Is journalism’s trust problem about money, not politics?

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Wednesday, June 26, 2024 [Is journalism’s trust problem about money, not politics?]( The people we spoke with tended to assume that news organizations made money primarily through advertising instead of also from subscribers. By Jacob L. Nelson. [The espionage trial of Evan Gershkovich signals a dangerous new era for journalism in Russia]( You have to go back to the 1980s and the last, confrontational phase of the Cold War to find a case of a Moscow correspondent being locked up on spying charges. By James Rodgers and Dina Fainberg. [Cityside launches Richmondside, its third local news site in California]( What We’re Reading Vanity Fair / Tom Kludt [“It was astonishing”: How NBC convinced Al Michaels to embrace his AI voice for Olympics coverage →]( “Michaels was ‘very skeptical’ of the proposal—until he heard the AI for himself. ‘Frankly, it was astonishing. It was amazing,’ he told me in a phone interview last weekend. ‘And it was a little bit frightening.’ Michaels was left in awe of the nuance—the way it captured his intonations and verbal subtleties. ‘It was not only close, it was almost 2% off perfect,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking, Whoa.'” Semafor / Max Tani [A number of top reporters are leaving Politico →]( “Many of the stars [Politico] cultivated have moved on to other news organizations competing directly against the publication for eyeballs and event dollars. And while it has been less than a year since the new leadership team took the reins, the new regime’s tough-love approach in the newsroom has alienated well-known employees who have left for competitors, effectively working against its plan.” The Verge / Lauren Feiner [New SCOTUS decision allows Biden administration to keep talking to platforms about misinformation →]( “During oral arguments this year, several justices [seemed uneasy]( with the idea of placing sweeping restrictions on the government from interacting with social media platforms. The decision clears the way for the Biden administration to continue communications with social media companies to flag potentially dangerous content, at a pivotal point before the election when platforms are on extra high alert for misinformation.” The Wall Street Journal / Ann M. Simmons [Falsely accused Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in court for start of secret Russian trial →]( “Russian investigators haven’t publicly presented evidence to back up their allegation against Gershkovich. And Russia’s legal system offers few, if any, of the legal protections accorded in the U.S. and other Western countries. Acquittals in espionage cases are exceedingly rare.” X / Brendan Buck [The Washington Post shutters its Capital Weather Gang newsletter →]( Weather forecasts will be folded into a new weekday newsletter, “Post Local.” We wrote about the beloved [Capital Weather Gang]( here. Local News Matters [Mendocino Voice partners with Bay City News Foundation →]( “The merger allows The Voice to add more regional coverage from nearby areas while also gaining back-office support from BCNF and additional staffing from the 24/7 news operation of the affiliated Bay City News wire, which has been serving many dozens of TV, radio, print and digital outlets since 1979. In particular, The Voice will have capacity for deeper coverage of environmental issues relevant to its readers, plus more resources for bringing news, photography, data journalism and round-the-clock editors to the mix.” (Dan Kennedy [notes]( that Voice publisher and co-founder Kate Maxwell and former editor Adrian Fernandez Baumann “were planning to convert the project they had founded in 2016 to a cooperative form of ownership” but “COVID-19 wreaked havoc with their plans.”) The New Yorker / Katy Waldman [The duelling incomprehensibility of Biden and Trump in the 2020 presidential debates →]( “One of the many asymmetries of the Presidential race is that incoherence helps Trump and hurts Biden.” Press Forward [Press Forward releases interim report on “our work to date” →]( Director Dale Anglin writes that “By the end of our first year, with anticipated additional aligned funds being awarded, we project that we will invest more than $100 million in local news efforts across the country. The bulk, $60 million-plus, is moving through Aligned Grantmaking, while the Pooled Fund will invest $20 million before the end of 2024 and our Locals are just getting started.” Columbia Journalism