#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."
"Multiple phenomena are at work, but the two most important are these: First is the fact that members of the mainstream #media whose job it is to both inform and contextualize the nation’s politics have lost their nerve. Terrified of accusations of being “out of touch” at best and “liberally biased” at worst, they have abdicated any responsibility to render even the most fundamental judgments of what is and isn’t true when it comes to Trump." https://newrepublic.com/article/181287/can-america-possibly-elect-trump-again
#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."
CBC has whitewashed Israel’s crimes in Gaza. I saw it firsthand
Working for five years as a producer at the public broadcaster, I witnessed the double standards and discrimination in its coverage of Palestine—and experienced directly how CBC disciplines those who speak out
Slack users horrified to discover messages used for AI training
"However, it remains unclear what exactly happens when users opt out. Commenters on Hacker News slammed Slack for failing to explain whether opting out deletes data from the models or "what exactly does the customer support rep do on their end to opt you out.""
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 social network formerly known as Twitter has officially adopted X.com for all its core systems. That means typing twitter.com in your browser will now redirect to Elon Musk’s favored domain, or should. At the time of publication, we’re seeing a mix of results depending upon browser choice and whether you’re logged in or not."