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How Australia’s media emperors — one of them named Murdoch — used journalism to cement their empires
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How Australia’s media emperors — one of them named Murdoch — used journalism to cement their empires
A new book details how a network of interlocking business arrangements allowed a few men to consolidate control of a huge share of Australia’s media — power that extends to today.
By Denis Muller
People don’t want robots picking their headlines (but they don’t really want editors doing it either)
“People do not usually have contrasting views of human and algorithmic selection. If they are skeptical of one, they’re likely to be skeptical of the other.”
By Richard Fletcher and Nic Newman
“And that’s not all”: Georgetown’s Americas Institute relaunches The Washington Post’s Spanish-language news podcast
“One of our objectives is to make Georgetown more visible in Latin America…the podcast is a perfect fit to achieve that mission.”
By Hanaa' Tameez
Why news subscriptions feel like a burden to young people
Plus: Journalists’ perception of their own news orgs’ bias, what “impartial” actually means to audiences, and when the public might intervene in journalist harassment.
By Mark Coddington and Seth Lewis
AI will soon be able to cover public meetings. But should it?
“Is it ready for primetime, ready to be released to the masses? Absolutely not…But can it be done? Can you design an AI system that attends a city meeting and generates a story? Yeah, I did it.”
By Sophie Culpepper
Worldwide, online news is looking a lot more like TikTok and a lot less like “shared articles”
Plus: Americans’ trust in news has increased, and other findings from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s 2023 Digital News Report.
By Laura Hazard Owen
Ben Collins: It’s time for journalists to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard
“Triumphs of the truth are not accidents. They are times the American media — including and especially those outside of the disinformation beat — did not equivocate and did not give an inch to lies and the liars who tell them.”
By Ben Collins
How one YouTuber is filling an information void for a Vietnamese immigrant community — with Newsmax and Breitbart
“This community has a problem that many immigrant communities have: It needs reliable information about the community in its language.”
By Lam Thuy Vo, The Markup
The Star Tribune is offering high school grads across Minnesota free one-year digital subscriptions
The Tribune set 200 graduating seniors as an “original modest benchmark” for sign-ups and has already surpassed 250.
By Sophie Culpepper
“The news feeds do not sag”: A look at Ukraine’s local news landscape, more than a year into the war
Most of the publishers surveyed now view “external migrants” — Ukrainians who’ve left the country — as their target audience.
By Laura Hazard Owen
Uncovering Karachi: How journalists use maps and data to investigate problems in a modern metropolis
“The absence of data, either it paralyzes you or you become more curious.”
By Amel Ghani and Ayaz Khan
How a titan of 20th-century journalism transformed the AP — and the news
“If one man fails to file a story of a millionairess marrying a poor factory hand because that man understands such a story is not properly A.P. stuff, such an error of news judgment ought to be generally made known to other employees.”
By Gene Allen
How Australia’s media emperors — one of them named Murdoch — used journalism to cement their empires
A new book details how a network of interlocking business arrangements allowed a few men to consolidate control of a huge share of Australia’s media — power that extends to today.
By Denis Muller
People don’t want robots picking their headlines (but they don’t really want editors doing it either)
“People do not usually have contrasting views of human and algorithmic selection. If they are skeptical of one, they’re likely to be skeptical of the other.”
“And that’s not all”: Georgetown’s Americas Institute relaunches The Washington Post’s Spanish-language news podcast
“One of our objectives is to make Georgetown more visible in Latin America…the podcast is a perfect fit to achieve that mission.”
What We’re Reading
The New York Times / Lauren Hirsch and Benjamin Mullin
Fortress Investment Group to acquire Vice out of bankruptcy
“A group of buyers including Fortress Investment Group is set to take over the bankrupt Vice Media company after bidding $225 million to acquire it out of bankruptcy, according to three people familiar with the matter.”
Press Gazette / Freddy Mayhew
How “super articles” boosted online engagement and subscriptions for Politiken
“Denmark’s biggest-selling national newspaper, Politiken, has boosted engagement and page views with the creation of what it calls ‘super articles.’ These online features use all the features of its CUE content management system to create articles which incorporate images, video, graphics, animations, pictures and video. Over the last two years, Politiken’s digital storytelling group has published about 100 super articles. On average a super article records triple the amount of page impressions – about 12,000 compared to about 3,800 for all other articles published by the newsbrand.”
TechCrunch / Ingrid Lunden
Beehiiv, a newsletter platform, gets $12.5M in its inbox
“NYC-based beehiiv was launched in October 2021, and since then, on some $4 million of prior funding, it’s amassed a network of 7,500 active newsletters that collectively have 35 million unique readers and see 350 million monthly impressions…For some comparison, beehiiv’s most obvious rival, Substack, says it has 35 million ‘active’ subscribers, which includes 2 million paid subscriptions. The latter is the focus of Substack’s newsletter business model: it takes a 10% cut on those subscription revenues.”
Engadget / Jon Fingas
House and Senate bills aim to protect journalists’ data from government surveillance
“Bipartisan House and Senate groups have reintroduced legislation, the PRESS Act (Protect Reporters from Exploitive State Spying), that limits the government’s ability to compel data disclosures that might identify journalists’ sources.”
CNN / Anna Chernova, Sophie Tanno and Jo Shelley
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich loses appeal against pre-trial detention
“Our colleague Evan Gershkovich appeared in Moscow City Court today for an appeal against his ongoing pretrial detention. Although the outcome was expected, it is no less an outrage that his detention continues to be upheld,” The Wall Street Journal said in a statement Thursday.
The New York Times / Benjamin Mullin
Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers source, had uneasy relationship with the paper he famously leaked to
“In particular, Mr. Ellsberg was unhappy about being misled by Mr. [Neil] Sheehan. Mr. Ellsberg was also upset by the way an article in [The New York Times] later conveyed how he had provided the documents.”
The Verge / Amrita Khalid
Why Spotify’s podcast experiment went off the rails
“Spotify isn’t selling anything that’s unique in the world of podcasting. And that may be why Spotify’s strategy around content is shifting: while Trevor Noah’s podcast — due later this year — will be a Spotify Original, it won’t be exclusive to the platform. This will be a win for Noah’s podcast, which will gain more exposure. But it’s also a pivot for Spotify, which has kept many of its original shows in its walled garden.”
Rest of World / Caiwei Chen
China’s banned online communities have found a new home on Reddit
“Reddit’s unique appeal among exiled Chinese internet users is its community-moderated, interest-based discussion format, which allows more fringe voices to thrive. According to Deng Jinju, a 25-year-old product manager and former member of Douban’s now-defunct Goose Group, Reddit is a social media platform that is more issue-driven than influencer-driven, granting greater visibility to ordinary users.”
Second Rough Draft, Substack / Richard J. Tofel
Great newspapers and the problem of underspending billionaires
“The problems at the Washington Post under Jeff Bezos and the Los Angeles Times under Patrick Soon-Shiong seem to me to have an important common element: owners who have made significant investments, but have now apparently drawn a line short of what’s necessary for their publications to thrive with readers.”
The Journalist's Resource / Clark Merrefield
How to find facts and stories in civil court dockets: 7 tips from a whistleblower attorney
“When you’re able, attend court hearings — the judge and parties may discuss information that is redacted in transcripts.”
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.