“Neither feast nor famine”: In 2023, nonprofit news continued to grow — but the audience picture is more complicated

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Monday, June 10, 2024 [“Neither feast nor famine”: In 2023, nonprofit news continued to grow — but the audience picture is more complicated]( While the sector is still growing, that growth is slowing, by some metrics. And audience data for 2023 shows that across all outlets surveyed, average monthly web traffic fell. By Sophie Culpepper. What We’re Reading Baltimore Sun Guild [Under its new owner, The Baltimore Sun is now republishing Sinclair Broadcasting stories →]( “That article, published June 3, made repeated references to “illegal immigrants,” a term that is not used in The Sun, per industry best practices from the Associated Press, which do not condone referring to people as ‘illegal.’ This error was later corrected, but the story’s framing remains concerning.” Boston Globe / Aidan Ryan [At least nine GBH executives had salaries of over $300,000 last year. Reeling from layoffs, employees have questions. →]( “To meet its budget goals, GBH laid off 4 percent of its workforce and suspended three television programs it said had low viewership, terminating six workers on those shows. Many had salaries ranging from $50,000 to $65,000, according to interviews with current and former employees.” Mississippi Today / Adam Ganucheau [Mississippi Today: “A judge ordered us to turn over privileged documents. We’re appealing to the Mississippi Supreme Court.” →]( “With our appeal, the stakes are incredibly high: The Supreme Court could guarantee these critical rights for the first time in our state’s history, or it could establish a dangerous precedent for Mississippi journalists and the public at large by tossing aside an essential First Amendment protection.” Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt [Advertising, philanthropy, and AI: How the AP is diversifying its revenue streams →]( “‘We are a majority content licensing business still, but U.S. newspapers represent just about 10% of our total revenue,’ Kristin Heitmann, SVP and chief revenue officer at AP, told the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress in Copenhagen last week.” Politico / Jack Shafer [The growing debacle for Will Lewis and The Washington Post →]( “The maelstrom seems certain to impede Lewis’ plan to remake the money-losing Washington Post, a plan that includes bringing in two outsiders — one, a fellow Brit, has no U.S. newspaper experience — which has ruffled some on the staff. Depending on how the current crisis unwinds, Lewis’ conduct and response may undo him.” The Hollywood Reporter / Alex Weprin [Yahoo Sports’ Paris Olympics plan? A team of gold medalists as correspondents →]( “The sports platform has hired seven-time Olympic gold medalist Allyson Felix, who will provide coverage and analysis of track and field events; three-time gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings, who will cover beach volleyball; five-time gold medalist Missy Franklin and silver medalist Katie Hoff, who will provide coverage of swimming events; and gold medalist Shawn Johnson East, who will cover gymnastics events for Yahoo.” BleepingComputer / Lawrence Abrams [The New York Times’ source code has been stolen using an exposed GitHub token →]( “As first seen by VX-Underground, the internal data was leaked on Thursday by an anonymous user who posted a torrent to a 273GB archive containing the stolen data. ‘Basically all source code belonging to The New York Times Company, 270GB,’ reads the 4chan forum post.” Reuters / Steven Scheer [Israel extends Al Jazeera ban by 45 days, citing security threat →]( “In a separate ruling on a petition by Al Jazeera against the closure, Israel’s Supreme Court described the measure against the Qatari-backed broadcaster channel as ‘precedent-setting.’ It gave Israel’s government until Aug. 8 to offer arguments for ‘why it should not be determined that the Law Preventing a Foreign Broadcaster from Harming National Security’ is void.” Forbes / Sarah Emerson and Rashi Shrivastava [Buzzy AI search engine Perplexity is directly ripping off content from news outlets →]( “Multiple posts that have been ‘curated’ by the Perplexity team on its platform are strikingly similar to original stories from multiple publications, including Forbes, CNBC and Bloomberg. The posts, which have already gathered tens of thousands of views, do not mention the publications by name in the article text — the only attributions are small, easy-to-miss logos that link out to them.” The Counteroffensive / Myroslava Tanska-Vikulova and Tim Mak [The journalist death toll in Ukraine hits 81 →]( “Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, 81 media workers have been killed. 