equipment Trump sent to the Russian president for his personal use during the height of the pandemic. [It also] gives an unvarnished, in-the-room account of key moments as Biden and his national security team navigate international crises, from the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal to confronting Putin before he invaded Ukraine to private battles with Netanyahu.”

“Top CBS executives, on a newsroom-wide call, described the interview as falling short of the network’s editorial standards. The executives said their critique had been prompted by internal staff concerns, although at least one veteran CBS journalist said later on the call that she was puzzled over what exactly Mr. Dokoupil had done wrong.”

“‘I have been doing disaster work for nearly 20 years, and I cannot think of another acute disaster where there has been this much misinformation,’ said Samantha Montano, an assistant professor of emergency management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy…In recent days, FEMA has been forced to contend with claims that it is stealing donations, diverting disaster aid to Ukraine or refusing help from others, a falsehood [Elon] Musk has spread.”

“Creative people have used NotebookLM to create ‘Histories of Mysteries’ podcasts out of Wikipedia pages, and to produce little career pep talks out of resumes. One person got the AI podcast hosts to have an existential meltdown where they realize they’re not real. Another got the AI to make a podcast about the words poop and fart written 1,000 times…[researchers who graded NotebookLM’s work] mostly gave the podcasts a ‘C’ grade because it didn’t know what to focus on.”

“It is a full-on media push, with some tough interviews (60 Minutes, Fox News Sunday and most town halls are never simple or straightforward), even if many of the interviews will be friendly in tone and substance. But it also underscored the value that the Harris campaign still sees in traditional outlets, even as they explore some popular podcasts as alternatives to traditional media.”

“NetChoice is ‘eviscerating what it means to be human and what is speech, and this gives these — the wealthiest companies in the world — an enormous advantage,’ said Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia University and a former Biden administration official who worked on White House competition policy. ‘The First Amendment was intended to protect the underdog, not these companies.'”

“This is the first election since Tucker Carlson, once Fox’s loudest voice in a primetime spot, was reportedly fired by the network, and his solo ventures so far haven’t taken on the prominence he had on TV. It’s also the first election since longtime Republican heavyweight Rush Limbaugh died. These big changes have left holes in rightwing media, which were filled by an increasing cadre of influencers, content creators and smaller outlets.”

“There are maybe a handful of openings [in games journalism] worldwide, each of which probably has hundreds of applicants. Which is why those parting messages from laid off staff are always so heartbreaking: they’re not being laid off from a job, but often from their career…It’s no wonder there’s a pipeline of writers fleeing to games development; the latter might be an industry on fire, but when your own is already engulfed in flames, why not?”

“In recent months, the company has been reaching out to influencers, video creators and podcasters to convince them to join the platform. It doesn’t need beauty influencers, say, to all of a sudden become bloggers. But it does want to be the primary vehicle for paying creators regardless of medium…This repositioning has put Substack in more direct competition with crowdfunding services like Patreon, which largely still brands itself more as a way to financially support artists and musicians than the foundations of a subscription business.”

“Last May, after Dotdash Meredith announced a licensing deal with OpenAI, that number dipped significantly. It then dipped again at the end of May when Vox announced its own arrangement—and again once more this August when WIRED’s parent company, Condé Nast, struck a deal. The trend toward increased blocking appears to be over, at least for now.”

Two RJI fellows are building DigInThere, a news quiz tool they hope will “incentivize audiences toward more thoughtful engagement with [newsrooms’] content.”

“The group is tentatively called the New York Editorial Board, according to Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith, who helped assemble it in recent weeks. The self-styled board [is] ‘a group of journalists grilling politicians,’ Smith said.” See also: Should news outlets still endorse political candidates? and This political era has nearly killed off newspaper endorsements for president.

“The New Yorker union, which represents fact-checkers, copy editors, story editors and photo editors, among other roles, has been negotiating its latest pact with Condé Nast for more than six months. (The magazine’s staff writers are not included in the union.)”

“Paying a public figure for an interview, especially the spouse of a political candidate, is highly frowned upon in most newsrooms, which tend to have strict guidelines against such a practice. It is also highly unusual for the request to come from a representative purportedly acting on behalf of the spouse of a presidential candidate and a former first lady -– especially with such a large price tag.”

“Press Gazette understands staff complained about what was seen as a failure of the Trust to protect plural liberal journalism in tough times. Some spoke about a sense of ‘betrayal’ amongst Observer journalists who have worked at the company for 30 years or more. There was also concern raised that readers who have made financial donations in order to support Observer journalism will feel misled if the title is sold.”

“Let’s say you’re searching for ways to get a grass stain out of your pants. If you ask Google, its AI-generated response will offer some tips, along with suggestions for products to purchase that could help you remove the stain. The products will appear beneath a ‘sponsored’ header, and Google spokesperson Craig Ewer told The Verge they’ll only show up if a question has a ‘commercial angle.'”

“The researchers also found that only 22 percent of Canadians are aware that Meta has bailed on journalism. That has turned Canadian newsgathering on social media into a game of telephone—out-of-context photos and summaries absent links to the articles from which they’ve been sourced—that few even know is being played.”

“‘Cloud of confusion’ was the perfect, succinct summary of the right’s strategy. Candidates like Trump, attorneys like Chesebro, TV stars like Sean Hannity, and streaming propagandist like Tucker Carlson sowed so much chaos and confusion that voters and viewers couldn’t tell what was true anymore.”

“A few days after the ‘foreign agent’ designation, Sobesednik announced it was suspending publication. ‘It would be impossible to read,’ said Roldugin, who has led the paper since 2021. ‘The paper would have to be sold sealed and labelled ’18+’, like pornography. Because we did journalism instead of propaganda.'”

“I wondered, though, in my discussions with Unger, whether reporters like him bore some of the responsibility—whether the kind of skepticism and mistrust that marked his generation of journalists had helped create our post-truth reality. There were moments when he slipped from crusading truth teller to something closer to a conspiracy theorist willing to believe the most outlandish speculations.”

“99.9 I think is the star. It’s an iHeart station. They are broadcasting 24/7 with a call-in format. People are helping and asking for help. It’s absolutely uplifting and devastating. You literally can’t listen for more than a few hours without breaking down. Their DJs are literally holding the community together.”

“Old-fashioned writing requires bursts of focus that remind me of the sharp spikes of an electrocardiogram. Working with ChatGPT mellowed the experience, rounding those spikes into the smooth curves of a sine wave.”

“Ardayfio told 404 Media that when the pair did show the technology to other Harvard students and people on the subway, some said, ‘Dude, holy shit, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. How do you know my mom’s phone number?'”

“Notable pitches from the journalism hackathon included using multimodal language models to track political posts on TikTok, to auto-generate freedom of information requests and appeals, or to summarize video clips of local court hearings to help with local news coverage.”

Nick Quah on the change: “I’m pro this move. The form deserves curatorial distinction from the persistent talk show format, which has increasingly come to dominate podcasting’s identity as a medium and merge with the digital video ecosystem. The bigger question: will this move the needle for the form and its practitioners in any way?”