Media Nation

By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

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Newsletters move to the fore as tech platforms spurn community journalism

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On July 23, 2024

In Local News

1923 photo via the Library of Congress

If we’ve learned anything about news publishing in recent years, it’s that the giant tech platforms are not our friends. Google is embracing artificial intelligence, which means that searching for something will soon provide you with robot-generated answers (right or wrong!), thus reducing the need to click through. Facebook is moving away from news. Twitter/X has deteriorated badly under the chaotic leadership of Elon Musk, although it still has enough clout that President Biden used it to announce he was ending his re-election campaign.

So what should publishers do instead? It’s no secret — they’re already doing it. They are using email newsletters to drive their audience to their journalism. A recent post by Andrew Rockway and Dylan Sanchez for LION (Local Independent Online News) Publishers reports that 95% of member publishers are offering newsletters, up from 81% in 2022. “The decline in referral traffic,” they write, “will likely lead to more direct engagement by publishers with their audiences.”

Some observers worry about newsletter overload as our inboxes fill up with email we may never get around to reading. That’s potentially a problem, but I think it’s a more serious problem for larger outlets, many of which send out multiple newsletters throughout the day and risk reaching a point of diminishing returns. By contrast, users will value one daily newsletter from their hyperlocal news project with links to the latest stories.

Newsletters are crucial to the success that Ellen Clegg and I have seen both in the projects we write about in our book, “What Works in Community News,” and on our podcast, “What Works: The Future of Local News.” Essentially, we’ve seen three newsletter strategies.

  • By far the most common approach publishers use is to offer a free newsletter aimed at driving users to their website, which may be free or subscription-based. The Massachusetts-based Bedford Citizen, for instance, sends out a daily newsletter generated by its RSS feed and a weekly human-curated newsletter. The Citizen is a free nonprofit, but once they’ve enticed you with their top-of-the-funnel newsletter, they hope they can lure you into becoming a paying member. Ellen and I interviewed executive director Teri Morrow and editor Wayne Braverman on our podcast last February.
  • The Colorado Sun, a statewide nonprofit, offers a series of free and paid newsletters, while the website itself is free. The paid newsletters represent an unusual twist: Some of them feature deeper reporting than you can get from the website on topics such as politics, climate change and outdoor recreation. At $22 a month for a premium membership, users pay no more than they would for a digital subscription to a  daily newspaper. Editor Larry Ryckman talked about that in our most recent podcast.
  • In some places, the newsletter is the publication. An example of that is Burlington Buzz, a daily newsletter that covers Burlington, Massachusetts. Founder, publisher and editor Nicci Kadilak recently switched her newsletter platform from Substack to Indiegraf, and her homepage looks a lot like a standard community website — which shows that it’s a mistake to get too caught up on categories when newsletters have websites and websites have newsletters. Ellen and I talked with Nicci last year.

What’s crucial is that news publishers have direct control of the tools that they use to connect with their audience. Gone are the days when we could rely on Facebook and Twitter to reliably deliver readers to us. We have to go find them — and give them a reason to keep coming back.

Correction: Burlington Buzz has moved to Indiegraf, not Ghost.

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Reuters exposes NewsBreak’s Chinese ties and AI-based local news hallucinations

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On June 14, 2024

In Local News, Media

Image (cc) 2019 by Journolink

You would have thought that misusing artificial intelligence to make up a murder that never took place and to amplify a false story about yet another murder would have been enough to stop NewsBreak. But the media outlet, which has rushed in to fill the gap caused by the decline of legitimate local news, has continued along its hallucinatory way — until now.

Last week, Reuters published an investigative report into NewsBreak exposing the company’s Chinese ties and its use of AI to write fiction. Reporter James Pearson begins with the fake murder last Christmas Eve from Bridgeton, New Jersey, which I wrote about in January. Here’s Pearson’s lead:

Last Christmas Eve, NewsBreak, opens new tab, a free app with roots in China that is the most downloaded news app in the United States, published an alarming piece about a small town shooting. It was headlined “Christmas Day Tragedy Strikes Bridgeton, New Jersey Amid Rising Gun Violence in Small Towns.”

The problem was, no such shooting took place. The Bridgeton, New Jersey police department posted a statement on Facebook on December 27 dismissing the article — produced using AI technology — as “entirely false.”

