We keep an eye out for the most interesting stories about Labby subjects: digital media, startups, the web, journalism, strategy, and more. Here’s some of what we’ve seen lately.
April 26, 2024
“From this perspective, railing against social media for manipulating our zombie minds is like cursing the wind for blowing down a house we’ve allowed to go to rack and ruin. It distracts us from our collective failures, from the conditions that degrade confidence and leave much of the citizenry feeling disempowered.” —
The New Yorker / Manvir Singh
/ Apr 26April 25, 2024
“Among the surprising number of critical issues that will only be decided once the regulations are issued (and perhaps survive court challenges) are the following: whether digital news organizations will be included within what the law refers to as ‘newspapers’; whether the subsidy is limited to news employees, or extends to business staff; whether eligible employees must be engaged in local news as opposed to, for instance, national or international news; and whether opinion journalism is included along with news reporting. The law itself makes no distinction between for-profits and non-profits.” —
Substack / Richard J. Tofel
/ Apr 25“In a crowded marketplace for interview shows, The Interview is hoping to stand out not just in the quality of its bookings, or in the brand identity of the Times, but with an interesting twist on the format as well. Every subject will be interviewed twice: Once for an initial conversation, likely in studio, and a second interview days later, over a phone call or a Zoom.” —AD
The Hollywood Reporter / Alex Weprin
/ Apr 25“WhatsApp has more than 400 million users in India, making it the largest market for the platform…The messaging platform argued that the rules undermines encryption of content as well as the privacy of the users. It also violates fundamental rights of the users guaranteed under Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution of India.” —
“Critics like Uri Berliner would have us believe that public radio is suffering because of liberal bias, but that’s based on the dubious premise that there is some large bloc of conservative listeners who’ve stopped listening, or that underwriters suddenly were offended by what they heard. There is no evidence for either proposition. Rather, this is a business problem, and it’s not at all clear what the solution is going to be.” —
Media Nation / Dan Kennedy
/ Apr 25“In a three-to-two vote along party lines, the five-member commission appointed by President Biden revived the rules that declare broadband a utility-like service regulated like phones and water. The rules also give the F.C.C. the ability to demand broadband providers report and respond to outages.” —
The New York Times / Cecilia Kang
/ Apr 25“He predicted that retailers — aiming to mimic the “flywheel” created by Amazon’s mutually beneficial media, ads and commerce businesses — would begin pairing up with relevant publishers to accelerate the growth of their retail media businesses … Think grocery chains pairing up with recipe publishers, pharmacies with health publishers or beauty retailers and fashion sites.” —AD
Adweek / Kathryn Lundstrom
/ Apr 25“Although the president’s communications teams bristle at coverage from dozens of outlets, the frustration, and obsession, with the Times is unique, reflecting the resentment of a president with a working-class sense of himself and his team toward a news organization catering to an elite audience — and a deep desire for its affirmation of their work. On the other side, the newspaper carries its own singular obsession with the president, aggrieved over his refusal to give the paper a sit-down interview that Publisher AG Sulzberger and other top editors believe to be its birthright.” —
Politico / Eli Stokols
/ Apr 25“What I like about all of them is that they’re staying smaller, longer. They’re much more focused on revenue. All of them are very focused on a very specific audience and produce high-quality content and figure out more ways to make money off of it … I think anything that is kind of niche works.” —LO
“One scenario under discussion involves ByteDance selling more than 50% of TikTok U.S. but retaining a minority stake. ByteDance could retain 20%, the limit that the law puts on Chinese ownership…The sale options being discussed wouldn’t include the algorithm that powers TikTok, but it would include the TikTok brand. China would probably block the sale of the algorithm anyway. In 2020, when ByteDance last considered selling TikTok, China changed its export control rules to include technology such as the algorithm.” —AD
The Information / Erin Woo, Qianer Liu and Juro Osawa
/ Apr 25
