Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

“And that’s not all”: Georgetown’s Americas Institute relaunches The Washington Post’s Spanish-language news podcast

“One of our objectives is to make Georgetown more visible in Latin America…the podcast is a perfect fit to achieve that mission.” By Hanaa' Tameez.

Why news subscriptions feel like a burden to young people

Plus: Journalists’ perception of their own news orgs’ bias, what “impartial” actually means to audiences, and when the public might intervene in journalist harassment. By Mark Coddington and Seth Lewis.
What We’re Reading
The Guardian / Jon Henley
German tabloid Bild to replace range of editorial jobs with AI →
“It said the roles of ‘editors, print production staff, subeditors, proofreaders and photo editors will no longer exist as they do today,’ according to the email, seen by the rival Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.”
Washington Post PR
The Washington Post launches a new word game and adds a dedicated Games page →
“Our readers have embraced the expanding portfolio of interactive games with a surge in user engagement. In the past year alone, our user play rate has grown by 70%.”
Axios
Vox Media adds a subscription for its podcast “Criminal” →
“Criminal Plus, which will be available via monthly ($5), annual ($50) and premium ($80) tiers, will give super fans access to exclusive bonus content, merchandise and ad-free episodes, beginning June 23.”
Charlotte Magazine / Allison Braden
Crumbling estate: A look at Charlotte’s local media →
“Frankly, a lot of what’s missing is perspective and experience, in the sense that with all the cutbacks in journalism over the last 10 or 15 years, a lot of those cuts came from people who knew this community pretty well.”
The Wall Street Journal / Patrick Coffee
Celebrities are using AI to take control of their own images →
“Celebrities ‘get paid, but they don’t have to turn up,’ says Tom Graham, chief executive of AI startup Metaphysic. Stars just need to spend a few minutes in a studio with a 3-D scanner, which can then create representations of them for countless hours of content.”
CNBC / Lauren Feiner
Gannett is suing Google over its alleged ad tech monopoly →
“The lawsuit echoes arguments made by the Department of Justice in its second lawsuit against Google, following an earlier one focused on how it distributes its search product. That lawsuit similarly alleged Google illegally maintained a monopoly through its control of multiple parts of the ad selling and buying market.”
Bloomberg / Ashley Carman
Spotify is planning a “Supremium” tier including more audiobooks →
“To augment its current ‘Premium’ tier, Spotify will give subscribers expanded access to audiobooks, either through a specific number of hours free per month or a specific number of titles.”
The Washington Post / Rebecca Tan
Facebook helped bring free speech to Vietnam. Now it’s helping stifle it. →
“Meta is preparing to tighten content controls further after being told by officials in recent months that it would otherwise have to store data on servers inside Vietnam, raising alarms about privacy and information security, according to people with knowledge of the company’s internal discussions.”
The New York Times / Emily Flitter
How local officials seek revenge on their hometown newspapers →
“In recent years, newspapers in Colorado, North Carolina, New Jersey and California, as well as New York, have been stripped of their contracts for public notices after publishing articles critical of their local governments. Some states, like Florida, are going even further, revoking the requirement that such notices have to appear in newspapers.”
Podnews
Spotify breaks up with Meghan Markle’s “Archetypes” podcast →
“Meghan Markle’s podcast produced just twelve episodes in a $20 million contract. The Wall Street Journal suggests that she may not earn the full amount after not meeting productivity clauses. Podnews has heard from multiple sources that some interviews on the show were done by other staffers, with her questions edited-in afterwards.”
Gizmodo / Thomas Germain
Website owners say traffic is plunging after another Facebook algorithm change →
“There’s been a significant downward trend, and it’s an important platform for us because our audience is disproportionately on Facebook. It makes up about 25% of our traffic,” said Robert Chappell, Executive Editor at Madison 365, a nonprofit newsroom that covers communities of color in Wisconsin. “You never know what’s going to change. It makes it hard to plan for the future.”