What it means to outwrite a robot
Media statistic of the week
Local newspapers are shuttering at an even faster rate than expected, with analysts now predicting that the U.S. will have lost one-third of the newspapers it had in 2005 by 2024 .?
According to? a new report from the Medill Local News Initiative , there are roughly 6,000 newspapers left in America, down from close to 9,000 in 2005. The authors of the report estimate that 7% of all U.S. counties are at high risk of losing their last remaining local news outlet, and those are typically weekly, not daily, publications. As Sara Fischer highlights at Axios, rural and poorer areas are most in danger of turning into “news deserts.”
This past week in the media industry?
Rebuilding local news
While we’ve kicked off this week’s roundup with a fairly depressing stat about the state of local news, there are a few signs of hope. For example, a 2021 study by Project Oasis revealed that nearly 300 new digital local news organizations have launched since 2016.?
There are some other bright spots on the horizon as well. What can we learn from the successes??
“For inspiration in a tough business, Nieman Reports spoke to recently launched news outlets about the diverse pillars that are helping them make it work.”
Celeste Katz Marston links to her piece for Nieman Reports, ‘We Go Where We Think We Can Have The Most Impact’: Five lessons from successful local news startups .
Meanwhile, Ken Doctor highlights “News out of Canada -- a new $100M deal with Google -- could and should influence what the CA legislature does, and doesn't do, in 2024. Foremost : Focus on one key metric, actually increasing the number of LOCAL journalists originating LOCAL news.”
Read more from Doctor at Nieman Lab, Newsonomics: Forget the link tax. Focus on one key metric to “save local news.”
As he observes, “the link tax idea may be ending its life in politics in North America. That would be good news for all who care about rebuilding local news.”
A few more stories on the local news front over the past week:
A long decline, and the broader story
“The people who own many of our most esteemed titles are vultures with no respect for or interest in journalism,” says Scott Nover . “AI is just the latest tool for them to try.”
In The Atlantic, Austin Murphy writes about The Fall of 'Sports Illustrated,' noting that the recent controversy involving AI-generated product reviews is just the latest example of the magazine’s decline.?
Currently a reporter for The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, California, Murphy worked for Sports Illustrated from 1984 to 2017, and Richard Deitsch shares, “I was fortunate to cross paths w. @ausmurph88 at multiple Olympics – a fantastic writer. @bySLPrice was an incredible friend to me during my time at SI as well as being one of the best writers of his era. This, from Austin, is unsurprisingly dead on.”
Andrew Lawrence praises the “Nice job as ever, @ausmurph88, on the one obit we never prepped.”
For Awful Announcing, Jesse Pantuosco also wrote about The long, sad decline of Sports Illustrated .?
As Pantuosco puts it, “It’s last call at the bar and the lights are coming on for mainstream media, with writers, once considered the lifeblood of journalism, now seen as expendable…Sports Illustrated may not be the only perpetrator, but that doesn’t make it any less complicit in facilitating journalism’s steady decline.”?
Meanwhile, Will Leitch , a contributing editor at New York Magazine and the founder of the late sports website Deadspin, shares, “For @cnn, I put my old Sports Media Writer hat on to write about Sports Illustrated, Deadspin, Charissa Thompson, AI and what it means to outwrite a robot.” Check out that piece at CNN, What the Sports Illustrated AI debacle is telling us .
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“And...read this one,” Judd Spicer urges, linking to Josh Tyrangiel’s column in The Washington Post on What Sports Illustrated’s BotGate really means for journalism . Tyrangiel describes this as “My latest for @washingtonpost on the weirdly genius idea to be found in the rubble of SI's reputation.”
News and the platforms
News outlets turn to Reddit as Musk’s X descends into chaos , but Reddit is a trickier social media landscape to navigate. As Taylor Lorenz writes at The Washington Post, “how news publishers should engage on a platform with so many disparate communities is an open question. Some of the subreddits that generate the most traffic are harmful or overrun with harassment.”
On the whole, the news is fading from sight on big social media platforms — where does that leave journalism? In a piece for The Conversation, Merja Myllylahti , Co-Director of the Research Centre for Journalism, Media & Democracy at Auckland University of Technology, writes about the declining visibility of news across social media platforms and notes, “When people cannot access (or have limited access to) verified and trusted news, other things fill the void.”
Russell Brandom of Rest of World shines a light on how the war in Gaza has created a moderation crisis for Meta : “The Oversight Board got 20x its usual number of appeals in the three weeks after October 7, a sign of how heavily the Gaza conflict is testing moderation systems,” Brandom says.
Speaking of Meta, Inti Landauro of Reuters reported on Monday that a Spanish media association has filed a $598 mln lawsuit against the Facebook owner , citing unfair competition in the advertising market.?
The AMI media association, which represents 83 Spanish media outlets including Prisa, which publishes Spain’s main newspaper El Pais, alleges Meta violated EU data protection rules between 2018 and 2023.?
“The lawsuit is the latest attempt by legacy media to fight tech giants in tribunals to protect their turf,” writes Landauro. Or as Manjula Selvarajah puts it, “More on traditional media vs. social media.”
And in a whistleblower complaint, ousted propaganda scholar Joan Donovan accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta . Per Joseph Menn of The Washington Post, Donovan “has accused Harvard University of dismissing her to curry favor with Facebook and its current and former executives in violation of her right to free speech.”
“Whoa. Been wondering what happened with this. Considering involvement of Facebook and its top fixer, Elliot Schrage and Sheryl Sandberg, and a timely half billion dollar donation to Harvard by Zuckerberg, it deserves a very thorough independent investigation and answers,” Jason Kint says. “I mean the timing here…the conflict is outrageous. Same Facebook pair that NYT reported were able to eliminate the most sensitive topic (Facebook’s massive data ‘breach’ from Sandberg’s Senate testimony in 2018). Just follow their $ and influence.”
It’s that time of year again
It’s beginning to look a lot like…“best of” list time.?
Rolling Stone looks back on the year in music with The 100 Best Albums of 2023 . For The Ringer, Miles Surrey selected The Best TV Shows of 2023 , along with a few honorable mentions. Surrey offers this note: “Always remember: this is a flawless list based on personal taste, and if your favorite show was excluded, it's because I hate you.”
Sarah Larson of The New Yorker captured The Best Podcasts of 2023 and says she’s “Grateful for another year of amazing podcasts, and for the legions of talented people who make them.”
The staff of The New York Times Book Review narrowed it down to The 10 Best Books of 2023 . And for an all-encompassing view, check out the Vanity Fair team’s picks for The 25 Best Performances of 2023 .
More notable media stories
From the Muck Rack Team
Year-end checklist for digital storytellers
Have a campaign or original content that you are proud of? Mapping out your 2024 MarComms/content plan? 'Tis the season to reflect, strategize and celebrate!
Amplify your work from the past year, recognize your team, and kickstart the new year with a strong message by entering the 16th Annual Shorty Awards :
??? Local news not only informs but connects communities, reminding us of Napoléon Bonaparte's insight: "Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." In the dance between traditional media and social media, balance is key, as Aristotle would say, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." ??????? #MediaMatters #CommunityConnections
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11 个月Love the newsletter Gregory Galant. Appreciate the attention to the challenges facing local media.