11 (and counting) things journalism loses if Elon Musk destroys Twitter

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Friday, November 18, 2022 [11 (and counting) things journalism loses if Elon Musk destroys Twitter]( Goodbye to screenshotted best bits, DMs, “that tweet should be a story”… By Laura Hazard Owen. What We’re Reading New York Times [The New York Times partners with Critical Minded to recruit and train freelance cultural critics →]( Critical Minded, a fiscally sponsored project of Allied Media Projects, will fund the Times’s new program to seek out, develop and publish cultural critics from underrepresented backgrounds who have little or no experience contributing to The Times Culture section. GNI [62% of newsrooms selected for Google’s News Equity Fund are digital natives →]( Google News Initiative selected more than 450 small- and medium-sized newsrooms from 52 countries to receive part of a multi-million dollar fund. All primarily serve underrepresented communities. Fast Company / Steven Melendez [This company is trying to bring real-time content moderation to audio →]( “When [Yubo’s] AI system, created in collaboration with cloud-based content moderation company Hive, detects offensive language in the 10-second snippets of video it automatically transcribes, the material is flagged for speedy review by one of Yubo’s human moderators.” Poynter / Rick Edmonds [Gannett tells its news division that more layoffs are coming on December 1 →]( “The note did not specify a number, but communications chief Lark-Marie Anton said in an email that the target was a 6% reduction. With a headcount of 3,440, that would amount to roughly 200.” The Atlantic / Erin Somers [What will writers do without Twitter? →]( “I worry for the writers who are just beginning, especially the outsiders. How will they break in? Up in New Hampshire or some other far-flung outpost, a young writer is about to have a bad winter, and what will she do?” Variety / Elizabeth Wagmeister [“She Said,” based on the book by New York Times investigative journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, is in theaters today →]( “The film doesn’t just center on the two reporters. It’s also about the women who came forward to expose Weinstein’s abuse across decades, igniting the hashtag #MeToo, blazing a cultural and societal fire of truth-telling and knocking down systemic abuses of power in the workplace.” BuzzFeed News / Katie Notopoulos [Social media made me do it: Try (and fail at) Mastodon →]( “I’m not the first to notice that Mastodon is sort of a weird sad office birthday party with four people sitting around eating sheet cake with all the lights on compared to Twitter being like Studio 54.” Business Insider [The Associated Press is offering about 200 older staffers the option to retire and take their pensions in one lump sum →]( “The move is the latest by the AP to reduce its pension obligation, which costs the news cooperative millions of dollars a year. The AP stopped offering its pension plan in 2006; in 2011, it moved to freeze the plan to reduce costs and reduce a more than $100 million shortfall in the plan.” Washington Post / Faiz Siddiqui and Jeremy B. Merrill [A large portion of the most popular accounts “verified” via Twitter Blue are promoting crypto and pornography →]( Other overrepresented subgroups include overseas accounts from the Middle East and right-wing influencers, according to data compiled from Twitter’s public data feed. Twitter / Max Tani [Morning Brew is laying off 14% of its staff →]( CEO Austin Rief wrote that the cuts are due to “a lot of fear and uncertainty” in the economy spooking advertisers. Vulture / Sophie Vershbow [“Passion doesn’t pay the bills” →]( “The most compelling story in publishing this fall isn’t the latest literary sensation or a gossipy celebrity memoir. It’s 250 employees at the second-largest book publisher in the country going on strike to demand a fair contract.” The New York Times Company [The Athletic’s first executive editor will be Steven Ginsberg →]( Ginsberg joins the sports-focused site from The Washington Post, where he’s spent the past 28 years. Variety / Brian Steinberg [CNN anchors no longer allowed to get sloshed during New Year’s Eve coverage →]( “If [Anderson] Cooper and [Andy] Cohen veer towards tipsy, [Don] Lemon tends to lean in decisively. He has led CNN’s coverage of the holiday after 12:30 in the morning, when things tend to get more raucous. One year, Lemon got his ear pierced on live TV. In last year’s show, he went on a rant, telling viewers he was a ‘grown-a– man’ who was ‘able to share my point of view on television and it freaks people out and you know what, you can kiss my behind, I do not care. I don’t care.'” BuzzFeed News / Tom Warren [What it was like reporting on suspected Russian assassinations in the U.K. →]( “Reporting out all these cases was a gargantuan task.” Mother Jones [Mother Jones hired TikTok-er Garrison Hayes for the new position of “Creator in Residence” →]( Hayes has more than 270,000 followers on TikTok and six of his videos have garnered more than 1 million views, according to a Mother Jones press release. [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](