Review / Maddy Crowell [Meidas gold: A Q&A with Brett Meiselas of MeidasTouch →]( “As we often joke on the show in various ways, if President Biden and Democrats started talking about ‘terminating’ the Constitution, praising January 6 insurrectionists as ‘warriors’ and ‘patriots,’ and told stories about either being electrocuted or eaten by sharks, we’d have no hesitation in calling that out with the same passion that we do Trump. But that’s not the political and cultural landscape in which we find ourselves.” The Wrap / Sharon Knolle [MTV News writers lament site shutdown: “Infuriating,” “beyond depressing” →]( “’Infuriating is too small a word,’ former MTV News Music Editor Patrick Hosken said on X. He lamented, ‘Eight years of my life are gone without a trace. All because it didn’t fit some executives’ bottom line.'” Local News Blues / Alice Dreger [Press Forward acknowledges changing open call deadline from Pacific to Eastern time →]( “Yesterday, Press Forward’s PR rep got in touch with us to respond to [Sunday’s post]( which we had held for a week awaiting a comment from Press Forward. In her response, Marika Lynch of MLC Social Impact Communications acknowledged that Press Forward changed the open-call grant deadline from Pacific to Eastern time, a move that left some publishers in the lurch. Lynch attributed the problem to ‘a technical issue on the application platform.'” (See also Local News Blues’ post from Saturday: “[PSA: The Medill map people are taking corrections]( The Verge / Jordan Pearson [What the RIAA lawsuits mean for AI and copyright →]( “Neither Suno nor Udio have made their training datasets public. And both firms are vague about the sources of their training data — though that’s par for the course in the AI industry. (OpenAI, for example, has [dodged questions]( about whether YouTube videos were used to train its Sora video model.)” Axios / Sara Fischer [CNN CEO teases subscription product by year’s end →]( “Of the roughly 170 million digital CNN monthly users, there are around 17 million–20 million who are ‘really engaged,’ [said CEO Mark Thompson]. The company is exploring whether there’s a direct-to-consumer opportunity for them, he added. ‘This is going to be about getting even better at engagement and time spent and frequency.'” The Atlantic / Matteo Wong [OpenAI may not be able to keep its promise to media companies →]( “A good chatbot and a good web index, in other words, could be fundamentally at odds—media companies might be asking OpenAI to build a product that sacrifices ‘intelligence’ for fidelity. ‘What we want to do with the generation goes against that attribution-and-provenance part, so you have to make a choice,’ Chirag Shah, an AI and internet-search expert at the University of Washington, told me.” (See also: Andrew Deck’s [previous reporting]( on ChatGPT failing to credit Business Insider’s biggest scoops, even after parent company Axel Springer signed a licensing deal with OpenAI.) Los Angeles Times / Laurel Rosenhall [Will Google strike a deal with California news outlets to fund journalism? →]( “California news publishers and Big Tech companies appear to be inching toward [compromise on a controversial bill]( that would require Google and huge social media platforms to pay news outlets for the articles they distribute. After [stalling]( last year, [Assembly Bill 886]( cleared a critical hurdle Tuesday when it passed the state Senate Judiciary Committee.” (Nieman Lab has previously covered the legislation [here]( and [here]( The Journalist's Resource / Naseem S. Miller [Research highlights need for public health approach in news reporting of gun violence →]( “In [‘Public health framing of firearm violence on local television news in Philadelphia, PA, USA: a quantitative content analysis’]( published in BMC Public Health in May 2024, researchers analyzed 192 TV news clips aired on four local news stations between January and June 2021 and found that 84% contained at least one element that could be harmful to communities, audiences and gun violence survivors.” Rolling Stone [Rolling Stone has a new album rating system. (It’s the old rating system.) →]( “Turns out, the Hear This/Instant Classic gambit was an instant-classic example of an experiment that didn’t really work. Having only two ratings turned out to be way too limiting. A clear, well-defined system that lets readers know what we think about a record — from the greatest masterpiece to the duddiest dud — worked perfectly well.” [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](