Washington Post / Eva Dou and Salvador Rizzo
News publishers in the spotlight as another Google monopoly trial begins →“While Google is the target of the trial, the proceedings are also expected to shed some light on how businesses such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal actually make their money these days, and how they depend on arcane marketplaces run by internet giants to do so. [Justice Department attorney Julia Tarver Wood] said prosecutors intend to call executives from companies including USA Today, Journal parent company News Corp. and the Daily Mail to testify in the coming weeks.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Jon Allsop
Is the press “sanewashing” Trump? →“It’s worth noting that the sanewashing phenomenon figures into a debate that is almost as old as Trump’s political career itself, and legitimately thorny: whether to expose news consumers more to his rhetoric, or shut it out.”
The Guardian / Jack Apollo George
In Depth NH / Bernardo Motta
It’s time to talk about effective funding practices in local news →“Prioritize small, independent, public service, nonprofit newsrooms. Those newsrooms have to be accountable in more ways than a for-profit newsroom does, because their mission is usually more aligned with the community they represent. They also have limited access to revenue streams available to for-profits, especially if they want to remain independent.”
American Crisis / Margaret Sullivan
The Guardian / Zoe Williams
Racism, misogyny, lies: how did X become so full of hatred? →“Is it moral to remain on a platform that does so much to bring the politics of division and hatred off the keyboard and into real life? Is X any worse than Facebook, or TikTok, or (for God’s sake!) YouTube? And is it worse on purpose, which is to say, are we watching the unfolding of a Musk master plan?”
Semafor / Kadia Goba, Ellie Hall, and David Weigel
A mysterious influencer network has been pushing sexual smears of Kamala Harris →“The network that would push the sexual smears began with more run-of-the-mill Republican talking points, but it was unusual in one way, a person who participated in its video calls said: None of the participants identified themselves by name, and all joined calls with their cameras off to preserve their mutual anonymity. However, Semafor was able to identify one of them: former New York Republican Rep. George Santos, who spoke up on one conference call to object when the parties discussed making sexual allegations against Harris.”
The Guardian / Lindsey Hilsum
The New York Times / James B. Stewart and Brooks Barnes
The palace coup at the Magic Kingdom →“The New York Times has pieced together what happened inside Disney during those fateful months by talking to scores of people directly involved. Many of them talked extensively for the first time about what transpired, some only on the condition of anonymity because of their nondisclosure agreements with Disney.”