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The Weekly Wrap: March 01, 2024
Is an Ivy degree a ~~golden ticket~~ to getting a job at The New York Times?
The answer to that question is no longer Unknown: The Ivy League is “a major feeder to The New York Times newsroom,” Josh Benton wrote this week in an exploration of which college degrees appear most likely to lead to jobs at the country’s most prominent news organization. Josh did this by going through the Times’ recently redesigned bio pages.
“Educational attainment is increasingly the dividing line in American political life — not least because, in today’s economy, it’s a huge factor in how optimistic you can be about your future,” Josh writes. “For the Times, the rupture is less between college and high school than between elite colleges and other colleges — but it’s still a divide.” (Snap if you agree with Josh.)
There’s some good discussion of the piece over at Reddit, including a link to a Family Guy episode that (sort of) did something on this.
— Laura Hazard Owen
From the week
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The Boston Globe revisits an infamous murder — and confronts its own sins along the way“They’ve never said, ‘We got that wrong.'” By Sarah Scire. |
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How Black women get their political news matters for this electionA new study investigates the ways Black women use social media, TV news, and other sources to engage with politics. By Nadia Brown, Camille Burge Christine Slaughter. |
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Is The New York Times’ newsroom just a bunch of Ivy Leaguers? (Kinda, sorta.)They’re not a majority, based on a new look at education data, but they are wildly overrepresented. By Joshua Benton. |
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San Francisco Chronicle tries an AI chatbot — er, Chowbot — for food recsChowbot is the Chronicle’s “first real foray into audience-facing AI.” By Sarah Scire. |
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With elections looming worldwide, here’s how to identify and investigate AI audio deepfakes“They are easier and cheaper to create than deepfake videos, and there are fewer contextual clues to detect with the naked eye.” By Rowan Philp. |
Highlights from elsewhere
Vanity Fair / Charlotte Klein
New York Times launches leak investigation over report on its Israel-Gaza coverage →
“It’s highly unusual for the Times to conduct a leak investigation, with multiple staffers saying this is the first such internal probe they can recall taking place. ‘It’s not something we do,’ said one. ‘That kind of witch hunt is really concerning.'”
The Verge / Kevin Nguyen
TinyLetter, in memoriam →
“TinyLetter has languished over the past decade. But it’s hard not to be a little sad when even a humble little service is sunsetted, especially one that contributed to such a strong and particular moment of internet culture. How many platforms had a distinct voice?”
The Intercept / Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, and Daniel Boguslaw
The story behind The New York Times’ October 7 exposé →
“At every turn, when The New York Times reporters ran into obstacles confirming tips, they turned to anonymous Israeli officials or witnesses who’d already been interviewed repeatedly in the press. Months after setting off on their assignment, the reporters found themselves exactly where they had begun, relying overwhelmingly on the word of Israeli officials, soldiers, and Zaka workers to substantiate their claim that more than 30 bodies of women and girls were discovered with signs of sexual abuse.”
The Boston Globe / Kimberly Atkins Stohr
Bring back the public editor →
“Such a position is not a panacea for restoring the public trust, but it’s a good start.”
The Washington Post / Philip Bump
Reporting precinct results is the new reporting early returns →
“Television news has different demands than print. If nothing’s happening, they still need to show something. And, technically, precinct-level results are real results, real tallies of votes. It’s something to show until vote counting is done: the mechanics of how that process works and some updates on it. But there’s no point in reading out those results as though they are indicative of statewide (or even county!) patterns. There’s not even any point in reading out statewide results with, say, 10 percent of votes in; without a sense of where those votes came from and what’s outstanding, that doesn’t tell you much either.”
The New York Times / Benjamin Mullin
Center for Public Integrity weighs merger or shutdown amid dire financial straits →
“The financial peril facing the Center for Public Integrity threatens to extinguish a newsroom of about 30 journalists that has watchdogged powerful institutions for decades…Before [chief executive Paul] Cheung resigned, he was the focus of a complaint that included a Slack message he sent to another employee saying they needed to ‘fudge some $$$’ for a presentation to a foundation.”
WIRED / Kate Knibbs
How a small Iowa newspaper’s website became an AI-generated clickbait factory →
“The Clayton County Register was founded in 1926 and covered the small town of Ekader, Iowa, and wider Clayton County, which nestle against the Mississippi River in the state’s northeast corner…Former coeditor Bryce Durbin describes himself as ‘disgusted’ by what’s now published at its former web address.”
New York Times / David Streitfeld
How the media industry keeps losing the future →
“The slow crash of newspapers and magazines would be of limited interest save for one thing: Traditional media had at its core the exalted and difficult mission of communicating information about the world. From investigative reports on government to coverage of local politicians, the news served to make all the institutions and individuals covered a bit more transparent and, possibly, more honest…Now there are signs that the whole concept of ‘news’ is fading.”
The Verge / Emma Roth
A former Gizmodo writer changed his name to “Slackbot” and stayed undetected for months →
“The move camouflaged McKay’s active Slack account for months, letting his account evade deletion. It also allowed him to send bot-like messages to his colleagues such as, ‘Slackbot fact of the day: Hi, I’m Slackbot! That’s a fact. Have a Slack-ly day!’ My colleague Victoria Song, who previously worked at Gizmodo, isn’t all that surprised that this situation unfolded, and says, ‘As Tom’s former coworker and a G/O Media survivor, this tracks.'”
