What jobs are we preparing students for by boosting their writing productivity with AI? After shedding 40% of its workforce, the gaming site Gamurs posted an ad last June for an editor to write 250 articles per week. That’s a new article every 10 minutes, at $4.25 per article.
As @novomancy has noted, AI is only the accomplice here. This clickbait nightmare is the logical conclusion of the ad-supported web.
#Wikileaks#Assange#PressFreedom#Media#Journalism#USA#UK: "To my mind, Julian Assange is in some ways recognizably a journalist. He’s also a publisher, an entrepreneur, an activist, a whistleblower, an information anarchist and a hacker. That’s true of many of this new breed of net warriors.
But in the work we did together when I was editor of The Guardian and he was editor of WikiLeaks we collaborated on a series of groundbreaking stories which were absolutely journalistic.
However, to many journalists Assange is not a proper “journalist,” and they can’t really see what his fate has to do with theirs. I think that’s a mistake.
This week Assange may learn his fate when judges in the UK High Court consider final representations from lawyers on both sides over the bid to extradite him to the US — where he could face a lengthy spell in a maximum security prison."
#Apple#AppleNews#Media#Journalism#News: "At the moment, Apple News is as good a partner in Big Tech as many media companies are going to find. Almost every publisher Semafor spoke to said that Apple paid well and directed eyeballs to their longer, more ambitious work. While some of the articles surfaced by the app are algorithmic and based on user behavior, the company also employs a team of journalists — led by editor-in-chief Lauren Kern, a well-regarded former New York Magazine editor — who seem to prioritize putting quality journalism front-and-center on the app. As a reader, it’s a nice product, and in many cases a better reading experience than publishers’ own homepages and apps.
But the partnership also raises some of the questions publishers avoided during the peak social media era. It incentivizes users to subscribe to Apple News+ rather than to publications directly, likely cannibalizing some potential revenue. It’s driving editorial decisions, meaning publishers are once again changing their content strategy to placate a platform. And of course the company could wake up one day and decide, like Facebook, that it no longer really wants to be in the news business, leaving news publishers stranded."
#AI#GenerativeAI#AIHype#Media#News#Journalism: "More broadly, across news media coverage of AI in general, reviewing 30 published studies, Saba Rebecca Brause and her coauthors find that, while there are of course exceptions, most research so far find not just a strong increase in the volume of reporting on AI, but also “largely positive evaluations and economic framing” of these technologies.
So, perhaps, as Timit Gebru, founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR), has written on X: “The same news orgs hype stuff up during ‘AI summers’ without even looking into their archives to see what they wrote decades ago?”
There are some really good reporters doing important work to help people understand AI—as well as plenty of sensationalist coverage focused on killer robots and wild claims about possible future existential risks.
But, more than anything, research on how news media cover AI overall suggests that Gebru is largely right – the coverage tends to be led by industry sources, and often take claims about what the technology can and can’t do, and might be able to do in the future, at face value in ways that contributes to the hype cycle."
Helicopter carrying Iran's President suffered a hard landing. Rescue crew is now trying to reach the helicopter. Devastated to hear the news, hope they find it soon.
A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on 19th May, Iranian state media reported, without elaborating. Some began urging the public to pray for Raisi and the others on board as rescue crews sped through a misty, rural forest where his helicopter was believed to be.
I am waiting for the day when Russia will stop this war against Ukraine and maintain peace. I know it's not going to happen anytime soon.
Russia has been increasingly deploying "glide bombs" in its offensive against Ukraine, with over 200 of these weapons used in a single week to target the northern town of Vovchansk during Russia's ongoing cross-border advance near Kharkiv.
We shouldn't let crimes against LGBTQ people be normalised in society. It is 21st century!!
The bodies of three unidentified transgender persons were found floating in a village tank near Gargeyapuram of Kurnool rural mandal on Sunday.
#News#Media#Journalism#DigitalMedia#SocialMedia#Participation: "Digital media are often praised for having offered new ways to participate with news. But how has participation with news changed in recent years? A pre-registered analysis of survey data from 2015 to 2022 in 46 countries (N = 577,859) shows that participation with news has declined. This decrease is observed in most countries and for most forms of participation, including liking, sharing, commenting on news on social media and talking about the news offline. The only form of participation that has increased is news sharing via private messaging apps. Overall, participation with news was higher among younger people, the university-educated, those with high interest in news and those with low trust in news. Over time, participation has declined more for those with lower trust in news, those without a bachelor’s degree and for women. Within countries, increases in political polarization were associated with lower participation."
North Korea confirms missile launch. It poses a threat to other countries because of Kim Jong Un's dictatorship.
North Korea has test-fired a tactical ballistic missile equipped with a “new autonomous navigation system”, Leader Kim Jong Un vowed to boost the country’s nuclear force.
We all know that social media is falling apart. Please sign up for free email delivery of new posts to my blog, Media Nation. Just go to the website, scroll down the right-hand side and hit "Subscribe." For you old-school types, RSS works too. #journalism#LocalNews#boston#politicshttps://dankennedy.net
Presenting scientific consensus as “fact” is harmful, because it means that it will be harder to change that “fact” when more data is available.
Scientists are humans, but what makes their consensus trustworthy is their commitment to a process of forming testable hypotheses, gathering data, getting rid of confounding noise, and publishing their results. Thence, a model of reality is constructed, and a consensus—a belief—is agreed upon.
But NEW DATA MUST RESULT IN REVISED MODELS. That is good, and that defines progress.
Labeling consensus as “fact” undermines the idea that MODELS WILL CHANGE as more data come in. A “fact” is an immutable truth, and a reporting a change in scientific “facts” over time will undermine trust in scientists much more than the phrase “scientists believe”.
The problem with the phrase “scientists believe” is not the “believe” part. It’s the “scientists” part, which has lost public credibility.
"Most of the belongings, such as clothing, makeup and blankets, could be replaced in time. But she panicked when she realized that her dentures, acquired after months of dental appointments, were also gone."
#MSNBC is giving John Kasich a platform to say that Democrats are telling him that Joe Biden may not be the Democratic nominee on live TV, using something akin to "I'm not saying it is true, but many people are saying..."
If North American democracies manage to survive the upcoming election cycles, we must remove the ability for private and corporate interests to overtly or covertly influence & manipulate our information spaces.
There’s a new playbook being written right now when it comes to the future of social media. The early-mover advantage is still in effect, and there’s a lot to figure out. Gone are opaque algorithms and the whims of any single company.
The fediverse represents a chance for quality journalism to shine again.
We talked to two leaders at fedi-forward publications — @TheConversationUS's @BostonAbrams, and @404mediaco's @jasonkoebler — about why they’re investing in the open social web, what they’ve learned so far, and their advice for other publishers just getting started.
We'd love to get the #NewstodonFriday hashtag going again. This, as far as we can remember, was started by @gbhnews, and is an initiative to feature work from newsrooms that have an active presence in the #fediverse
If you're a news organization, share your handle and your favorite story of the week in the comments to this! And if there's a publication in the fediverse that you love, let us know about that in the comments too.
The Economic Damage due to climate change is much worse than thought!!!
The economic damage wrought by climate change is six times worse than previously thought, with global heating set to shrink wealth at a rate consistent with the level of financial losses of a continuing permanent war.