For better and for worse, Apple’s about to make your readers harder to track again

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Wednesday, July 5, 2023 [For better and for worse, Apple’s about to make your readers harder to track again]( It’s a win for privacy, but also another case of a tech giant independently changing the rules for digital publishers. By Joshua Benton. [The New York Times worried that publishing the Pentagon Papers would destroy the newspaper — and the reputation of the U.S.]( In his journal, A.M. Rosenthal wrote that the Times was “involved in one of the biggest, most voluminous and probably one of the saddest and most damaging stories it has ever confronted journalistically.” By Kevin Lerner. What We’re Reading Los Angeles Times / Brian Merchant [“California and Canada should call Google’s and Facebook’s bluff on news” →]( “it sure can feel like journalism needs a miracle these days. But to me, all this shows that the news industry doesn’t need a miracle — it just needs decent regulation” The Verge / David Pierce [So where are we all supposed to go now? →]( “It turns out there’s no money in connecting people to each other, but there’s a fortune in putting ads between vertically scrolling videos that lots of people watch.” Bloomberg / Benoit Berthelot [Social news startup Brut gained 700,000 new TikTok subscribers after coverage of French riots went viral →]( “Brut’s subscriber growth puts it within reach of the Daily Mail, which has 5.6 million subscribers on TikTok and is the app’s most popular European media outlet.” the Guardian / Donna Ferguson [The world’s oldest national newspaper ends its print edition after 320 years →]( “Wiener Zeitung, a Vienna-based daily newspaper, will no longer print daily editions after a recent law change meant it had ceased to be profitable as a print product. The law … ended a legal requirement for companies to pay to publish public announcements in the print edition of the newspaper, terminating Wiener Zeitung’s role as an official gazette.” Poynter / Angela Fu [The Virginia Press Association is investigating the student winner of its top journalism award →]( “The Cadet at Virginia Military Institute won for a package of 15 articles covering the contentious implementation of diversity, equity and inclusion training at the school. The decision set off questions about the award process as reporting later revealed that one of the submitted articles failed to disclose a conflict of interest and included lines that were possibly plagiarized.” CBS News / Ted Koppel [How the Post and Courier raised $500,000 for investigative journalism across South Carolina →]( The Uncovered project — which Nieman Lab [wrote about in 2021]( — involved 19 community newspapers across the state, though two papers have since folded. HoldtheFrontPage / David Sharman [Fake journalist profiles were used to launch a local news site in a U.K. town →]( At least seven of the images came from the same stock photo archive, including one for “David Roberts,” described as the Bournemouth Observer’s “esteemed editor” with “a career in journalism that spans decades.” Boston Globe / Brooke Hauser [A high school newspaper’s investigation of bullying and transphobia forced a school district shake-up in Massachusetts →]( “The students’ article posted on May 9 and within hours attracted thousands of page views and media attention. Within days came a dizzying series of announcements: that an external Title IX investigation was already underway; three unnamed staffers had been placed on paid administrative leave; Amherst-Pelham Regional Public Schools Superintendent Michael Morris was taking an immediate leave for health reasons; and the education union was calling on Doreen Cunningham, the assistant superintendent for diversity, equity, and human resources, to resign. She has since been placed on administrative leave.” Poynter / Aaron Sharockman [Former Twitter safety chief on banning Donald Trump, working for Elon Musk, and “content cartels” →]( “This idea that the more social media companies collaborate, the more they start to behave like a cartel that results in a pretty homogeneous Internet. I agree that’s a problem and a risk.” the Guardian / Mark Sweney [Decline of magazines in U.K. reaches a tipping point →]( Nine of the nation’s ten top-selling magazines are now being printed by a single printer, Walstead, headquartered in London. Reuters [Prominent Russian journalist Yelena Milashina was brutally attacked in Chechnya →]( Yelena Milashina is a well-known journalist for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper. “While being beaten, they were told: ‘You have been warned. Get out of here and don’t write anything.'” Washington Post / Caroline O'Donovan [Goodreads was the future of book reviews. Then Amazon bought it. →]( “Former employees said Amazon seemed happy to mine Goodreads for its user-generated data and otherwise let it limp along with limited resources.” The Verge / Tom Warren [Instagram’s Twitter competitor Threads is already live on the web →]( The main Threads mobile app will launch on July 6th. AP News / MARK THIESSEN [How’s the weather up there? It’ll be harder for Alaska to tell as a longtime program moves to YouTube →]( “‘Alaska Weather’ has been must-see TV for 47 years in a state where extreme weather dictates everyday life. But the daily program, the only weather show produced by the National Weather Service, will have its last on-air broadcast Friday, with business considerations ending its distribution to public television stations in Juneau and Fairbanks.” FT / Leila Abboud and Adrienne Klasa [Meet Vincent Bolloré, the conservative billionaire taking on France’s mainstream media →]( “The most emblematic example of Bolloré’s rightwing media push came when Vivendi gutted the staff of 24-hour news channel i-Télé in 2016. It was rebranded as CNews, a Fox News-like outlet that has since become an incubator for rightwing personalities, including the 2022 presidential hopeful Éric Zemmour.” Washington Post / Drew Harwell [A viral left-wing Twitter account may have been fake all along →]( “You can go a long way with a reasonably consistent, one-dimensional identity online if it has certain features: smart strategies for posting content, an attractive profile picture, a degree of spice and sassiness … Our online discourse is deeply vulnerable to this kind of character.” [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](