Twitter will soon let news outlets lay visual claim to their staffers’ accounts. Should they?
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Monday, January 23, 2023
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Twitter will soon let news outlets lay visual claim to their staffers’ accounts. Should they?Your employer’s logo might soon be attached to every tweet you make — for better or for worse. By Joshua Benton. |
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Where did all the new podcasts go?The number of new podcasts launched fell by nearly 80% between 2020 and 2022 — and seems to keep dropping. Has podcasting moved from gold rush to mature market? By Joshua Benton. |
What We’re Reading
Futurism / Frank Landymore
SEO spammers are absolutely thrilled Google isn’t cracking down on CNET’s AI-generated articles →
“The implication was clear: that tools like ChatGPT will now allow scofflaws to pollute the internet with near-infinite quantities of bot-generated garbage, and that CNET — and its sister publication Bankrate — have now paved the way. In a way, it served as a perfect illustration of a recent warning by Stanford and Georgetown academics that AI tech could rapidly start to fill the internet with endless quantities of misinformation and profiteering.”
The New York Times / Jacob Bernstein
The last days of Hollywood’s most reviled reporter, Nikki Finke →
“In an article published the day after Ms. Finke's death, Richard Rushfield, the editorial director and chief columnist of the Hollywood newsletter franchise The Ankler, wrote: ‘She was the equivalent of a restaurant whose toilets are gushing raw sewage into the kitchen, while also serving meat they fished out of neighboring dumpsters.’ That was one of his kinder lines.”
The Atlantic / Annie Lowrey
How ChatGPT will destabilize white-collar work →
“As a rule, when companies can substitute machines for people, they will. AI can do work currently done by paralegals, copywriters, digital-content producers, executive assistants, entry-level computer programmers, and, yes, some journalists. That means such jobs might change, and soon.”
The Verge / Chris Welch
Instagram showed people too many videos last year, Adam Mosseri admits →
“Mosseri said that Instagram has since worked behind the scenes to restore a more even balance, and internal metrics show that it's working.”
Reuters
Prominent Cameroon journalist found dead after abduction →
“The mutilated body of a prominent Cameroonian journalist was found on Sunday near the capital Yaounde five days after he was abducted by unidentified assailants…Media advocates described Martinez Zogo’s disappearance and death as a further sign of the perils of reporting in the African country.”
San Francisco Chronicle / Shira Stein
The San Francisco Inquirer looks like local news. Here’s why politicians are furious with the site. →
“A New York consultant who reportedly published false news articles about political figures has created a website called the San Francisco Inquirer, which is designed as a local news site but appears to be an effort to pressure federal lawmakers into supporting the consultant's client, a Bay Area-based tribe.”
Digiday / Kayleigh Barber
Axios Pro has more than 3,000 paid subscribers and had $2 million in 2022 revenue →
“As a premium subscription model” — $599 a pop, generally — “subscribers are typically business professionals who are likely to expense the cost with their companies…Because of this subscriber base, Axios runs the risk of its Pro product being ruled an extraneous expense and getting cut from the budget as a result of companies trying to stay afloat.”
Semafor / Ben Smith
The billionaire era in news is fizzling →
“The new owners promised both to support the journalism and help revolutionize business models. The billionaires have mostly kept half of that promise, protecting journalists' jobs and meddling little. But the other half of the plan — to find new models — has remained largely unfulfilled, as the money-losing outlets all continue to rely on their owners' goodwill for survival, according to people at each outlet.”
Rolling Stone
Trump is looking to ditch his own social media site →
“…he [previously] agreed to a ‘social media exclusivity term’ that required him to ‘first channel any and all social media communications’ to his Truth Social account for six hours before posting the content to other platforms…Since late last year, former President Trump has informed several people close to him that he doesn't want to re-up the exclusivity agreement…”
The Information / Abram Brown
Citizen Marc: Why the Andreessen Horowitz founder can’t stop chasing dreams of a new media →
“It's safe to say Andreessen hasn't been taking any dinners with journalists lately, as his once-benign feelings toward the profession have curdled into outright scorn…Rumors are coursing through Silicon Valley that Andreessen may want to buy The Washington Post — if Jeff Bezos is indeed ready to part with it.”
