Google — which planned to block third-party cookies in 2022, then 2023, then 2024, then 2025 — now says it won’t block them after all. A big win for adtech, but what about publishers?
“The relationship he has uncovered is more like the co-dependence seen in a destructive relationship, or the way we relate to addictive products such as tobacco that we know are doing us harm.”
Nonprofit newsrooms are competing for limited funding and attention spans, grappling with diminishing returns on social, and trying to address low trust in media. It’s forcing outlets large and small to adapt to survive.
“We talk to a lot of towns where there is no newspaper anymore; there’s no community center anymore; the town store shut down. And this is kind of it.”
Google — which planned to block third-party cookies in 2022, then 2023, then 2024, then 2025 — now says it won’t block them after all. A big win for adtech, but what about publishers?
“The relationship he has uncovered is more like the co-dependence seen in a destructive relationship, or the way we relate to addictive products such as tobacco that we know are doing us harm.”
A top Sinclair anchor resigned over concerns about biased and inaccurate content | “One of the primary issues that prompted Ramirez’s resignation was the requirement to include at least three stories produced by Sinclair’s Rapid Response Team (RRT) on a nightly basis…a look at the RRT’s stories over the course of the year shows that the group frequently produces pieces that have more in common with right-wing agitprop than journalism.”
Popular Information / Judd Legum
AI chatbots have a Donald Trump problem | “You might say that AI companies are outsourcing the difficult and costly task of making contentious and disputed claims to the industry [the news industry] that is qualified, or at least willing, to do it, hopefully paying enough to keep the enterprises afloat.”
Intelligencer / John Herrman
Slack introduces iPhone widgets to make your editors more inescapable | “Slack finding its way onto all of our devices has already made work feel like a nonstop thing. If you really want to bring more work into your life, adding these widgets could go even further, putting work front and center every time you open your phone.”
EU threatens to fine Meta for saying Facebook is “free” | “Didier Reynders, EU Commissioner for Justice, says customers shouldn’t be ‘lured into’ thinking they won’t see ads if they pay the subscription, or that it’s free despite the company profiting from their personal data. Companies must be transparent upfront about how they use user data, he added.”
The Verge / Wes Davis
1 million newsletter subscribers, 10 staffers — and no editors | “So we thought, well, rather than sell licenses for brands to have access to use this tool in their own way, why don’t we launch loads of our own newsletters that we own…publications that we own, where they’re all powered by this AI and we can generate our revenue by selling advertising, sponsorship and lead gen with these newsletters?”
Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt
Semafor launches Semafor Gulf to target the Middle East market | “Semafor Gulf will launch with a team of staff reporters as well as columnists covering Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, and will continue to expand through 2025.”
Condé Nast sends cease-and-desist letter to AI search engine Perplexity | “The legal demand from Condé Nast comes a month after Forbes sent a similar letter to Perplexity, accusing it of infringing Forbes’ copyright. In Condé Nast’s letter, sent on Monday, the publisher accused Perplexity of plagiarizing its content. The challenge adds to a growing tide of legal actions facing AI startups over their use of news outlets’ content for training their large-language models.”
The Information / Sahil Patel and Stephanie Palazzolo
Hunter Biden drops his lawsuit over Fox News’ “mock trial” miniseries | “But ‘The Trial of Hunter Biden,’ a six-part miniseries released on the Fox Nation streaming platform in 2022, portrayed an imagined courtroom prosecution of Biden on charges of violating bribery and foreign-agent laws that he has never faced in real life.”