Nieman Lab
The Weekly Wrap: June 28, 2024

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Housekeeping note: Nieman Lab is taking a publishing break next week. We’ll be back Monday, July 8.

“Unfortunately, close enough doesn’t cut it for URLs”: This week, we published Andrew’s latest investigation into how ChatGPT is failing to send users to OpenAI’s partners’ stories. Andrew wrote:

My reporting confirms that ChatGPT is hallucinating URLs for at least 10 other publications that are part of OpenAI’s ongoing licensing deals. These publications include The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The Times (UK), Le Monde, El País, The Atlantic, The Verge, Vox, and Politico.

In my testing, I repeatedly prompted ChatGPT to link out to these publications’ marquee articles, including Pulitzer Prize-winning stories and years-long investigations. These types of stories are editorial investments that can be both incredibly valuable to a brand’s reputation, and incredibly costly to produce.

All together, my tests show that ChatGPT is currently unable to reliably link out to even these most noteworthy stories by partner publications.

“This is your periodic reminder that AI-powered chatbots still make up things and lie with all the confidence of a GPS system telling you that the shortest way home is to drive through the lake,” Pranav Dixit wrote at Engadget.

— Laura Hazard Owen

From the week

ChatGPT is hallucinating fake links to its news partners’ biggest investigations

Nieman Lab’s tests show ChatGPT is directing users to broken URLs for at least 10 publications with OpenAI licensing deals. By Andrew Deck.

El País aims for the U.S. with a new, American Spanish-language edition

“The best reader is the one who reads you a lot.” By Hanaa' Tameez.

Is journalism’s trust problem about money, not politics?

The people we spoke with tended to assume that news organizations made money primarily through advertising instead of also from subscribers. By Jacob L. Nelson.

The espionage trial of Evan Gershkovich signals a dangerous new era for journalism in Russia

You have to go back to the 1980s and the last, confrontational phase of the Cold War to find a case of a Moscow correspondent being locked up on spying charges. By James Rodgers and Dina Fainberg.

Triangle Blog Blog aims for a sweet spot between local news and progressive politics

To what extent can, and can’t, a well-researched progressive civics blog serve as local news? By Sophie Culpepper.

Journalism has become ground zero for the vocation crisis

Journalists — like nurses and teachers — want to do work that’s interesting and socially beneficial. But the industry’s increasing precariousness counterbalances the appeal. By Matthew Powers.

Freelancers sue over new rules on independent contractors

“Ultimately, what we’re fighting for is the right to freelance.” By Christina Couch.
Cityside launches Richmondside, its third local news site in California
Highlights from elsewhere
Los Angeles Times / Laurel Rosenhall
California lawmakers advance tax on Big Tech to help fund news industry →
“[The passage of Senate Bill 1327] comes the same week lawmakers advanced another bill that seeks to resuscitate the local news business, which has suffered from declining revenue as technology changes the way people consume news. Assembly Bill 886 would require digital platforms to pay news outlets a fee when they sell advertising alongside news content.”
Washington Post / Aaron C. Davis, Greg Miller, Sarah Ellison, and Isaac Stanley-Becker
Washington Post publisher’s role in hacking response comes into sharper focus →
“As the decade-old controversy has been thrust back into the news, some people who were involved in the events — which led to a wave of resignations and jail terms for several journalists including a former top editor — are revisiting misgivings they felt at the time.”
Reuters
Meta threatens to block news from Facebook in Australia again →
“Meta struck deals with Australian media firms including News Corp and the Australian Broadcasting Corp when the law was brought in Australia, but has since said it will not renew those arrangements beyond 2024.”
WAN-IFRA / Lucinda Jordaan
How Die Zeit’s go-slow strategy defied the odds →
“Brand offshoots, too, are different. Individual podcasts, for instance, are unusually lengthy – hours long. In fact: ‘Our record episode is nine hours and 20 minutes.'”
Semafor / Max Tani
Top liberal media voices turn on Biden →
“Biden’s poor performance also overshadowed one of the strongest complaints Democrats and left-leaning media pundits had: CNN’s failure to fact-check President Donald Trump’s numerous misstatements.”
The Atlantic / Brian Stelter
How much of the chaos at The Washington Post is Jeff Bezos’ fault? →
“He has kept his hands off the Post’s news coverage, even when it dinged Amazon, even when it stung him personally. But some staffers now believe that he was too hands-off for his and the paper’s own good — his attention elsewhere while the executives he’d selected flailed. It’s clear in retrospect that the Post’s business operations needed more inspiration and more accountability. All of the runway Bezos gave the Post did not produce sustained profitability.”

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