Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest

Google Discover is sending U.S. news publishers much more traffic. (Social? Still falling.)

Traffic from Google Discover now exceeds traffic from Google Search for some publishers, but what works there is a bit of a guessing game. By Laura Hazard Owen.

With help from Denmark’s Zetland, Finland will get a member-supported news outlet in 2025

“It feels more like a partner and a support than Zetland coming to the Finnish market.” By Hanaa' Tameez.
What We’re Reading
Columbia Journalism Review / Jon Allsop
In Lebanon, a “silent” war grows louder →
“In Western media, coverage attested to “fears” of a regional war—as they have after so many apparent escalations since October 7—with the word ‘war’ qualified by modifiers like ‘all out,’ ‘broader,’ or ‘full scale.’  If these raised the question as to what more it might take for this state of affairs to be reached, observers on the ground left little doubt that a very serious conflict was already underway.”
Rest of World / Ananya Bhattacharya
Political campaigns embrace AI to reach voters across language barriers →
“Last December, the political advocacy group AAPI Victory Alliance received a $20,000 grant to develop an AI chatbot that would translate and refine campaign messages into Hindi, Tagalog, Chinese, Hmong, Korean, and Vietnamese. Awarded by the venture fund Higher Ground Labs, the money was meant to fund a three-week test run to determine how useful LLMs could be for campaigns.”
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism / Gretel Kahn
Despite sexist attacks, these female journalists have built massive online audiences on their own. Here’s how. →
“Research suggests that audiences are interested in seeing different perspectives from what they traditionally see from mainstream media. This is one of the comments that [Tiffany Del Mastro] and the other journalists have gotten the most: that they often cover topics not widely covered by mainstream media outlets.”
International News Media Association / Rafaella Fraga
How Zero Hora used social media to share information during historic floods in Brazil →
“Throughout this event, it became clear that social media was not just for informing and telling stories. It was also a crucial channel for conversations with the audience and for mobilising the community into a chain of solidarity to help people rebuild their homes, cities, and lives.”
404 Media / Emanuel Maiberg
Google’s AI mushrooms could have “devastating consequences” →
“Google serving an AI-generated image of a mushroom as if it was a real species is highlighting two problems with AI-generated content we’ve covered previously: Potentially wrong and dangerous information being presented as fact, and Google search inability to sort through all the AI-generated content that has flooded the internet and tell users what is real and what isn’t.”
NBC News / David Ingram
TikTok removes Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik, citing “covert influence operations” →
“The social video app said in a statement on its website that it removed accounts associated with TV-Novosti and Rossiya Segodnya, the parent organizations of the RT television network and the Russian news agency Sputnik. TikTok said the accounts had violated its community guidelines, in particular its ban on deceptive behavior.”
Adweek / Mark Stenberg
Vice relaunches its print magazine and debuts a subscription →
“The relaunch of the print magazine, which has been on hiatus since 2019, coincides with the 30th anniversary of Vice. Its first release, a photography issue, will feature the work of 20 up-and-coming photographers from across the world, according to general manager John Montoya.”
Axios / Sara Fischer
NYT to sell audio subscriptions through Apple and Spotify →
“Come October, listeners will need to subscribe to The Times’ audio content to unlock older episodes of The Times’ hit shows, such as ‘The Daily,’ ‘The Ezra Klein Klein Show,”Modern Love,’ or ‘Hard Fork.’ At launch, the three most recent episodes of ‘The Daily’ will be available to all listeners for free on any platform. But the deeper archive will be available to subscribers only.
The Present Age / Parker Molloy
Elite legacy media journalists are rushing to the defense of the indefensible →
“At a time when trust in the media is at an all-time low, I’m not sure that circling the wagons in defense of some obviously unethical nonsense is the play to make.”
The Rebooting / Brian Morrissey
How Front Office Sports took a prosumer approach to $10 million in revenue →
“Front Office Sports started as a classic B2B publication, a more modern version of Sports Business Journal and without a paywall…After going down a false path of building out consumer-focused newsletters, FoS found its stride by not trying to be a narrow trade publication but instead take a business angle to sports.”