“Nothing even similar to this story occurred on or around Christmas, or even in recent memory for the area they described,” the post said. “It seems this ‘news’ outlet’s AI writes fiction they have no problem publishing to readers.”

Pearson fails to mention that the fake story was first exposed by Eric Conklin of NJ.com. Nor does he report that, just a few weeks earlier, NewsBreak used AI to amplify yet another fake-murder story that was produced by actual humans at the Mid Hudson News in New York, a monumental error revealed by Lana Bellamy and Phillip Pantuso of the Times Union, based in Albany.

Despite the lack of credit to local news outlets, the Reuters investigation represents the deepest dive yet into NewsBreak, and could result in action. As Pearson notes, NewsBreak, despite its sleazy tactics, has content-sharing arrangements with news outlets such as The Associated Press, CNN, Fox and, well, Reuters. As far back as 2022, Norman Pearlstine, a longtime top news executive who was working as a consultant for NewsBreak, warned his client: “I cannot think of a faster way to destroy the NewsBreak brand.”

NewsBreak remains a popular destination for people looking for local news. According to SimilarWeb, it was visited nearly 57 million times between March 24 and May 24. But maybe NewsBreak’s reign of error is coming to an end. In a follow-up story, members of Congress voiced concern, with Sen. Mark Warner, chair of the Intelligence Committee, saying, “The only thing more terrifying than a company that deals in unchecked, artificially generated news, is one with deep ties to an adversarial foreign government.”

To be fair, the company says those ties were severed several years ago. Still, NewsBreak’s irresponsibly sloppy use of AI to generate fake local news needs to be called out and shamed.

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Jeff Bezos is reinventing The Washington Post — again. And this time he’s on his own.

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On June 3, 2024

In Local News

Jeff Bezos. Painting (cc) 2017 by thierry ehrmann.

Having tracked the rise of The Washington Post under owner Jeff Bezos, executive editor Marty Baron and chief technologist Shailesh Prakash in my 2018 book “The Return of the Moguls,” I’ve watched its dispiriting decline with sadness. On Sunday, that decline was underscored by Sally Buzbee’s departure as executive editor. CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy has the story.

Lest we forget, Bezos did not choose Baron and Prakash; rather, he inherited them from Graham family ownership after he bought the paper in 2013 for $250 million. And though Bezos had the good sense to keep them and give them the resources they needed, it was their vision that created a great digital, nationally focused news organization that was positioned perfectly for the rise of Trump. Maybe an early warning sign was that when Bezos did get to make a big hire, he chose Ronald Reagan apparatchik Fred Ryan as publisher. As Baron makes clear in his book “Collision of Power,” Ryan did not prove to be an inspired choice.

Since Donald Trump left office, it’s been nothing but a downhill slide for the Post, which, according to the new publisher, Will Lewis, lost $77 million last year and about half its audience since 2020. Was that entirely the fault of Buzbee, a former Associated Press executive editor who took the Post’s helm after Baron retired in early 2021? Of course not. But it all happened on her watch, so it’s not a surprise that she’s leaving.

As Poynter media reporter Tom Jones points out, it’s not 100% clear that Buzbee was fired. It’s possible that she decided she wanted nothing to do with Lewis’ recently articulated vision, which includes having “AI everywhere in our newsroom,” according to Semafor media reporter Max Tani. Ugh.

The new executive team sets off some alarm bells. Lewis is a former publisher of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal who reportedly was involved in helping Murdoch clean up his tabloids’ phone-hacking scandal in the U.K. a dozen years ago, according to David Folkenflik of NPR. Buzbee will be replaced on a temporary basis by Matt Murray, a former editor-in-chief of the Journal. After the 2024 election, Murray will slide over to a newly created position creating service and social media journalism while the main news product will be under the direction of Robert Winnett, currently deputy editor of The Telegraph Media Group, a right-wing news organization. Media critic Dan Gillmor wrote on Mastodon:

The Washington Post is about to lurch sharply to the right politically as former Murdoch apparatchik solidifies his grip on the organization. Current editor Buzbee is out, and he’s bringing in people from Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and the Telegraph (right-wing UK news org).

I’m willing to wait and see, in part because The Wall Street Journal remains a great newspaper notwithstanding its editorial page, whose right-wing orientation precedes Murdoch’s ownership. I’m deeply concerned about what Lewis has in mind with his artificial intelligence initiative, though.

