The Wall Street Journal / Alexandra Bruell
Your local newspaper might not have a single reporter →“The Gleaner, the local newspaper in Henderson, Ky., has sections focused on features, sports, news and opinion. What it doesn’t have: a single reporter on staff. The publication is one of the ‘ghost newsrooms’ that increasingly dot the American media landscape — newspapers that have little to no on-the-ground presence in the localities whose name they bear.”
The Washington Post / Paul Farhi
In Alabama, another small-town paper is hit in an “open season” on the free press →“The arrests shocked legal scholars and press advocates, who say it’s a violation of the First Amendment to prosecute a newspaper for reporting the news. More specifically, they argue that District Attorney Stephen M. Billy misapplied Alabama’s secrecy law, which criminalizes leaks by anyone directly involved with a grand jury — jurors, witnesses, court officials — but not news outlets that publish the information.”
The Wall Street Journal / Keach Hagey, Deepa Seetharaman, and Berber Jin
Behind the scenes of Sam Altman’s showdown at OpenAI →“According to people familiar with the board’s thinking, members had grown so untrusting of Altman that they felt it necessary to double-check nearly everything he told them. The explanation baffles Altman’s defenders, who say they aren’t aware of specific episodes that might warrant such an outcome.”
The Washington Post / Will Oremus and Pranshu Verma
The Guardian / Lisa O'Carroll
EU laws to protect press freedom are in jeopardy, campaigners claim →“‘We are very depressed about the way this is going,’ said Renate Schroeder, director of the European Federation of Journalists. She and others say the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which is in the final stages of negotiation between member states and MEPs, has been ‘watered down’ so much behind the scenes that its original aim, to give robust protections to the press, may not be achieved.”
Committee to Protect Journalists / Kathy Jones
The death toll for journalists in the Israel-Hamas war is at 57 →Fifty Palestinian, 4 Israeli, and 3 Lebanese. “Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict during the Israeli ground assault, including devastating Israeli airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages and extensive power outages.”
The New York Times / Ryan Mac and Kate Conger
Bloomberg / Alberto Nardelli, Jillian Deutsch, and Stephanie Bodoni
Blind Magazine / Michaël Naulin
The New York Times / Natasha Singer
The Guardian / Adam Lowenstein
Revealed: How the PR firm Edelman uses its “trust barometer” to promote the world’s autocrats →“Edelman’s trust barometer is ‘quoted everywhere as if this is some credible, objective research from a thinktank, whereas there is a fairly obvious commercial background, and it’s fairly obviously a sales tool,’ said Alison Taylor, a professor at New York University’s business school. ‘At minimum, the firm should be disclosing these financial relationships as part of the study. But they’re not doing that.'”
Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt
Latest Google updates have led to massive traffic changes for news websites →“Websites with a traditional focus on scale, often built with the aid of SEO explainer-style articles, appear to be among the hardest hit while sites with a better user experience due to having fewer adverts — therefore many more subscription-focused news brands — report being less affected. Google said it has not specifically targeted publishers but that its aim is to ‘show helpful and reliable results.'”
The Washington Post / Joseph Menn
Univision anchor Jorge Ramos rebukes network for not challenging Trump →“Ramos devoted his weekly column to making that case in the wake of his network’s recent friendly interview with Trump, which was attended by three senior executives at Univision’s relatively new parent company. Ramos wrote that it had ‘put in doubt the independence of our news department.'”
The New York Times / Robert D. McFadden
Charles Peters, founder of The Washington Monthly, has died at 96 →“Often called the ‘godfather of neoliberalism,’ the core policy doctrine of the magazine, Mr. Peters was The Monthly’s editor from 1969 until his retirement in 2001. He also wrote five books on politics, government and history, and a column, ‘Tilting at Windmills,’ offering pithy thoughts on politics and current events, from 1977 to 2014.”
Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt
Formal complaints about BBC coverage of the Israel-Hamas war were not upheld →“Law firm Mishcon de Reya acted on behalf of the groups and the complaints were fast-tracked by director-general Tim Davie after widespread criticism of the broadcaster, including its decision not to refer to Hamas as ‘terrorists’…[The BBC’s executive complaints unit] said it was the reporting of what Hamas had done rather than the specific terminology used to describe them ‘that was the test of whether justice has been done to the events.'”
The New York Times / Tiffany Hsu, Amy Chang Chien, and Steven Lee Myers
Can Taiwan continue to fight off Chinese disinformation? →“For years, China has pummeled the Taiwanese information ecosystem with inaccurate narratives and conspiracy theories, seeking to undermine its democracy and divide its people in an effort to assert control over its neighbor…Perhaps as much as any other place, however, the tiny island is ready for the disinformation onslaught.”
Financial Times / Daniel Thomas, Simeon Kerr, and James Fontanella-Khan
Press Gazette / Dominic Ponsford
How Bloomberg Media got to 500,000 subscribers — and how it plans to reach a million →“Subscription businesses are just so honest, you know, you kind of put one foot in front of the other every day to serve your users. And they say thank you, and here’s money. So the benefit of being in subscription businesses is unbelievably clarifying and has really helped us say, hey, what do our subscribers need? Great, we’re going to develop that.”
New York Times / Ryan Mac and Kate Conger