The Verge / Richard Lawler and James Vincent
Google is freaking out about ChatGPT →
“Google has plans to ‘demonstrate a version of its search engine with chatbot features this year’…The demo for the chatbot search says Google will prioritize ‘getting facts right, ensuring safety and getting rid of misinformation,’ hoping to address the issue of AI responding to queries confidently and clearly with bad information.”
The Washington Post / Paul Farhi
News organizations were sure David Crosby was dead. Then they weren’t. →
“The lack of confirmation from Crosby's family members and associates about his death set off an unusual chain of events for news organizations. In the end, already-published news reports that Crosby had died at the age of 81 proved accurate — but not before the story took a few sharp turns.”
The New York Times / Katie Robertson
Vox Media is cutting 7 percent of its staff →
“[CEO Jim] Bankoff did not disclose whether the cuts would come from all of the company's brands, but said the affected teams included revenue, editorial, operations, and core services. The company has about 1,900 employees, a spokeswoman for Vox Media said.”
The New York Times / Jodi Kantor
Who leaked the Dobbs opinion to Politico? The Supreme Court’s investigation didn’t look at the justices too closely →
“Inside the court, justices are treated with such day-to-day deference that junior aides assist them in putting on their black robes. As staff members were grilled, some grew concerned about the fairness of the inquiry, worried that the nine most powerful people at the court were not being questioned rigorously like everyone else.”
Jewish Currents / Mari Cohen
The state of antisemitism reporting →
“Articles about spiking antisemitism often contribute to an ahistorical fearmongering that is likely to only deepen Jewish communities' anxiety and make it harder to accurately assess antisemitic threats.”
Asian American Journalists Association / Yi-Shen Loo
AAJA issues guidance on covering violence in the Asian American community →
“As we learn more details about the shooting, AAJA recommends that newsrooms cover this tragedy with empathy, while centering community stories, and with the awareness of the tremendous stress and anxiety that the Asian American community has undergone over the last three years.”
Global Investigative Journalism Network / Giancarlo Fiorella
How to maintain mental health as an open source investigator →
“Realize that once you put something in your head, it will be there for the rest of your life. There's simply no way to get a disturbing image or sound out once it's in there. This is the single most important piece of advice that I can give to someone who is looking to get into the field of open source research and expects to work with potentially distressing content.”
CNBC / Lillian Rizzo and Alex Sherman
Vice, valued at $5.7 billion in 2017, will likely sell for less than $1 billion →
“Some of its most attractive assets are likely to be its content studio and creative advertising agency, Virtue, CNBC previously reported, but the company is attempting to sell itself in full rather than in pieces, the people said…Digital media companies have fallen from great heights from in recent years as growth has stalled due to shrinking audience numbers and advertising.”
The Verge / Mitchell Clark
The third-party apps Twitter just killed made the site what it is today →
“As many people have pointed out over the past week, third-party clients helped make Twitter the platform it is today, innovating parts of Twitter we take for granted and, in the early days, helping form the company's very identity. They've also acted as a safe haven from unwanted changes, helping to keep people tweeting when they were ready to give up on the platform.”
The Guardian / Hannah Ellis-Petersen
India invokes emergency laws to ban a BBC documentary on Narendra Modi →
“Controversy has erupted in India over the first episode of the two-part programme, India: The Modi Question…Kanchan Gupta, an adviser at the ministry [of information], said the government had ordered Twitter and YouTube to take down dozens of accounts that have been airing clips of the Modi documentary on the basis that it was ‘undermining the sovereignty and integrity of India’ and ‘making unsubstantiated allegations.'”
Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt
Why TikTok is one of the “main priorities” at BBC News for 2023 →
“This month BBC News advertised for four journalists on 12-month contracts to join a new TikTok team as part of its wider social news team…Naja Nielsen, director of digital and channels at BBC News, told Press Gazette the increase in disinformation meant there had become a ‘real public service reason for us to be there.'”
The Guardian / Vanessa Thorpe
Can BBC Radio thrive in a new world of podcasts? →
“There's always been a distinction [vs. BBC TV] on that front. People don't think of themselves as ‘a BBC One’ or ‘BBC Two’ person, because they are really a coalition of programmes, some of which an audience identify with. Radio is still different. The branding is much more fundamental and the station controllers are gatekeepers.”
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