For the second time since he bought it in 2013, Jeff Bezos is faced with the challenge of reinventing The Washington Post. He succeeded spectacularly the first time, with years of growth, profitability and influence. This time, though, he’s doing it with people he chose himself — and there are caution signs all over the place.

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Publishers sound alarm over Google’s AI search plans. But let’s dial it back a bit.

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On May 15, 2024

In Media, Technology

What does AI say about RFK Jr.’s anti-vax activism? Photo (cc) 2023 by Gage Skidmore.

The latest freakout inspired by artificial intelligence has hit the news business. On Tuesday, Google announced that it will merge its AI tool, Gemini, with its search engine. What that means for publishers is that someone seeking information about, say, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vax crusade will receive an answer right in Google rather than being prompted to click to a news source. Let’s try it:

First, I entered <Robert F. Kennedy Jr. anti-vaccine activism> in Google Search. The top five results were from The Associated Press (two), Scientific American, the Annenberg Public Policy Center and the PBS “NewsHour.” In other words, good, respectable sources of independent journalism.

Next, I entered the same search at Gemini and got this: “I’m still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google Search.” OK! But then I tried the same thing at the free version of ChatGPT, which provided the following answer:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of former U.S. Senator and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, has been known for his anti-vaccine activism. He has been a prominent figure in the anti-vaccine movement, particularly regarding his views on the safety of vaccines and their alleged connection to autism.

Kennedy founded the Children’s Health Defense organization, which has been criticized for spreading misinformation about vaccines and promoting unfounded claims about their dangers. He has spoken at numerous events and rallies, advocating against vaccination and promoting alternative views on the subject.

It’s important to note that the overwhelming scientific consensus supports the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, and the alleged link between vaccines and autism has been thoroughly debunked by multiple scientific studies. Kennedy’s activism has been met with criticism from public health officials and medical professionals, who argue that his views are not supported by scientific evidence and pose a danger to public health.

I think we can agree that’s pretty good — and it includes exactly zero links to any of its sources, depriving some excellent news organizations of web traffic. I should note that, according to CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy, Google is promising to include links in Gemini, so it may end up looking something like Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine that provides plain-English answers and reliable links.

When I tried our RFK Jr. search at Perplexity, I got a very good answer — as good as ChatGPT, if not better — along with links to Wikipedia, The AP, the “NewsHour” and NBC News. But would I click on them? At the moment, I would, because of AI’s well-known proclivity for providing fake answers. At some point, though, that problem will be solved.

“This will be catastrophic to our traffic, as marketed by Google to further satisfy user queries, leaving even less incentive to click through so that we can monetize our content,” Danielle Coffey, chief executive of the News/Media Alliance, told Darcy. The alliance represents some 2,000 news publishers.

I also took a look at the internal metrics of the only news site I have access to: this one. According to Google Analytics, over the past month Media Nation received 40% of its traffic from “organic search” — that’s traffic from search engines, nearly all Google, that I didn’t boost by paying for ads on Google. And yes, that’s a lot. Next up was direct traffic (25.6%), organic social (21.2%) and referrals (12.1%), which are links from other websites.

Now, I happen to think that some of the lamentations we’re hearing from publishers are overblown. It’s fine to complain that Google is taking steps that will result in fewer clicks on your website. But how much money does that really bring in? These days, you’re likely to hit a paywall when you try to click through from a search. Programmatic ads on news sites are terrible and bring in very little money.

In the end, there is no substitute for building a relationship with your audience. For-profit publishers need to persuade their readers to become digital subscribers and local businesses to advertise. Nonprofits must convince their audience to become voluntary supporters and to raise money from underwriters, foundations, events and whatever else they can think of.

To use Media Nation as an example again: I currently have more than 2,300 subscribers who receive new posts by email. I consider those to be my most engaged readers. I don’t do much to monetize this site, although I have a modest paid supporter program, which, needless to say, you are invited to join. The future of news, though, is being built right now by serving our communities — not through Google search.

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Gannett’s latest outrage; plus, AI comes to Boston, and student journos cleared

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On May 10, 2024

In Local News

Gannett and USA Today headquarters in McLean, Va. Photo (cc) 2008 by Patrickneil.

