If Google suddenly had real competition in search, how would news publishers’ world change?

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Wednesday, October 4, 2023 [If Google suddenly had real competition in search, how would news publishers’ world change?]( The tech giant’s ongoing antitrust trial raises the possibility of the federal government, Apple, or both giving Google its first meaningful search competition in decades. By Joshua Benton. [The Messenger signs a deal to “eliminate bias” and flag “clickbait” with AI]( What We’re Reading Yahoo News [The Buffalo News will now print its daily newspaper from a facility two states away →]( “Lee Enterprises, which purchased the Buffalo News in 2020, announced in February it would be printing editions at the Plain Dealer’s facility in Cleveland and trucking the papers in for local delivery. The last locally printed edition came off the press Saturday night, according to the guild.” Hamilton Nolan [The one media conspiracy theory that’s true →]( “If you were to make one single rule to follow when it comes to hiring journalists at a news organization it would be ‘Try to avoid hiring the direct family members of prominent politicians, for your political news outlet.’ And yet. And yet!” Washington Post [The Washington Post’s Book World expands staff one year after reviving standalone print section →]( The section, reintroduced in 2022, had last appeared in print in 2009. A new group of contributing writers includes critics like Sam Adler-Bell, Jane Hu, Margo Jefferson, and Sam Tanenhaus. New York Times / Nicholas Casey [Telling the truth about Mexico, and dying for it →]( “[Journalist Armando Linares López] was at home when his phone buzzed, this time with a much more direct message on WhatsApp. ‘You were told to stop trashing the government,’ the text said. ‘I’m trying to be your friend, but if I can’t, you’re going to have problems with us.'” the Guardian / Samanth Subramanian [Journalist Michael Lewis got a backstage pass for the fall of Sam Bankman-Fried. But did he get too close? →]( “I wondered if he’d spent so much time within the technocratic echelon of American life that when Bankman-Fried embodied some of its worst traits — when he thought of people as ‘probability distributions’ or ran his companies with deliberate opacity, or chased an obscene level of wealth — Lewis could only see him as an especially quirky character, rather than a product of terrible dysfunction.” NBC News / Kalhan Rosenblatt [YouTube star MrBeast is calling on social media platforms to address AI deepfakes →]( A scam on TikTok featured a deepfake of MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, offering $2 iPhones. the Guardian / Dalya Alberge [The new newspaper that “will never be available online” →]( County Highway will publish every two months. “The first issue launched in the summer with no advertising, but through word of mouth its 25,000 copies sold out.” The Verge / Jess Weatherbed [Canva’s new AI tools promise to automate boring, labor-intensive design tasks →]( “Magic Switch allows users to instantly transform an existing design into another format, such as converting a blog into an email or social media post, without needing to manually change the layout or update the copy text.” [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](