Dateline Totality: How local news outlets in the eclipse’s path are covering the covering

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Monday, April 8, 2024 [Dateline Totality: How local news outlets in the eclipse’s path are covering the covering]( “Celestial events tend to draw highly engaged audiences, and this one is no exception.” By Sophie Culpepper. [The conspiracy-loving Epoch Times is thinking about opening…a journalism school?]( It would, um, “champion the same values of ‘truth and traditional’ as The Epoch Times” and, er, “nurture in the next generation of media professionals,” ahem, “the highest standards of personal integrity, fairness, and truth-seeking.” By Joshua Benton. What We’re Reading The New York Times / Cade Metz, Cecilia Kang, Sheera Frenkel, Stuart A. Thompson, and Nico Grant [How tech giants cut corners to harvest data for AI →]( “The race to lead A.I. has become a desperate hunt for the digital data needed to advance the technology. To obtain that data, tech companies including OpenAI, Google and Meta have cut corners, ignored corporate policies and debated bending the law, according to an examination by The New York Times.” Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism / Benjamin Bathke [A scoop by the nonprofit Correctiv sparked huge pro-democracy protests all over Germany. How did they pull it off? →]( “While it’s too early to judge how Correctiv’s revelations will affect German politics in the long term, they have reinvigorated pro-democracy attitudes in the country and showed how these racist attitudes extend into the highest echelons of the AfD and how some of its leaders are keen to put them into action if given the opportunity to do so.” Mashable / Matt Binder [Elon Musk’s X pushed a fake headline about Iran attacking Israel. X’s AI chatbot Grok made it up. →]( “A shocking story was promoted on the “front page” or main feed of Elon Musk’s X on Thursday: ‘Iran Strikes Tel Aviv with Heavy Missiles,’ read the headline. This would certainly be a worrying world news development…But there was one major problem: Iran did not attack Israel. The headline was fake. Even more concerning, the fake headline was apparently generated by X’s own official AI chatbot, Grok, and then promoted by X’s trending news product, Explore, on the very first day of an updated version of the feature.” Reuters / Katie Paul [Inside Big Tech’s underground race to buy AI training data →]( “Tech giants like Google, Meta, and Microsoft-backed OpenAI initially used reams of data scraped from the internet for free to train generative AI models like ChatGPT that can mimic human creativity. They have said that doing so is both legal and ethical, though they face lawsuits from a string of copyright holders over the practice. At the same time, these tech companies are also quietly paying for content locked behind paywalls and login screens, giving rise to a hidden trade in everything from chat logs to long forgotten personal photos from faded social media apps.” The Washington Post / Cristiano Lima-Strong [Lawmakers unveil sprawling plan to expand online privacy protections →]( “Key federal lawmakers Sunday unveiled a sweeping proposal that would for the first time give consumers broad rights to control how tech companies like Google, Meta and TikTok use their personal data, a major breakthrough in the decades-long fight to adopt national online privacy protections.” Digiday / Sara Guaglione [Publishers give on-site search a long-needed upgrade in the form of AI chatbots →]( “Forbes and the Financial Times have debuted their own AI chatbot search products over the past few months. Snopes will launch an AI-powered on-site search product by the end of this month, and Trusted Media Brands plans to debut a similar product for its video licensing platform later this spring. Meanwhile, The Guardian, Business Insider, and another news publisher — which asked to remain anonymous — are also looking into improving their on-site search functions with generative AI technology, though they are in the early days of testing.” Axios / Ryan Heath [Meta broadens labeling of AI content →]( “Meta admits its current labeling policies are ‘too narrow’ and that a stronger system is needed to deal with today’s wider range of AI-generated content and other manipulated content, such as a January video which appeared to show President Biden inappropriately touching his granddaughter.” CJR / Cameron Joseph [Is States Newsroom the future of state journalism? →]( “States Newsroom now has a full-time presence in all fifty