The Baltimore Sun explores the question of whether there can be a worse newspaper owner than Alden Global Capital

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Tuesday, January 16, 2024 [The Baltimore Sun explores the question of whether there can be a worse newspaper owner than Alden Global Capital]( Its new owner, Sinclair executive chairman David D. Smith, has pushed local TV news hard to the right. Will he do the same with newspapers — a medium he’s called “so left wing as to be meaningless dribble…so devoid of reality and serving no real purpose”? By Joshua Benton. [Fact-checking journalism is evolving, not stagnating]( “Misinformation is not like plumbing, a problem you fix. It is a social condition, like crime, that you must constantly monitor and adjust to.” By Peter Cunliffe-Jones and Lucas Graves. What We’re Reading The Verge / Justine Calma [A new kind of climate denial has taken over on YouTube →]( “The most common lies about climate change now have to do with denying the benefits of clean energy, attacking policies meant to slash planet-heating pollution from fossil fuels, and maligning scientists and advocates that push for change.” TechCrunch / Amanda Silberling [The creator economy is ready for a workers’ movement →]( “Creators deal with the same stresses of any self-employed business owner, but at the same time, they’re wholly dependent on the whims of massive social platforms, which don’t pay them enough, or at all, for creating enormous value. And when it comes to brand deals and partnerships, there’s no standard to make sure creators are being compensated fairly.” Laboratorio de Periodismo Luca de Tena [WePod launches “Sounds like Europe”, a cross-border podcast about Europe’s audio industry →]( In Spanish: “The podcast seeks to give voice to the various aspects and challenges of the podcast industry in Europe. Throughout 2024 and 2025, WePod will launch 24 collaborative podcasts focused on the political, social and economic reality of the continent…” Reuters [Thomson Reuters has acquired World Business Media, a subscription publication covering the insurance market →]( The London-based company of about 25 employees will join the Reuters News division of Thomson Reuters. Its products include The Insurer, a digital news operation for editorial and data, Insurer TV and an events business, reaching 45,000 professionals. The Verge / Alex Cranz [Here’s OpenAI’s big plan to combat election misinformation →]( “…all these tools are currently only in the process of being rolled out, and heavily dependent on users reporting bad actors. Given that AI is itself a rapidly changing tool that regularly surprises us with wonderful poetry and outright lies it’s not clear how well this will work to combat misinformation in the election season.” The Guardian / Angela Giuffrida [Italy turned on influencers in the wake of a charity Christmas cake scandal →]( “In the wake of the fiasco, Italy’s communications authority on Thursday approved stringent new rules, akin to those applied to all media outlets, to improve transparency in social media posts produced by influencers with more than 1 million followers. Advertising must be more explicitly labelled to make it recognisable to the reader, or else influencers risk fines of up to €600,000.” Columbia Journalism Review / Jon Allsop [Blowing hot and cold in Iowa →]( “The debate as to whether media decision desks’ calls for Trump came too early was, in a sense, a wonky microcosm of a broader, earlier debate: as to whether the mainstream press had prematurely written off the entire Republican primary as a nonevent, given Trump’s consistently huge lead in the polls and the other big story lines—his indictments, his threats to democracy, and so on—swirling around him.” The Wrap / Sharon Waxman and Alexei Barrionuevo [How billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong lost his star editor at the Los Angeles Times →]( “There never was a ton of trust there,” said another individual with knowledge of the relationship. “You always have to teach him (Patrick) about the stuff journalists do, ethical things, things we cover and don’t…. But Patrick wasn’t trying to learn. Unlike Jeff Bezos (billionaire owner of The Washington Post) who wanted to learn.” Study Hall / Jael Goldfine [Feminist media is mostly gone. Where do feminist writers and stories go now? →]( “It’s not like women’s media has regressed, where it’s all about how to get a man and how to not be fat. But we’re at this downslope where there’s less room for different takes and thoughts and you have to conform your ideas in order to make money.” The New York Times / Michael M. Grynbaum [News outlets declared Trump the winner as Iowans still caucused →]( “The early call rubs a lot of voters the wrong way,” said Mosheh Oinounou, the founder of Mo News and a former executive producer at CBS. “These results were widely expected. At the same time, we have been talking about things like election interference, our democracy and the media trying to earn the trust of people again.” International News Media Association / Paula Felps [How the Australian grew its audience with a true crime and trial podcast →]( “…part of the podcast’s appeal was that it integrated listener feedback and questions into the content. Throughout the trial, the series generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in sponsorship revenue and thousands of dollars in consumer-generated revenue through subscriptions.” Digiday / Julia Tabisz [Publishers are optimistic for their own companies in 2024, but not for the media industry →]( “Digiday’s survey found there is more optimism for the media industry around 2024, but, honestly, not by much. In fact, the largest share of respondents to Digiday’s survey said they’re actually just neutral about whether the industry will have a successful year.” El País / Ellaha Rasa [Journalism without women in Afghanistan: “Stopping the work of female reporters is another form of violence against us” →]( In Spanish: “A [woman] journalist has felt women’s problems in the flesh. In the last 20 years, Afghan women journalists have fought against violence and discrimination and stopping the work of reporters is another form of violence against us.” The New Yorker / Clare Malone [The deadly challenges of war coverage in Gaza →]( “From one hospital bed, an injured woman told [CNN’s Clarissa Ward], ‘The world isn’t listening to us. No one cares about us. We have been dying for over sixty days.’” Semafor / Max Tani [Apple quietly changed its reporting of how many people listen to podcasts →]( “For instance, The Daily and Dateline both publicly touted reaching over a billion total downloads. But representatives for these shows would not say if those numbers or other impressive daily or weekly download stats are still accurate, though several of the biggest podcasts acknowledged privately to Semafor that they had seen noticeable declines, and were still trying to determine the actual size of their audience following the change.” NBC Sports / Mike Florio [The Dolphins-Chiefs NFL game was the most streamed live event in U.S. history →]( “As more and more Americans cut the cable cord, more and more get their video content from streaming platforms. The NFL knows where the puck is moving, and the league is trying to skate there.” [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](