Digiday / Krystal Scanlon
Inside X’s latest, desperate attempt to beguile advertisers →“Sure, marketers have heard this song before, especially since the social network fell into the eccentric billionaire Elon Musk’s lap about 18 months ago. And yes, the chances of advertisers changing their minds over advertising there are slim to none.”
Reporters Without Borders
The Washington Post / Naomi Nix, Michael Scherer, and Jeremy B. Merrill
Big news orgs lost 75% of their Facebook engagement between Q1 2022 and Q1 2024 →Plus 58 percent of interactions on Instagram. “Meta spokesperson Dani Lever argued that the changes are a response to user feedback. ‘These changes are intended to impact what people see because that is what they told us they wanted — to see less political content and have more controls,’ she said. ‘This approach builds on years of work and is being applied to everyone.'”
Washingtonian / Andrew Beaujon
Why did WAMU close DCist? →“The portrait that emerges is of a media organization in the throes of a dramatic reorganization that has tanked employee morale and baffled some faculty members and alumni of American University, which operates WAMU…As one staffer puts it, WAMU has ‘a garbage mess’ on its hands.”
The Wrap / Stephanie Kaloi
New York state lawmakers passed a $90 million tax-credit plan for local news →“The bipartisan plan offers a statewide total of $30 million in credits each year for three years (a $90 million total commitment) that can be used to cover half of a journalist’s salary, up to $50,000 per year. Publishers are only allowed to use the credits, which are part of the state’s 2025 budget, if they both hire new reporters and keep their current staff.”
Press Gazette / Clara Aberneithie
The New York Times / John Koblin
Americans’ new TV habit: Subscribe. Watch. Cancel. Repeat. →“More than 29 million — about a quarter of domestic paying streaming subscribers — have canceled three or more services over the last two years, according to Antenna, a subscription research firm. And the numbers are rising fast…a third of them resubscribe to the canceled service within six months, according to Antenna’s research.”
The New York Times / Sam Roberts
The Guardian / Margaret Sullivan
NPR needs a serious critique, not a politically charged parting shot →“It took only days from Uri Berliner’s publishing his fiery essay about his employer, NPR, to his suspension, to his resignation in a blaze of bad-faith glory. ‘You knew the martyrdom was coming,’ was how journalist Issac Bailey put it. And that’s a shame, because every news organization — National Public Radio included — could benefit from more self-scrutiny, more openness to criticism, more willingness to change.”
The Verge / Allison Johnson
The future of AI gadgets is just…phones →“I love a gadget, but guys, I lived through the era of camera companies trying to convince us that we all needed to carry a compact camera and our phones everywhere. Phones won. Phones already come with powerful processors, decent heat dissipation, and sophisticated wireless connectivity. An AI gadget that operates independently from your phone has to figure all of that out.”
The Washington Post / Will Sommer
Are some reporters putting Trump jurors at risk? →“The members of the jury are meant to be anonymous. But that effort has been undermined, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said from the bench, by media reports that mentioned potentially identifiable information about the jurors — ranging from their physical appearances to their occupations.”
The Washington Post / Amber Ferguson
The New York Times / Charlie Smart
Bloomberg / Souhail Karam
Tunisia jailed a journalist for criticizing the president on social media →“A first instance court sentenced Mohamed Boughalleb, 60, to six months in prison after a civil servant sued him for a social-media post questioning government spending on travel… Some 20 Tunisian reporters are currently facing trial for charges linked to their work, [Tunisian press union SNJT] says.”
The New York Times / Jessica Testa
What is a magazine now? →“‘I believe it’s my responsibility to, like, make sure that young people still dream of being journalists,’ [Highsnobiety editor-in-chief Willa Bennett] said. ‘We just need to keep iterating and continuing to stretch what it means.'”
The City / Gwynne Hogan and Tazbia Fatima
Mother Jones / Alissa Quart