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.
December 11, 2024
“Average consumers are less obsessed with newsiness than the media industry tends to think. Evergreen content is good, whatever is interesting is good, even if it’s ‘old.’ Non-newsy newsletters are replacing the racks of undated magazines at the grocery store checkout and they’re probably making more money than you are. (See also the true crime boom: Who cares if it’s not a recent murder?)” —
“YouTube just released some new stats that show how the service is being consumed on televisions, and the numbers are enormous. Watch time on TV for sports content was up 30 percent year over year; viewers watched more than 400 million hours of podcasts on their TVs every month.” —
The Verge / David Pierce
/ Dec 11“Unfortunately, mainstream reports have a decades-long history of broadly failing to report confidently on video games, particularly as they relate to real-world violence. In the late 1990s and through the 2000s, local news and network news alike infamously responded to shootings by flooding televisions with stories of Doom training a generation to kill. These days, the moral panic is often subtler, though no less absurd, often nodding to a connection between games and violence without explicitly stating one.” —
Polygon / Chris Plante
/ Dec 11“This was, for a while, a niche form of reporting, often done by amateurs and eventually professionalized by new media organizations with young employees. It promised revelation from the dark corners of the web: While reporters were on the street getting quotes from neighbors about how the killer was ‘such a nice boy, and quiet,’ a compilation of violent or alarming posts, made in secrecy or obscurity, would tell the real story. In practice, it wasn’t always so fruitful.” —
Intelligencer / John Herrman
/ Dec 11“In fact, the ruling argued that a TikTok divest-or-ban rule outright promotes the values of the First Amendment. ‘Indeed, the First Amendment precludes a domestic government from exercising comparable control over a social media company in the United States,’ the court writes. ‘Here the Congress, as the Executive proposed, acted to end the [People’s Republic of China’s] ability to control TikTok. Understood in that way, the Act actually vindicates the values that undergird the First Amendment.'” —
The Verge / Lauren Feiner
/ Dec 11“Known as the PRESS Act, the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying Act would prevent the government from forcing journalists to reveal their sources and limit the seizure of their data without their knowledge. The bill passed the GOP-controlled House earlier this year…On Tuesday evening, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon went to the Senate floor and asked for unanimous consent to pass the bill. But GOP Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas objected, blocking the attempt.” —
CNN / Clare Foran and Brian Stelter
/ Dec 11“For all of those as upset about this as we are, please know we will continue to seek moments of hope,” the Onion said in a
post on X. “We are undeterred in our mission to make a funnier world.”
—“You can now choose favorite podcast categories, which should improve podcast recommendations in the app. The app’s Search page is now personalized, highlighting categories and curated collections that better suit your listening habits.” —ND
9to5Mac / Ryan Christoffel
/ Dec 11December 10, 2024
“The News Media Alliance, a trade association representing over 2,200 publishers, sent the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission an open letter last week urging the organizations to investigate an algorithm update issued by Google earlier this year. This update, which amended Google’s Site Reputation Abuse (SRA) policy, has upended the affiliate businesses of major news publishers across the industry.” —
AdWeek / Mark Stenberg
/ Dec 10“The proceedings revealed that Mr. Murdoch’s children had started secretly discussing the public-relations strategy for their father’s death in April 2023. Setting off these discussions was the episode of the HBO drama Succession, the commissioner wrote, ‘where the patriarch of the family dies, leaving his family and business in chaos.’ The episode prompted Elisabeth’s representative to the trust, Mark Devereux, to write a ‘Succession memo’ intended to help avoid a real-life repeat.” —AD
The New York Times / Jonathan Mahler and Jim Rutenberg
/ Dec 10
