Mather Report - David CLinch

Happy Friday and welcome to our curated look at the top #MediaRevenue ?stories of the week.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about how news organizations and media technology companies can find ways to use technology, including AI, responsibly. I think it is important to have guidelines that clear the way for the use of technology in ways that support journalism, but never replace it.

I also believe that there is an urgent need to develop better frameworks to track the impact of local journalism and to block bots from scraping original journalism into AI and LLM models, unless they are properly licensed to do so.

If you are aware of any smart, scalable efforts in any of these areas, let me know. We are working on some solutions and I want to make sure we are not replicating work that is already being done.

If you see articles about?#MediaRevenue ,?AI in newsrooms, or the impact of local journalism, please let me know so I can include them in this roundup.

Here is this week's curated selection of?#MediaRevenue ?news:

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"OpenAI has hired a onetime Microsoft intellectual property lawyer, Tom Rubin, to oversee products, policy and partnerships, the company confirmed. His hiring means OpenAI has an intellectual property specialist in charge of negotiating deals with news publishers to license use of their material in training large-language models that run ChatGPT."

"Despite pressure from Google and Meta, global momentum is growing for codes similar to one passed in Australia that?push the tech?platforms to?pay for the news they use."

"At more than 30 pages, the latest code is the most comprehensive to date, expanding on existing sections, such as right of reply, and elsewhere introducing new guidance, notably on?artificial intelligence?– a burgeoning subject on which almost 400 articles have been published by the Guardian and Observer this year alone."

"And while the demo currently relies on stock footage and photos, the company intends to eventually use generative AI to re-create events that have happened, but for which cameras were not present."

"...attitudes about the press are?sharply polarized?in the United States and federal aid for local news has not enjoyed equal support across the aisle. Enter the revamped?Community News and Small Business Support Act."

"The Director, Local News will be responsible for the leadership and implementation of MacArthur’s Local News portfolio, and also serve as a core partner of Press Forward. This person will work closely with the staff of Press Forward (to be housed at a fiscal sponsor) and staff at partner institutions. This person will contribute to ideas and implementation of the pooled fund and lead the aligned grantmaking strategy with other foundation partners."

"Xandr, the advanced TV advertising company Microsoft acquired?in 2021, on Thursday told advertisers that it plans to ban political ads beginning October 1, according to an email obtained by Axios."

"The increase in sales will allow The Independent to invest more in the US, where it hopes to increase its employee headcount from 50 to 65 by the end of the year."

"As of June 2023 the Telegraph had 129,116 Telegraph print subscribers, 637,717 Telegraph digital subscribers and 207,876 “other” subscribers."

"X Corp. is cutting ad prices as it tries to woo brands back to the?Elon Musk-owned platform."

"The cable company Altice USA is weighing a potential sale of Cheddar News, the news network once billed as “CNBC for millennials,” less than five years after buying the company" - See report in Dealbook ->

"(Will) Lee joins as part of a broader investment in?Adweek's?strategy to accelerate growth and expand its multiplatform offerings to fuel the marketing and advertising ecosystem."

"The digital media company?Vice?filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May, and new documents disclosed in the proceedings offer a rare glimpse into the financial maneuvering that led the privately held company to insolvency"

"The Wall Street Journal?(WSJ)?is running a limited-run newsletter based on archived content to find long-term readers and subscribers."

"The decline of American newspapers is?well-documented. The people most impacted tend to be older, low-income and less likely to have graduated high school or college than people living in well-covered communities."