Medill’s 2024 State of Local News report expands what it qualifies as local news — and asks readers to point out what it missed

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Wednesday, October 23, 2024 [Medill’s 2024 State of Local News report expands what it qualifies as local news — and asks readers to point out what it missed]( This year’s report documents “network local news sites” like Patch and Axios Local for the first time. By Sophie Culpepper. [Why millions of Americans avoid the news — and what it means for the election]( “We are seeing a huge divide between people who are interested in news and those who are not, and I suspect that this divide is intensifying.” By Eduardo Suárez. What We’re Reading Bloomberg / Bill Keller [How the media can escape its doom loop of distrust →]( “Trust in the media did not evaporate; it fractured.” The Atlantic / Kate Lindsay [The chronically online have stolen Halloween →]( “Unlike traditional culture, which follows, say, the steady release of movies and TV shows, internet culture spirals in on itself. When we say meme in 2024, we’re not talking about a straightforward text graphic or even a person from a viral YouTube video. To understand a meme now, you must know the layers of context that came before it and the mechanisms of the platform it sprang from, the details of which not everyone is familiar with.” Wired / Lily Hay Newman [Microsoft warns foreign disinformation is hitting the U.S. election from all directions →]( “Microsoft says that Iran has been able to keep up its operations targeting the U.S. election, particularly targeting the Trump campaign and attempting to foment anti-Israel sentiment. Russian actors, meanwhile, have been focused on targeting the Harris campaign with character attacks and AI-generated content, including deepfakes. And China has shifted its focus in recent weeks, researchers say, to target down-ballot Republican candidates as well as sitting members of Congress who promote policies adversarial to China or in conflict with its interests.” The Verge / Jess Weatherbed [Apple is “concerned” about AI turning real photos into “fantasy” →]( Apple software chief Craig Federighi “said that Apple is ‘concerned’ about AI’s impact on how ‘people view photographic content as something they can rely on as indicative of reality.'” The Washington Post / Laura Wagner [What happens if the NYT’s tech staff strikes on election night? →]( “I’ve been at the New York Times for 12½ years. I’ve been on call for all the presidential elections during that time, and the midterms — things go wrong all night. If engineers with critical knowledge of those systems aren’t there … that could really go through the whole business.” The New York Times / Sapna Maheshwari and Madison Malone Kircher [The 2024 election has taken over TikTok. Here’s what it looks like. →]( “Established news outlets have largely been behind the curve on TikTok, where viewers often prefer colloquial videos from individual commentators over traditional news anchors speaking from behind a desk. But several outlets, including The Daily Mail, CNN and NBC News, have made strides this cycle by posting debate snippets, interview clips and their own analyses.” The New Yorker / Kyle Chayka [The crypto betting platform predicting a Trump win →]( “For those whose job it is to study the election, the question is whether the enthusiasm of a relatively small number of crypto-savvy bettors—Polymarket has roughly a hundred and fifty thousand active accounts as of October—is actually in any way indicative of reality, or whether the bets might constitute a form of manipulation, astroturfing momentum for Trump.” The Economist [The Rest Is Politics, U.K.’s most popular podcast, is “the most sensible show on earth” →]( “[The Rest is Politics’] format is hardly revolutionary. In hour-long shows the pair talk about the state of their respective parties, the war in the Middle East, elections in Japan and much else besides. But its success reveals two things about British politics.” NPR / David Folkenflik [Jailed reporters, silenced networks: What Trump says he’d do to the media if elected →]( “Trump’s declarations arrive at a time of increasing concern about [his more autocratic impulses](. And press advocates say he is intentionally fueling a climate hostile to independent reporting.” [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](