Student reporters are filling a crucial gap in state government coverage

Monday, April 10, 2023

Student reporters are filling a crucial gap in state government coverage Under professional direction, student reporters are producing important state-government stories across the country. By Richard Watts.

R.I.P. Fuego, 2011–2023: You were a good bot What We’re ReadingNew York / Shawn McCreeshNew Wall Street Journal editor Emma Tucker’s first job: saving Evan Gershkovich →“Tucker’s job is just to keep him in the news. ‘You really have to think how to keep high and sustained visibility,’ says Fred Ryan, the publisher of the Washington Post. He’d started in his job just weeks after reporter Jason Rezaian had been imprisoned in Iran in 2014. ‘There’s a fire hose of things coming at the White House and particularly the president,’ he says. ‘Things quickly get deprioritized because there’s always something new.'”The Guardian / Nadeem BadshahElon Musk’s attacks on public broadcasters have reached the BBC →“While the @BBC account concerned, which has 2.2 million followers, has been given the label [of ‘Government-funded media’], more popular accounts affiliated to the broadcaster’s news and sport output, including BBC News (World) and BBC Breaking News, are not being described in the same way.”Gizmodo / Thomas GermainWhat Google plans to replace third-party cookies with →“Some players that buy, sell, and deliver ads are terrified that Privacy Sandbox will cut off data that’s critical to their businesses. Paradoxically, consumer advocates say Privacy Sandbox just lets Google and others spy on you in a different way. Meanwhile, regulators across the globe are hunting for evidence that this is all a self-dealing play that will solidify a digital advertising monopoly.”The Telegraph / James TitcombTwitter has stopped restricting the accounts of Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin officials →“Russian government tweets appeared in Twitter’s algorithmically-driven ‘For You’ feed for a newly created account, even when it did not follow them. A former Twitter executive confirmed that this marked a reversal from last year’s measures. They said: ‘It would be exceedingly unlikely that this change would have happened accidentally, or without the knowledge and direction of the company’s staff.'”Press Gazette / Charlotte TobittGQ is publishing the same issue across 20 international markets →“These big moments where you’re bringing the full firepower of the GQ brand to bear just are so important for the health of the brand, for awareness, for audience reasons, for commercial reasons.” (Saves money, too.)The New York Times / Tiffany Hsu and Steven Lee MyersCan we no longer believe anything we see? →(You could previously?)The HinduBowing to the Indian government, Twitter has taken down a critical tweet worldwide →“This is significant as Twitter has usually restricted access to posts following government requests only in the territory where such content is demanded to be blocked. The only instances where content has also been taken down globally is when it also violates Twitter’s own Terms of Service.”CJR / Andrew McCormickWhat it’s like to cover the climate crisis from Texas →“Energy might be the biggest story in Texas, but it’s not just a story about companies or the economy. It’s about the people who live here and their quality of life.”Engadget / Igor BonifacicTwitter has stopped throttling tweets with Substack links… →“At least for the time being, you can retweet, reply to, and like posts that feature a link to a Substack newsletter. The platform also won’t issue a safety warning if you click those links.”The Verge / Nilay Patel…but Twitter is now redirecting all searches for “Substack” to “newsletter” →“Truly, this is free speech at its most democratic.”The Guardian / Paul KarpMedia companies slam proposed changes to Australian privacy laws →“The Right to Know coalition warns the attorney general’s department’s proposal, released in February, would have ‘a devastating impact on press freedom and journalism in Australia without any clearly defined need or benefit.'”Press Gazette / Aisha MajidRanked: The best newsbrands at converting readers to paying subscribers →Hard paywalls at The Athletic and Barron’s top the list; The Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and San Francisco Chronicle are the top local U.S. publishers.The Verge / Alex HeathMidjourney is going to try “banning negativity” →“[Founder David Holz] said the generative AI engine is going to add a rule prohibiting being ‘negative about any public figure.’ Someone in the audience then called him a fascist and was kicked off the server.”The Globe and Mail / Xiao XuVancouver’s two daily newspapers are shutting their offices permanently →“It’s been three years since we vacated the newsrooms to work primarily from home. Initial concerns about the sudden shift quickly gave way to a pleasant realization that all of you have the tools and talent to thrive away from the office.”The Verge / David PierceHow SB Nation’s Twitter account disappeared for a week — and why nobody knew how to fix it →“People have been getting locked out of their accounts forever, and Twitter always seemingly had a switch to flip it back on. Twitter told the SB Nation team it was working on it and then promptly went silent for almost a week.”Los Angeles Times / Meredith Blake and Yvonne VillarrealConservative media mogul Logan Roy dies at 84 →“A spokesperson for HBO, which has handled media for Waystar Royco since 2018, declined The Times’ repeated requests to make anyone available for comment.”

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