The Guardian / Joan Donovan
+972 Magazine / Anat Saragusti
Israeli media’s inevitable hysteria over U.S. campus protests →“These two trends — the Israeli media’s unbending self-censorship in its coverage of the devastation in Gaza, and its framing of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the U.S. as antisemitic — are closely linked. Simply put, those who are not aware of what Israel is doing in Gaza cannot understand the reaction of those who are.”
Rest of World / Fahad Shah
The booming business of AI war rooms during India’s elections →“AI content makers like Polymath are sought after by national and regional politicians in India amid what is being touted as the biggest election in the world. Four AI content agencies told Rest of World they are seeing more demand than they can manage, with political parties in the country projected to spend over $50 million on AI-generated campaign material this year.”
The Rebooting / Brian Morrissey
The Wall Street Journal’s Emma Tucker on going audience-first →“Translation: more investigative pieces, less filler content, more ‘constructive journalism’ that serves audience needs instead of winning Twitter/X.” (Also: “The traffic era of publishing has ended…I found it telling [Tucker] didn’t cite traffic numbers but highlighted that the Journal had decreased churn by 6% in the past year.”)
Substack / Ken Klippenstein
Ken Klippenstein is resigning from The Intercept →“The Intercept has been taken over by suits who have abandoned its founding mission of fearless and adversarial journalism, and I can’t continue in an environment where fear of funders is more important than journalism itself.”
New York Times / Katie Robertson
Eight Alden-owned newspapers sue OpenAI and Microsoft over AI →“The publications — The New York Daily News, The Chicago Tribune, The Orlando Sentinel, The Sun Sentinel of Florida, The San Jose Mercury News, The Denver Post, The Orange County Register and The St. Paul Pioneer Press — filed the complaint in federal court in the U.S. Southern District of New York…The publications accuse OpenAI and Microsoft of using millions of copyrighted articles without permission to train and feed their generative A.I. products, including ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot.”
The Washington Post / Rachel Kurzius
The wild rise of Zillow Gone Wild →“Since [Samir Mezrahi] started the account in December 2020, it has exploded into a social media phenomenon, amassing more than 4 million followers across the major social media platforms and spinning off an HGTV show that debuts next month with Mezrahi as executive producer.
The Guardian / Tom Phillips
Asterisk Magazine / Timothy B. Lee
Debugging tech journalism →“Writing about misconduct by big companies is an important function of an independent press. But I worry that the pendulum might have swung so far in this direction that other worthwhile angles get neglected.”
Intelligencer / Benjamin Hart
Jim VandeHei on AI-proofing the news and ignoring “Twitter nerds” →“‘Oh, but AI can write.’ Who cares if it can write? You really have to be advanced to be able to think cleverly, see something with your eye and put it into a lyrical human language, like the best magazine article. I think stuff like that will have tremendous value. Whatever AI looks like a couple of years from now — it’s going to be a garbage pit for a while. It’s going to be ugly, and there’s going to be mass amounts of just slush and sludge and slime.”
TechCrunch / Ingrid Lunden