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How The New York Times incorporates editorial judgment in algorithms to curate its home page
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How The New York Times incorporates editorial judgment in algorithms to curate its home page
The Times’ algorithmic recommendations team on responding to reader feedback, newsroom concerns, and technical hurdles.
By Zhen Yang
Want to change money in Cuba? It’ll probably involve an exiled news outlet — and AI
El Toque’s informal exchange rate is used by taxi drivers, restaurateurs, and small businesses across the island. It’s also grown the news site’s traffic tenfold.
By Andrew Deck
The former host of S-Town has a new subject to investigate: Journalism
After more than a decade in the industry, Brian Reed is Question(ing) Everything about it.
By Neel Dhanesha
What’s the journalism we can make for people who don’t trust journalism?
“You just need somebody with enough charisma that they would carry people over the line. And it wouldn’t be a traditional journalist.”
By Neel Dhanesha
Journalism scholars want to make journalism better. They’re not quite sure how.
Does any of this work actually matter?
By Jacob L. Nelson, Andrea Wenzel and Letrell Crittenden
Congress fights to keep AM radio in cars
The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act is being deliberated in both houses of Congress.
By Matthew Jordan
Going back to the well: CNN.com, the most popular news site in the U.S., is putting up a paywall
It has a much better chance of success than CNN+ ever did. But it still has to convince people its work is distinctive enough to break out the credit card.
By Joshua Benton
The New York Times redesigns its app to highlight a universe beyond just news
It’s the first major redesign since the app launched in 2008.
By Neel Dhanesha
You might discover a conspiracy theory on social media — but you’re more likely to believe it if you hear it from a friend
Partisanship, conspiratorial thinking, and IRL connections make for a potent mix — on both the left and the right.
By Joshua Benton
Why does the Wichita Beacon keep losing reporters?
The Kansas City Beacon seemed to be a nonprofit news success story. So what’s going wrong in Wichita?
By Sophie Culpepper
Pivot to video 2.0, Reddit’s rise, and what comes after pageviews: Our notes from ONA 2024
In the age of “meeting the reader where they are,” mission-driven news orgs say they’re looking beyond the pageview — plus other lessons from ONA 2024.
By Nieman Lab Staff
The National Trust for Local News keeps buying local newspapers. Here’s what they’ve learned.
“What we’re trying to solve for is not necessarily a business model problem. We’re trying to solve for an ownership incentive problem.”
By Sarah Scire
How The New York Times incorporates editorial judgment in algorithms to curate its home page
The Times’ algorithmic recommendations team on responding to reader feedback, newsroom concerns, and technical hurdles.
By Zhen Yang
Want to change money in Cuba? It’ll probably involve an exiled news outlet — and AI
El Toque’s informal exchange rate is used by taxi drivers, restaurateurs, and small businesses across the island. It’s also grown the news site’s traffic tenfold.
The former host of S-Town has a new subject to investigate: Journalism
After more than a decade in the industry, Brian Reed is Question(ing) Everything about it.
What We’re Reading
The Verge / Lauren Feiner
How the DOJ wants to break up Google’s search monopoly
“To fix this, the government says it’s considering remedies that would ‘create more competition and lower the barriers to entry, which currently require rivals to enter multiple markets at scale.’ That could include addressing Google’s use of AI to protect its monopoly power in this market, it says.”
Mediaite / Oliver Darcy
Errol Morris wants to know why NBC is burying his new Trump documentary until after the election
“Word came down that the powers at be inside 30 Rock had opted to effectively sit on the film, setting the documentary’s network premiere until after the election in December, a bizarre decision that frustrated the filmmakers and has raised questions among staffers internally.”
ProPublica / Miranda Green
A Metric Media newspaper in Ohio is helping to kill a big solar power project
“Each cog in the anti-solar machine — the opposition group, the texts, the newspaper, the energy publication — was linked to the others through finances and overlapping agendas, an investigation by Floodlight, ProPublica and The Tow Center for Digital Journalism found.” (Previously.)
Press Gazette / Bron Maher
“No one wants to read AI-generated news,” says OpenAI exec making deals with media companies to make AI-generated news
“OpenAI’s head of media partnerships has said the company does not currently intend to share ad revenue from its SearchGPT product with publishers whose content it surfaces…But he added that the matter was ‘an evolving space for us right now’ and that it was in OpenAI’s interests to provide enough value to stop publishers opting out of appearing in SearchGPT results.”
The Verge / Richard Lawler
Breaking up Google — now officially a monopolist — is on the table, say DOJ lawyers
“Plaintiffs are considering behavioral and structural remedies that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play, and Android to advantage Google search and Google search-related products and features — including emerging search access points and features, such as artificial intelligence — over rivals or new entrants.”
The Guardian / Mark Sweney
The likely new owner of The Telegraph is sparking concerns in the newsroom
“…over the threat to editorial impartiality and influence, as the New York Sun owner, Dovid Efune, is poised to enter exclusive talks to buy the Daily and Sunday Telegraph. British-born Efune regularly posts hardline views about the situation in the Middle East, sparking alarm among staff as it looks increasingly likely that he will become their new proprietor, having tabled a £550m bid.”
The Verge / Jay Peters
YouTube swears it’s not hiding the skip button on ads
“YouTube is ‘reducing elements on the ads player’ so that ‘viewers can engage more deeply with the ad through a cleaner experience’…The distinction here seems to be that the skip button isn’t being removed, but it may not be presented in the same manner that it used to.”
The New York Times / Michael M. Grynbaum and Benjamin Mullin
Not everyone loved that Tony Dokoupil interview, but Shari Redstone did
“Shari Redstone, the media mogul whose Paramount empire controls CBS News, criticized the network’s leadership on Wednesday for its decision to reprimand a star morning show anchor over his handling of an on-air interview with the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates.”
Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt
Facebook traffic is down, so Reach journalists are being asked to write eight stories a day
“We need to make more of shifts where people are not going out as drivers of volume. In practice, if you’re on a general shift and you’re not on a job, it should be at least eight stories a shift.”
Politico / Adam Aton, Scott Waldman, and Andres Picon
FEMA warns conspiracies and rumors are hurting relief efforts
“It is absolutely the worst I have ever seen,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters.
Nieman Lab is a project to try to help figure out where the news is headed in the Internet age. Sign up for The Digest, our daily email with all the freshest future-of-journalism news.