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The Weekly Wrap: April 12, 2024
Find Sophie and Neel at ISOJ and Hanaa’ next week in Perugia
Hello everyone!! Today and tomorrow, our staff writer Neel Dhanesha and local news writer Sophie Culpepper are at the International Symposium on Online Journalism in Austin. Next week, our staff writer Hanaa’ Tameez will be at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, and she’ll be moderating a panel on local news in large global cities on Thursday, April 18 at 3 PM local time. If you’re at either of these events too, please seek us out and say hi!
— Laura Hazard Owen
From the week
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The California Journalism Preservation Act would do more harm than good. Here’s how the state might better help news“If there are resources to be put to work, we must ask where those resources should come from, who should receive them, and on what basis they should be distributed.” By Jeff Jarvis. |
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“Fake news” legislation risks doing more harm than good amid a record number of elections in 2024“Whether intentional or not, the legislation we examined created potential opportunities to diminish opposing voices and decrease media freedom — both of which are particularly important in countries holding elections.” By Samuel Jens. |
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Dateline Totality: How local news outlets in the eclipse’s path are covering the covering“Celestial events tend to draw highly engaged audiences, and this one is no exception.” By Sophie Culpepper. |
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The conspiracy-loving Epoch Times is thinking about opening…a journalism school?It would, um, “champion the same values of ‘truth and traditional’ as The Epoch Times” and, er, “nurture in the next generation of media professionals,” ahem, “the highest standards of personal integrity, fairness, and truth-seeking.” By Joshua Benton. |
Highlights from elsewhere
Wall Street Journal / Alexandra Bruell
New York Times bosses seek to quash rebellion in the newsroom →
“Times executive editor Joe Kahn] noted that the organization has added a lot of digital-savvy workers who are skilled in areas like data analytics, design and product engineering but who weren’t trained in independent journalism. He also suggested that colleges aren’t preparing new hires to be tolerant of dissenting views.”
New York Times / Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson
NPR faces attacks and internal tumult after an editor claimed liberal bias affects its coverage →
NPR’s editor-in-chief Edith Chapin reportedly said she didn’t want to make senior business editor Uri Berliner a “martyr.”
Washington City Paper / Vince Morris
Washington Post web traffic numbers keep sinking →
“An internal ‘traffic sheet’ obtained from a source with access to the numbers shows 55 million monthly web visits in February 2024, the paper’s lowest in several years. By comparison, the number of Post web visitors is below the New York Times (82 million), USA Today (63 million), and Forbes (60 million).”
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism / Benjamin Bathke
A scoop by the nonprofit Correctiv sparked huge pro-democracy protests all over Germany. How did they pull it off? →
“While it’s too early to judge how Correctiv’s revelations will affect German politics in the long term, they have reinvigorated pro-democracy attitudes in the country and showed how these racist attitudes extend into the highest echelons of the AfD and how some of its leaders are keen to put them into action if given the opportunity to do so.”
Intelligencer / Abby Schreiber
What it’s like to be a member of the royal press pack →
“The royal press pack is quite a sensitive group of people, and it’s a lot less brutal than the politics beat is.”
Nieman Reports / John Daniszewski
“Unparalleled and unprecedented”: Journalists in Gaza have faced the deadliest six months ever recorded →
“While there was never a time of perfect security, the historic calculus between journalists and combatants has changed in dangerous ways.”