10 while carrying out journalistic activities, while 71 journalists died as a result of Russian shelling.” Reporters Without Borders [R.I.P. Christophe Deloire, director general of Reporters Without Borders, dead at 53 →]( “Christophe Deloire had held the post since 2012 and for 12 years transformed the association, marked by renewed growth and impact, into a global champion for the defence of journalism…Deloire was a tireless defender, on every continent, of the freedom, independence and pluralism of journalism, in a context of information chaos. Journalism was his life’s struggle, which he fought with unshakeable conviction.” The Guardian / Dharna Noor [Publishers are mostly quiet after the UN secretary general called for ban on ads for oil and gas →]( “‘Stop taking fossil-fuel advertising,’ António Guterres implored in a major speech on Wednesday after railing against energy companies for ‘distorting the truth, deceiving the public, and sowing doubt’ about the climate crisis. ‘Many in the fossil-fuel industry have shamelessly greenwashed, even as they have sought to delay climate action with lobbying, legal threats, and massive ad campaigns,’ Guterres said.” Press Gazette / Bron Maher [The Guardian’s CEO is ready to make a deal with AI companies “on the right terms” →]( “I’m sure we’d all love to say: ‘We’re going to reduce our cost to our businesses by not paying for the things that are fundamental to the way that we run our businesses.’ We’d love not to have to pay for web hosting, we’d love not to have to pay for print or paper. But that’s not the way that markets work.” NOTUS / Evan McMorris-Santoro and Alex Roarty [It’s 2024. Elon Musk rules Twitter. But the political world is still addicted. →]( “The argument is over; the hellsite is back. It’s a win for Musk, but one that people absolutely do not want to hand to him. In interviews, users said Twitter is not what it was, but also it’s not as bad as it was in the most chaotic days after it became Musk’s to do with as he pleases. People do not like to be on it, but they also once again have to be.” Semafor / Prashant Rao [Edward Wong on journalism in Beijing and the Beltway →]( “In China, I really didn’t have to place a lot of value on any linkages to the government. We had sources who were two or three steps removed — for example, businesspeople, think tank researchers, people who would meet with government officials and then tell you what they were hearing. So you were hearing things several steps removed. Here, source cultivation is everything, in D.C.” NBC News / Erik Ortiz [Some right-wing outlets are paying a price after spreading 2020 election misinformation →]( “The Gateway Pundit, an influential far-right news site, filed for bankruptcy in April in the wake of defamation lawsuits…voting machine company Smartmatic reached a confidential settlement in its defamation suit against One America News Network…while its pending defamation litigation based on similar vote-rigging allegations continues against Newsmax as well as Fox News, which is being sued for $2.7 billion.” Canadian Press / Mickey Djuric [Google signs deal with organization to distribute $100 million to Canadian news publishers →]( “The Canadian Journalism Collective will be responsible for ensuring eligible news organizations get their share of the money. The collective is a federally incorporated non-profit organization that was created for this purpose and was founded in May by a group of independent publishers and broadcasters.” The Guardian / Edward Helmore [Alex Jones to liquidate assets to help meet Sandy Hook judgment →]( “Under a liquidation, the families, who have not yet received any of the payment owed by Jones, are less likely to see any money. But Jones would be forced to sell most of what he owns, including his company and its assets, though he could keep his home and other personal belongings, according to the Associated Press.” [Nieman Lab]( / [Fuego]( [Twitter]( / [Facebook]( [View email in browser]( [Unsubscribe]( You are receiving this daily newsletter because you signed up for for it at www.niemanlab.org. Nieman Journalism Lab Harvard University 1 Francis Ave.Cambridge, MA 02138 [Add us to your address book](