states, after adding outlets in North Dakota and Utah earlier this year and establishing a partnership with Spotlight Delaware, a local nonprofit…While the news coverage strives to be balanced and nonpartisan, the sites’ commentary section leans left.” Techdirt / Mike Masnick [Jim Jordan demands to know why major ad companies aren’t advertising on Truth Social →]( “…company ad strategy is never driven by ideology. It’s always driven by what is best for the company’s bottom line. Companies would happily advertise to conspiracy theorist nutjobs, of the like Jordan likes to cultivate, if it helps their bottom line. It’s just that the companies have realized that most people are actually turned off by conspiracy theory nutjobs and get a negative impression of advertisers who cater to them.” 404 Media / Emanuel Maiberg [Google Books is now indexing AI-generated garbage →]( “Searching Google Books for the term ‘As of my last knowledge update,’ which is associated with ChatGPT-generated answers, returns dozens of books that include that phrase.” The Verge / Wes Davis [OpenAI transcribed over a million hours of YouTube videos to train GPT-4 →]( “The Times writes that Google’s legal department asked the company’s privacy team to tweak its policy language to expand what it could do with consumer data, such as its office tools like Google Docs. The new policy was reportedly intentionally released on July 1st to take advantage of the distraction of the Independence Day holiday weekend.” The Washington Post / Olivia McCormack [Does “Scoop” get Prince Andrew’s disastrous BBC interview right? →]( “In the film, Sewell’s Andrew appears chipper after the interview, giving Maitlis a tour and beaming over his performance. Then he watches himself on TV, shocked, morose and silent.” The Guardian / PA Media [“The show must go on”: Iranian journalist stabbed in London returns to work →]( “Pouria Zeraati was knifed in the leg by a group of three unknown assailants as he approached his car in Wimbledon on 29 March. The journalist, who works for London-based dissident broadcaster Iran International, has spoken publicly for the first time since the attack and described the stabbing as a ‘warning shot.’ Zeraati told ITV News: ‘The fact that they just stopped in my leg was their choice to do that.'” Kansas Reflector / Sherman Smith [Facebook just can’t stop blocking the Kansas Reflector →]( “A day after a Facebook spokesman apologized for blocking Kansas Reflector articles by mistake, the social media giant blocked all links to two other news sites that republished a Kansas Reflector column.” The Washington Post / Drew Harwell [Truth Social lost $58 million last year. Here’s who made money anyway. →]( “Trump Media, based in Sarasota, Fla., has only 36 employees and lost $58 million last year, the filings show. The online analytics firm Similarweb estimates that Truth Social’s traffic is less than 1 percent of Reddit’s, a platform that received $800 million in revenue last year. But a stock-market frenzy has supersized Trump Media’s value to about $5.5 billion — more than the market values of Macy’s, Columbia Sportswear, and Alaska Airlines, which make billions in revenue a year.” The Guardian / Nyima Jobe [New journalism school in London sets out to improve diversity →]( “The school, based in Beckenham, south London, will teach children about news reporting, video editing and illustration. ‘We don’t just teach journalism, we teach creative writing and music, and it will be a hub that champions creativity,’ said Boyd.” The Guardian / Margaret Sullivan [Trump’s poll leads are partly a failure of the press →]( “One of the things these numbers suggest is that the journalists are not getting the truth across to citizens on some key points (or if they are, that truth is being ignored).” Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt [Kamal Ahmed to leave The News Movement and launch daily news podcast at The Telegraph →]( “Ahmed is one of five co-founders who launched The News Movement, a social-first news start-up aimed at audiences aged 18 to 25, in 2020. He is the second of its most high-profile co-founders to leave in recent months after William Lewis, also its majority shareholder, left as chief executive to take on the same role at The Washington Post.” [Nieman Lab]( / [Fuego]( [Twitter]( / [Facebook]( [View email in browser]( [Unsubscribe]( You are receiving this daily newsletter because you signed up for for it at www.niemanlab.org. Nieman Journalism Lab Harvard University 1 Francis Ave.Cambridge, MA 02138 [Add us to your address book](