Even by the rock-bottom standards of Gannett, what happened to Sarah Leach was shameful. Poynter media analyst Rick Edmonds reported last week that the country’s largest newspaper chain had hit the brakes on plans to restaff some of its smaller daily newspapers. And on Thursday he wrote that his source, Leach, was fired for “sharing proprietary information with [a reporter for] a competing media company.” Edmonds called the firing “outrageous!”

The Poynter Institute, a journalism training organization, competes with Gannett? Who knew?

So how was Leach, who’s based in Michigan and managed 26 Gannett newspapers in four states, identified as Edmonds’ confidential source? Edmonds writes: “As best Leach and I can figure, they must have tapped into her office email. ‘That’s the only way I can think of that they could have known,’ she said.” That is sleazy behavior by a news company, although we all know that employers have a right to read their employees’ email. That’s why many of the newsroom sources I’ve communicated with over the years use their personal email accounts. (As always, tips welcome, and anonymity guaranteed.)

In a remarkably magnanimous post for her newsletter, Leach writes:

I’m not bitter toward my former employer. It’s not Gannett’s fault. In many ways, it’s just the natural byproduct of media conglomerates owning publications in major metropolitan areas with hundreds of thousands of people … [ellipsis hers] and papers in much smaller towns who need local journalism just as much…. [ellipsis mine]

Let’s use this moment as a catalyst for a critical conversation about local media outlets and the audiences they serve. There has been an unprecedented loss of journalists and community newspapers across the country, and news deserts are growing larger and more numerous.

Gannett owns about 200 weekly daily newspapers across the U.S., anchored by USA Today. The company also owns a diminishing number of weekly papers, and has closed or merged many of them in Eastern Massachusetts, sparking the rise of a number of local news startups. Gannett likes to claim that it’s simply shifting from print to digital, but — to  name just one example — try finding any Medford or Somerville news on its Wicked Local website for those cities. Gannett dailies in this region include the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, The Patriot Ledger of Quincy, The Providence Journal and the MetroWest Daily News of Framingham.

Back in February, Gannett’s chief content officer, Kristin Roberts, and chief sales officer Jason Taylor appeared on “E&P Reports,” a vodcast hosted by Editor & Publisher’s Mike Blinder, to tout the chain’s recommitment to local news. And maybe that’s continuing at the larger dailies, but who knows? I’m not blaming Roberts and Taylor, who are quality executives with solid backgrounds. But Gannett’s behavior continues to be reprehensible — not only for firing Leach but for trimming back its latest commitment to local news and for running the vast majority of its papers into the ground, leaving communities without the news and information they need.

A couple of other local news tidbits:

• AI local news comes to Boston. My writing and podcast partner Ellen Clegg spotted this one: Hoodline, which uses artificial intelligence to cover two dozen cities, including Boston, is cranking out tidbits from locales such as Boston, Everett and Bridgewater. The stories have bylines, but when you click through, you find a little “AI” next to the name. For instance: “AI By Mike Chen,” which raises the possibility that Chen is a bot — a practice we’ve seen elsewhere. (If he’s an actual journalist who’s been hired to vet this stuff, my apologies.) Here’s what Hoodline has to say about its use of AI and its “In-House Writing Collective,” which sheds some light on who Mike Chen may or may not be:

We view journalism as a creative science and an art that necessitates a human touch. In our pursuit of delivering informative and captivating content, we integrate artificial intelligence (AI) to support and enhance our editorial processes. This includes organizing information and aiding in the initial formatting of stories for the editorial phase. Our stories are cultivated with a human-centric approach, involving research and editorial oversight. While AI may assist in the background, the essence of our journalism — from conception to publication — is driven by real human insight and discretion.

It turns out that Hoodline has been around since 2018, with Disney among its original backers. Although automation was part of its DNA from the beginning, presumably its use of AI has become a lot more aggressive since the rise of modern tools such as ChatGPT in late 2022.

• Charges dropped in Dartmouth. New Hampshire state authorities have dropped charges against two student journalists for The Dartmouth. Charlotte Hampton and Alesandra “Dre” Gonzales had been arrested on May 1 while covering pro-Palestinian protests even though they were wearing clearly visible press credentials, according to the independent student newspaper.

Student journalists have been producing some of the most important coverage of both the protests and the counter-protests that have broken out in response to the war between Israel and Hamas.

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Gannett is doing business with a notorious purveyor of pink slime

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On March 18, 2024

In Local News

Photo (cc) 2023 by Ruth Hartnup.

