“There are commercial reasons why some newsrooms focus on the spectacle and confrontation — the old journalism adage of ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ still prevails in many newsroom decisions…But it is a decision that delegitimizes protest aims.”
Plus: Surprising attitudes about gender and credibility on the beat, how Trump drives outsized mainstream media attention to alternative media, and “sifting” as the key mode of next-gen news consumers.
Nonprofit news has seen an uptick in mergers, acquisitions, and other consolidations. CalMatters CEO Neil Chase still says “I don’t think we’ve seen enough yet.”
“For a long time, ‘objectivity’ packaged together many important ideas about truth and trust. American journalism has disowned that brand without offering a replacement.”
“Every bit of information we cannot access means the world loses more of its ability to understand what is happening in the war, how it has affected journalists and media workers, and who is specifically accountable.”
“The tool, called Media Manager, will allow creators and content owners to identify their works to OpenAI and specify how they want those works to be included or excluded from AI research and training. The goal is to have the tool in place by 2025, OpenAI says.”
“AdVon engages in what Google calls ‘site reputation abuse’: it strikes deals with publishers in which it provides huge numbers of extremely low-quality product reviews — often for surprisingly prominent publications — intended to pull in traffic from people Googling things like ‘best ab roller.’ The idea seems to be that these visitors will be fooled into thinking the recommendations were made by the publication’s actual journalists and click one of the articles’ affiliate links, kicking back a little money if they make a purchase.”
“Data from SEO tool Sistrix shows that of 70 leading news publishers tracked by Press Gazette…all but 15 saw falls in their visibility score. Of those, almost half (33) saw declines in the double-digits. Sistrix’s Visibility Index measures how successful a website is in Google search results, assigning higher scores to sites that rank better in search results.”
“The company says creators in the program can still post on TikTok, Instagram and other social channels but that Substack should be the ‘primary home base for free and premium content.’ Creators will also be expected to engage with subscribers on Substack Chat.”
“The company said it had about 10.5 million subscribers overall for its print and digital products at the end of the first quarter, up roughly 8 percent from a year earlier. About 640,000 of those were print subscribers, down about 10 percent from the same period last year. The company’s goal is 15 million total subscribers by the end of 2027.”
“The World Service announced last week that more than 300 of its journalists, approximately 15% of the total, are working in exile…’Russia and China are investing hard, and not properly funding one of the UK’s most valuable soft power assets makes no sense economically or culturally.'”
“The feature would allow users to ask ChatGPT a question and receive answers that use details from the web with citations to sources such as Wikipedia entries and blog posts, according to the person, who asked to remain anonymous discussing private information.”
“Dorsey confirmed he had cut ties with Bluesky on Sunday, telling a user on X that he was no longer on the social network’s board. The announcement was apparently unexpected, since Bluesky still listed him as a board member until late on Sunday evening.”
“It’s unclear where these images came from. They appear more realistic than standard AI-generated images — enough so to fool Perry’s own mother — and they fit into a wider growing trend of image generation…The AI-generated images of these celebrities, while benign, show how generative AI tools are now a part of every news event.”
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