“This is just weird”: BuzzFeed News’ former royals reporter on Kate Middleton, Palace PR, and distrust in the media

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Thursday, March 7, 2024 [“This is just weird”: BuzzFeed News’ former royals reporter on Kate Middleton, Palace PR, and distrust in the media]( “I cannot emphasize enough how out of character it is that a royal press team went on the record in response to what is essentially gossip.” By Ellie Hall. What We’re Reading Press Watch / Dan Froomkin [21 story assignments about Trump’s authoritarian threat →]( “…Just Security recently launched a 21-point ‘American Autocracy Threat Tracker’ — an incredible resource for the public that doubles as a series of assignments that editors should be giving their reporters …the authors write that Trump, along with his advisors and associates, ‘have publicly discussed hundreds of actions to be taken during a second Trump presidency that directly threaten democracy.’” The Guardian / Oliver Milman [AI will likely increase energy use and accelerate climate misinformation, according to a new report →]( “It’s not like AI is ridding us of the internal combustion engine. People will be outraged to see how much more energy is being consumed by AI in the coming years, as well as how it will flood the zone with disinformation about climate change.” The New York Times / Steven Lee Myers [A spate of mock news sites with Russian ties are popping up in the United States →]( “While Russia has long sought ways to influence public discourse in the United States, the fake news organizations — at least five, so far — represent a technological leap in its efforts to find new platforms to dupe unsuspecting American readers.” The Daily Beast / Justin Baragona [The New York Times is being sued after firing an employee who needed brain surgery →]( “A former disability accessibility manager for The New York Times claims the newspaper threatened her with a poor performance review for continuing to sound the alarm over the company’s disability access problems before ultimately firing her shortly after she informed the Times she needed time off for brain surgery.” TechCrunch / Aisha Malik [NYT Games debuts a redesigned app to boost discovery and simplify navigation →]( “NYT Games product design director Jennifer Scheerer told TechCrunch in an interview that the company redesigned the app to convert it from a place that was initially just for crosswords into a hub for all of its games.” Defector / Diana Moskovitz [How Fortress Investment Group decimated newspapers before gutting Vice →]( “…when you look at Fortress’s essentially 14 years in the newspaper market—how they were able to own the GateHouse chain from 2005 to 2013, when they took it into bankruptcy, and then restart in 2013 and 2014 as New Media Investment Group, before finally merging with Gannett in 2019—when you look at that trajectory, to me it’s an astounding failure.” Colorado Public Radio / Ben Markus [Colorado Public Radio lays off 15 staffers in its audio production and podcast units →]( “Employees were laid off Tuesday and Wednesday, primarily in the audio and podcast production departments. The CPR newsroom, which has been the site of much of CPR’s growth since 2019, was spared any cuts.” TIME / Charlotte Alter [Forty years after they fled the Soviet Union, the Gerhskovichs’ son is a human pawn in a new Cold War →]( “When Ella [Gershkovich] worried about him writing articles critical of the Russian government or economy, her son explained that he was an ‘accredited journalist,’ his mother recalls, repeating the phrase as though it were a magic shield.” [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](