Just when Gannett was making some good news for itself by going on something of a modest hiring spree, splat! Investigative reporter Steven Monacelli has found that our largest newspaper chain, with about 200 daily newspapers, is working with Advantage Informatics, a well-known purveyor of so-called pink slime news sites.

Pink slime is the name given to websites that masquerade as legitimate local news projects but that are actually produced from distant locales. The meaning has morphed over the years. What I call Pink Slime 1.0 arose about a dozen years ago in the form of sites whose writers appeared to be based in local communities but were actually some distance away — in some cases, as far away as the Philippines. Pink Slime 2.0 has an ideological cast, mainly but not exclusively on the right. Pink Slime 3.0 adds artificial intelligence to the mix.

What most of these sites have in common is Brian Timpone, a Chicago-based conservative businessperson who is the founder of something called Metric Media, a network of some 1,200 right-wing sites. These projects tend to be pretty inept; my favorite covers the imaginary community of North Boston.

The Gannett-Timpone connection was exposed last week in a major report for Nieman Lab written by Monacelli on Advantage Informatics, a Timpone venture that produces advertorial content. Monacelli found that, in years past, newspapers such as the Houston Chronicle (owned by Hearst since 1987) and The San Diego Union-Tribune (recently acquired by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital) have taken advantage of Timpone’s services. (The Chronicle told Monacelli that it has no record of such a  relationship.) Gannett is the one newspaper company he found that has a current, ongoing relationship with Advantage. He writes:

A Gannett spokesperson told me that the company works with Advantage Informatics on “advertorial” content. When asked about Advantage Informatics’ relationship with the broader Metric Media network, the spokesperson said, “Ethics and our values are priority for us.”

Monacelli has written quite a tale that includes a Tennessee journalism professor who used to work for Advantage and Advantage’s ambition to offer “dedicated beat reporting” of local sports, governmental meetings and “keeping a close eye” on statehouses and Congress.

On the one hand, I’m not sure it’s that big a deal who produces advertorial content. On the other, the fact is that Gannett is working with the pink slimiest company in the country. Despite Gannett’s recent good news on the hiring front, it would hardly be surprising if company executives played around with having Advantage try its hand at community coverage as well. After all, it was just a few months ago that Gannett was caught using AI to write local sports stories, to hilarious effect.

A final note: If you’d like to learn more about pink slime, Ellen Clegg and I interviewed Pri Bengani, an expert based at Columbia University who’s quoted in Monacelli’s article, on the “What Works” podcast last fall.

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How a former Iowa newspaper’s name was hijacked to produce AI-generated clickbait

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On February 27, 2024

In Local News, Technology

Clayton County, Iowa. Photo (cc) 2011 by Jsayre64.

The Clayton County Register was a respected Iowa newspaper. Founded in 1926, it lives on, having merged with The North Iowa Times in 2020. The new paper was named the Times-Register.

But that’s not the only way that the paper lives on. Kate Knibbs reports in Wired that the domain name, claytoncountyregister.com, is being repurposed to generate investment-oriented clickbait using artificial intelligence. Indeed, if you look at the Register’s homepage right now, you’ll find a gigantic headline, “New York Community Bancorp Faces Uphill Battle Amid Regional Banking Crisis,” accompanied by what is almost certainly an AI-generated image and a byline attributed to Emmanuel Ellerbee.

Ellerbee, Knibbs tells us, has some 30,845 articles to his credit, which is a level of output that even the greediest corporate newspaper owner would respect.

Although Knibbs doesn’t use the term “pink slime,” what she found would appear to fit: it’s garbage content, written under apparently fake bylines, taking advantage of a legacy newspaper’s brand and reputation in order to suck people in. Not that whoever is behind the faux Clayton County Register much cares about trying to lure the locals.

Knibbs begins her story by telling us about an investor named Tony Eastin who stumbled upon the Register while researching a pharmaceutical stock. Much of the story is devoted to how Eastin and his friend Sandeep Abraham tried to get to the bottom of this weird tale. They weren’t entirely successful, but they did find that a Linux server in Germany and a Polish website appeared to be involved. So, too, was a Chinese operation called “the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.” Knibbs writes:

Although Eastin and Abraham suspect that the network which the Register’s old site is now part of was created with straightforward moneymaking goals, they fear that more malicious actors could use the same sort of tactics to push misinformation and propaganda into search results. “This is massively threatening,” Abraham says. “We want to raise some alarm bells.”

