[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest]
Tuesday, April 30, 2024 [The New York City Tenement Museum used historic Black newspapers to create its latest exhibit]( “Archiving materials still matters even in our digital age, primarily if the stories you explore provide a counter-narrative to the dominant society.” By Hanaa' Tameez. [Why are politicians so negative? (Hint: It’s a media problem)]( Plus: Surprising attitudes about gender and credibility on the beat, how Trump drives outsized mainstream media attention to alternative media, and “sifting” as the key mode of next-gen news consumers. By Mark Coddington and Seth Lewis.
What We’re Reading DallasNews Corporation
[The Dallas Morning News adds public editor to “reinforce reader trust” →](
Stephen Buckley, a Duke University journalism professor, “will work outside the newsroomâs organizational structure” and report directly to Grant Moise, The Newsâ publisher and chief executive officer of its parent company. âThe News is no longer content to play defense with the issue of reader trust and assurance,â Moise said. European Commission
[EU opens case against Meta over deceptive ads, ineffective flagging, and CrowdTangle concerns →](
“Meta is in the process of [deprecating CrowdTangle]( a public insights tool that enables real-time election-monitoring by researchers, journalists and civil society, including through live visual dashboards, without an adequate replacement.” Digiday / Sara Guaglione
[The Athletic is raising ad prices as it paces to hit 3 million newsletter subscribers →](
“The Athletic, which was acquired by The New York Times in 2022, will raise ad prices again this year as a result of the increase in newsletter subscribers. A NYT spokesperson later said that the Times is considering another price increase this year. This will be the second time prices will rise since The Athletic first started selling ads in 2022. She declined to share by how much or when the company was planning to set new prices.” The Guardian / Joan Donovan
[Police brutality, and the technology to broadcast it, will ignite a student anti-war movement in America →](
“For todayâs anti-war protesters, they have all the infrastructure they need to broadcast a narrative about their beliefs directly to a global village…While the Occupy movement and advances in technology inspired new journalists to publish lots of raw and unfiltered content in 2011, generation Z was born in it and are more digitally savvy than any group before.” +972 Magazine / Anat Saragusti
[Israeli media’s inevitable hysteria over U.S. campus protests →](
“These two trends â the Israeli mediaâs 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 â 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.” Axios / Sara Fischer
[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate Nicole Shanahan is trying to court Gen Z voters with a new podcast →](
“Shanahan’s new podcast, out Wednesday, will see the vice presidential hopeful interviewing innovators and economic policy experts about various issues impacting the American experience.” 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] didnât 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 canât 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 â 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 â 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
[“My hands went cold”: Rio’s reporters risk death to reveal criminal ties between police, politicians and mafia →](
“[Rafael Soares] and his fellow writers encountered a fearsome company of characters as they descended into subterranean Rio, poring over police investigations and newspaper archives and talking to police and underworld sources.” 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 â itâs going to be a garbage pit for a while. Itâs going to be ugly, and thereâs going to be mass amounts of just slush and sludge and slime.” TheWrap / Natalie Korach
[TheGrio, Byron Allenâs media outlet for Black Americans, lays off video and podcast teams →](
“The outlet prides itself on being the largest Black newsroom in the country, reporting on the latest news in politics, entertainment and lifestyle content. Alongside a website, TheGrio features live events, a cable network and a podcast network.” TechCrunch / Ingrid Lunden
[Beehiiv raises $32M to make its newsletter publishing platform more sticky →](
“The company is sending out 1 billion emails per month from around 20,000 active newsletters…Newsletter users include both individual writers as well as bigger organizations like Boston Globe Media and Brex.” [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
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