In the world’s tech capital, Gazetteer SF is staying off platforms to produce good local journalism

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

In the world’s tech capital, Gazetteer SF is staying off platforms to produce good local journalism “Thank goodness that the mandate will never be to look what’s getting the most Twitter likes.” By Hanaa' Tameez.

What We’re ReadingThe Boston Globe / Aidan RyanThe University of Vermont’s local news center is getting $7 million to expand its student reporting efforts nationwide →“As the number of local journalists employed across the country continues to shrink, dozens of colleges are trying to help fill gaps in reporting. Their approach? Giving students an opportunity to do real-world journalism for university credit while at the same time helping surrounding communities with local news coverage.”Aftermath / Luke PlunkettGoodbye Kotaku Australia, you were a very good website →“Writers weren’t even allowed to access their CMS to say goodbye…Denied even that last dignified act — and disclosure time, because I’ve worked closely with many of these people and think they’re all amazing — I’ve turned Aftermath over for one blog to former editors and writers of Kotaku Australia, so that they can share their thoughts and say their goodbyes.”NPR / David FolkenflikA veteran reporter has sued The Wall Street Journal for discrimination →A disability discrimination lawsuit filed by health care reporter Stephanie Armour, who left the Wall Street Journal in late spring, accuses the paper of seeking to shed staffers who incur significant health care costs by invoking “trumped up performance issues.” The Washington Post / Paul FarhiUSA Today transformed the media world. What’s its legacy now? →“USA Today left critics aghast when it debuted 42 years ago. Rival editors sneered at its bite-sized news stories and its relentlessly cheerful tone. (Headline on a plane crash story in the first edition: ‘Miracle: 327 survive, 58 die.’) The reporting was often so brief and superficial that even insiders joked that their work would win awards for ‘best investigative paragraph.’ It was quickly dubbed ‘McPaper,’ the news equivalent of junk food.”The New York Times / Mario KoranAn unlikely path from jail to journalism at The New York Times →“I never expected to become a real reporter. While the other students in my first journalism class could go out into the community to interview sources, my options were limited. As an inmate, the only people I could interview were other prisoners and the guards.”The Washington Post / Erik WempleThe New York Times’ Joe Kahn: “It’s not for us to solve” the problem of Biden’s age →“How can the Times overindulge in coverage of Biden’s age one day, only to stand accused of participating in an industry-wide failure on that same issue the next day? It cannot; this is a silly proposition that takes flight based on a couple of factors.”The Washington Post / Taylor LorenzMeta’s Threads is struggling to win over content creators →“‘Threads still seems like a platform in search of a mission,’ says Lia Haberman, an independent digital strategist and author of the ICYMI newsletter on marketing and the creator economy. ‘The focus isn’t news. It’s not about visual creativity or video, like Instagram or TikTok. So what is it?'”Bloomberg / Daniel ZuidijkThe fight against misinformation is suffering defeat on multiple fronts →“Even as courts push back, the notion that checking facts means curtailing free speech is becoming rooted in contemporary conservatism.”Global Investigative Journalism Network / Andrea Arzaba and Ana Beatriz Assam“We are just warming up our engines”: What’s next for investigative journalism in Latin America →“Latin American journalists know that today we can tell a story, but we never take for granted that we will wake up with that freedom.”Toolkits / Jack MarshallAre publishers relying too heavily on subscription discounting? →“There’s little meaningful data at this point to suggest that discounting for news publishers’ news subscription products is any more prevalent (or concerning) than it is in other industries. In the streaming video market, for example, 40% of subscribers paid less than full price in 2023, according to research firm Antenna.”NBC NewsShe exposed how the nation’s poorest state spent federal welfare money. Now she might go to jail. →“When Anna Wolfe won the Pulitzer Prize for her dogged reporting on Mississippi’s welfare fraud scandal, she had no inkling she was soon going to have to contend with the possibility of going to jail…Sued for defamation by the state’s former governor — a top subject of their reporting — they have been hit with a court order requiring them to turn over internal files including the names of confidential sources. They say the order is a threat to journalism that they will resist.”VentureBeat / Shubham SharmaElevenLabs launches a free tool to clean up your audio interviews →“Available on the ElevenLabs platform starting today, the offering allows creators to remove unwanted ambient noise and sounds from any piece of content they have, right from a film to a podcast or YouTube video.”The New York Times / Brooks BarnesA diminished Hollywood welcomes a new mogul, David Ellison →“Sure, Mr. Ellison, 41, now ranks as a bona fide Hollywood mogul. But what does that even mean in 2024? His ascendance bears no resemblance to the robber barons like [Sumner] Redstone who came before him, partly because there is precious little left to rob.”The Washington Post / Jeremy BarrBillionaire Reid Hoffman is helping pay for a major defamation lawsuit against Fox News →“Smartmatic, the voting technology company enmeshed in complex defamation lawsuits against Fox News and Newsmax, has a powerful new financial ally…Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn, has made a multimillion-dollar investment intended in part to help the company sustain its costly litigation.”Press Gazette / Charlotte TobittHow will the U.K.’s new Labour government affect the BBC? →“Lisa Nandy, the U.K.’s new culture secretary, has a history of backing the BBC license fee and praising local journalism in her constituency. But Nandy has said the BBC’s structure needs reform and that it should be ‘owned and directed by license fee holders.'”Press Gazette / Charlotte TobittFootballco wants to be the top source for soccer news in the U.S. →“There was really no soccer-only media platform in the States that was covering the game at the depth that Goal covers soccer globally…And that in itself is, I think, where the opportunity really exists.”The Washington Post / Janay KingsberryThe Shade Room built a massive Black audience. Candidates want in. →“The growth signals how much the platform has become a cultural force in the Black community, wielding enough power to not only cover culture but also to shape it.”TechCrunch / Kyle WiggersCloudflare launches a tool to let publishers better block AI bots →“Many sites, wary of Al vendors training models on their content without alerting or compensating them, have opted to block Al scrapers and crawlers. Around 26% of the top 1,000 sites on the web have blocked OpenAl’s bot, according to one study; another found that more than 600 news publishers had blocked the bot.”

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