One of the dangers of the local news crisis is that bad actors can move in and create what appears to be local content that is really anything but. There’s Pink Slime 1.0, going back about a dozen years, which employed low-wage workers in far-off locations like the Philippines to write stories for zombie newspapers. There’s Pink Slime 2.0, in which mostly right-wing websites are given semi-plausible-sounding names like the North Boston News (!) to spread political propaganda. And now, increasingly, we’re seeing examples of Pink Slime 3.0, which adds AI to the mix.

Although these sites don’t represent much of a threat at the moment, that could change. After all, the infrastructure is being put into place.

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Students and AI weigh in on updating the SPJ’s Code of Ethics

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On January 18, 2024

In Media

Say hello to the new ethics committee. Photo (cc) 2012 by D J Shin.

The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics identifies four broad principles: Seek Truth and Report It; Minimize Harm; Act Independently; and Be Accountable. Each of them is fleshed out in some detail. You will note that the slippery concept of objectivity is not mentioned. These days most journalists believe, as I do, that truth-seeking, independence and fairness are the standards to which we should aspire, and that holding up objectivity as a goal only leads to endless debates over what that actually means.

On Wednesday evening, I asked students in my graduate ethics seminar to come up with a fifth principle. There are only eight students in the class, so I had them work in teams of two. I also asked the gremlins of artificial intelligence to weigh in. But first, here’s what my students came up with; I’ve edited them very lightly.

Listen to Others 

  • Be open to feedback
  • Promote cooperative relationships between journalists and the public
  • Be receptive to events in the world
  • Be open to a community that is not your own

Admit Limitations, Accept Your Own Bias

  • Don’t hide your own humanity
  • Accept that you can’t be objective
  • Accept you may not be able to follow all ethics codes all the time
  • Welcome criticism

Respect Relationships with Sources 

  • Don’t get so close with sources that personal feelings might get in the way of reporting
  • Protect them if they will be harmed for their sharing of the truth
  • Provide full disclosure to the sources of what the article is about and where it is being published

Create Spaces for Untold Stories 

One of the main priorities of a journalist should be to be prepared to fight for those who struggle. Journalists should:

  • Be righteous
  • Be brave
  • Create a sense of justice
  • Not be afraid to correct mistakes within their stories
  • Report on marginalized communities and use their personal resources to continue sharing information

I think these are terrific. The SPJ Code provides a pretty wide umbrella, so it’s not easy to come up with a fifth principle that isn’t already covered. But these proposals represent some fresh thinking. The “full disclosure” idea is important because when we’re interviewing people who aren’t accustomed to dealing with reporters, they may not understand the full implications of having their name, their quotes and in some cases their photos put before the public. And I love “Be brave.” That’s obviously true for, say, war correspondents. But journalists also have to deal with a rising wave of harassment and threats, both online and in real life. If they find that they’re unable to stand up to that, then they are not going to be able to serve their community. (They also shouldn’t be expected to put up with harassment, and newsrooms need to develop anti-harassment training and policies.)

Now … what about AI? While my students were working, I took the lazy way out and asked a couple of AI programs to come up with a fifth principle. Here’s the question I asked: “The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics has four principles: Seek Truth and Report It; Minimize Harm; Act Independently; Be Accountable. What would be a worthwhile fifth principle?” Once I finished playing, I deleted the answers and then asked them again so my students could watch everything unfold in real time. And here’s the answer from ChatGPT:

The addition of a fifth principle to the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics could focus on promoting transparency. Here’s a suggestion:

“Foster Transparency: Journalists should strive to maintain transparency in their reporting processes, disclosing sources, conflicts of interest, and methodologies to enhance the credibility and trustworthiness of their work. By being transparent, journalists contribute to a more informed public and uphold the integrity of journalism.”

Not bad. Now, this is ChatGPT 3.5. You have to pay for the latest version, 4.0, and I’m obviously not going to do that. But I also asked the same question of Google Bard. As I understand it, the version that’s available to the public represents Google’s best tech. So here’s the answer:

There have been many suggestions for a fifth principle to the SPJ Code of Ethics, each reflecting evolving priorities and challenges in the journalism landscape. Here are some intriguing options to consider:

1. Foster Inclusivity and Diversity: This principle could emphasize the importance of representing marginalized voices, amplifying underrepresented perspectives, and ensuring newsrooms and reporting reflect the rich tapestry of society. It could challenge journalists to actively seek out diverse sources, challenge their own biases, and avoid harmful stereotypes.

2. Uphold Digital Responsibility: This principle would address the unique ethical challenges of the digital age, such as misinformation, disinformation, and privacy concerns. It could encourage journalists to verify information meticulously, source responsibly, and be transparent about online tools and methods.

3. Champion Civic Engagement: This principle could encourage journalists to go beyond informing the public and actively engage citizens in civic discourse. It could promote collaborative reporting, fact-checking initiatives, and platforms for audience participation, empowering the public to be informed participants in democracy.

4. Protect the Vulnerable: This principle could emphasize the need to protect vulnerable individuals and communities from exploitation or harm through reporting. It could call for sensitivity in covering sensitive topics, ensuring informed consent, and avoiding sensationalism that could endanger individuals.

5. Champion Transparency and Openness: This principle could focus on promoting transparency within the media itself, advocating for open access to information, and holding powerful institutions accountable. It could encourage self-reflection within journalism, critical examination of industry practices, and fostering a culture of ethical news consumption.

Ultimately, the “best” fifth principle is subjective and depends on the priorities and concerns of the journalism community at any given time. Each suggestion above addresses a critical aspect of ethical journalism in the 21st century, and ultimately, the decision lies with the SPJ and its members to determine which principle would best serve the mission of responsible and ethical journalism.

I hope this provides a helpful starting point for your exploration of this important topic!

This is pretty good. My students were meh about the ChatGPT answer but were impressed with Bard. If you’ve played with either of these programs, you know that the answer comes up almost instantaneously, which in itself is an impressive feat. I also think that though “Uphold Digital Responsibility” is fine as far as it goes, it should state explicitly whether or not AI is being used to help with reporting and writing.

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The Bard of AI

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On December 15, 2023

In Technology

I haven’t played enough with the newest version of Google Bard to know whether it’s better than ChatGPT, but Bard has some advantages. You don’t have to log in — if you’re like most people, you’re already logged in through Google. The database is more up to date: It knows that Maura Healey is governor, whereas ChatGPT still thinks Charlie Baker is in the corner office. And it provides links. My misgivings about artificial intelligence aside, I’m impressed.

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Why Google’s AI search tool could harm news publishers

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On December 15, 2023

In Media

Photo (cc) 2010 by Robert Scoble

The question of whether Google should pay for news is about to get a lot more complicated. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that news publishers are freaking out over a new search tool powered by artificial intelligence that Google is working on.

The problem is that current Google search protocols drive a lot of traffic to news websites, and that could change. AI-powered search may very well keep users inside Google, thus denying clicks to the originators of the journalism that users are looking for. As an example, here is what The Atlantic believes it’s up against, according to the Journal’s Keach Hagey, Miles Kruppa and Alexandra Bruell:

About 40% of the magazine’s web traffic comes from Google searches, which turn up links that users click on. A task force at the Atlantic modeled what could happen if Google integrated AI into search. It found that 75% of the time, the AI-powered search would likely provide a full answer to a user’s query and the Atlantic’s site would miss out on traffic it otherwise would have gotten.

That 40% figure is typical for news publications. And though Google executives say that they intend to roll out AI search in such a way that journalism will continue to benefit, the Journal story makes it clear that’s nothing more than a vague promise at the moment.

The AI threat comes at a time when much of the media business is pushing for passage of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), which would require that Google and Facebook come to the bargaining table and reach a deal to compensate news organizations for repurposing their content. It’s a dicey proposition — Facebook has been moving away from news, and as the Journal story shows, publishers are dependent on traffic from Google even as they insist that Google ought to pay them.

Just this week, Brier Dudley of The Seattle Times wrote that the NewsGuild-CWA, the union that represents 26,000 employees at a number of news outlets, now supports the JCPA as the result of a possible tweak to the legislation that would be more explicit about protecting jobs. Brier also touted a recent study that claims the two tech giants should be paying news organizations some $12 billion a year.

Despite some bipartisan support for the JCPA, finding agreement within our dysfunctional Congress may prove impossible. And the rise of AI-based search isn’t going to make passage any easier.

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