ReportWire

Tag: Journalism

  • Betting on social media as a news destination for the young

    Betting on social media as a news destination for the young

    NEW YORK — If young people are spending so much time on social media, it stands to reason that’s a good place to reach them with news.

    Operators of the News Movement are betting their business on that hunch. The company, which has been operating for more than a year, hopes to succeed despite journalism being littered with years of unsuccessful attempts to entice people in their 20s to become news consumers.

    The brainchild of former Dow Jones executives, the News Movement is using a staff of reporters with an average age of 25 to make tailored news content for sites like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

    “You really have to stay humble and stay open to different trends and ideas,” said Ramin Beheshti, president and a founder of the organization with former Dow Jones CEO Will Lewis. “We’ve built a newsroom that reflects the audience that we’re trying to go after.”

    Some of the content would startle a news traditionalist.

    Recognizing his friends appreciated calming videos, one staff member created an “explainer” on the midterm elections for Snapchat that used video of a horse being groomed, pizza being made and flowers growing while an offscreen voice discusses politics.

    In “Get Ready with Me,” two women prepare for work while talking about some things in the news.

    There are more typical offerings: video of the earthquake in Turkey, for example, and reports on President Biden’s proposals on abortion and social media. Explainer stories take a step back to tell people why something is news.

    Some stories aren’t really news at all, but stem from personal experience. One New York-based journalist who wondered why police didn’t immediately jump onto subway tracks to save someone who fell looked into it to find they were working to stop trains.

    Curious about why stories about odd things done by Florida residents are a staple of news coverage, a staff member made a TikTok video showing that it’s partly because police there often release photos and details about incidents faster than other states.

    There’s also relatable content that provides a service, of a sort: asking young people on the street some of the excuses they’ve used to break a date.

    “News isn’t always what you think it is,” said Jessica Coen, U.S. executive editor, who’s had leadership roles at Mashable, Morning Brew and The Cut.

    The News Movement is not trying to be an aggregator, and cover every headline, Coen said. “We’re trying to cover issues where we can provide context and clarity,” she said.

    Story formats differ to reflect where they are placed. Most TikTok videos are about a minute, while a meaty YouTube piece about women’s safety and how London police react to assault cases ran for nearly 14 minutes.

    Some 60% of people in Gen Z, or young adults up to their mid-20s, say they get news through social media, according to a study by Oliver Wyman and the News Movement. Other studies show people in Gen Z have a lower opinion of traditional news outlets than their elders.

    Given this, the News Movement believes that efforts by news organizations to entice young people to their own sites or apps are tough sells.

    “News shouldn’t feel like work,” Beheshti said. “It should be part of your daily consumption.”

    One person who sampled some of the News Movement’s TikTok stories offered a mixed review, saying they often seemed to emphasize flash over substance. They need to “read the room” better, said Gabriel Glynn-Habron, a 21-year-old college student from Asheville, N.C. who is studying journalism.

    “I do appreciate the effort,” he said. “It’s part of what the news media should do more — just show the effort.”

    Often, those who try to appeal to young people are unsuccessful because they really don’t understand who they’re trying to reach, said Linda Ellerbee, whose “Nick News” programs for the Nickelodeon network in the 1990s offered a template for success. It’s a mistake to think Gen Z is apathetic; the generation led the way in protesting George Floyd’s death at the hands of police, she said.

    “Most attempts to try to deliver news to young people fail because they underestimate the intelligence of their audience,” Ellerbee said. “They talk down to them. They assume that because they’re young, they’re dumb.”

    One place where Ellerbee and the News Movement agree is in how many people are frustrated by traditional news because they feel like they’re getting only a piece of a story, or dipping in to a movie somewhere in the middle. That argues for more explainers.

    The company’s research found that while young news consumers fact-check information more readily than older peers, they’re also more susceptible to believing misinformation.

    Since news is shaky as a business, the News Movement has made diversification a part of its model from the start. It will work with traditional news organizations and help them build social media teams. The company is producing TikTok videos for The Associated Press, for example. The AP has provided office space for the company and Lewis is vice chairman of its board of directors.

    The News Movement advises brands on how to reach young consumers and has bought the Recount, which makes video content about American politics for social media and continues to operate as a separate unit.

    “We can’t have one way of making money,” Beheshti said.

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  • Betting on social media as a news destination for the young

    Betting on social media as a news destination for the young

    NEW YORK — If young people are spending so much time on social media, it stands to reason that’s a good place to reach them with news.

    Operators of the News Movement are betting their business on that hunch. The company, which has been operating for more than a year, hopes to succeed despite journalism being littered with years of unsuccessful attempts to entice people in their 20s to become news consumers.

    The brainchild of former Dow Jones executives, the News Movement is using a staff of reporters with an average age of 25 to make tailored news content for sites like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

    “You really have to stay humble and stay open to different trends and ideas,” said Ramin Beheshti, president and a founder of the organization with former Dow Jones CEO Will Lewis. “We’ve built a newsroom that reflects the audience that we’re trying to go after.”

    Some of the content would startle a news traditionalist.

    Recognizing his friends appreciated calming videos, one staff member created an “explainer” on the midterm elections for Snapchat that used video of a horse being groomed, pizza being made and flowers growing while an offscreen voice discusses politics.

    In “Get Ready with Me,” two women prepare for work while talking about some things in the news.

    There are more typical offerings: video of the earthquake in Turkey, for example, and reports on President Biden’s proposals on abortion and social media. Explainer stories take a step back to tell people why something is news.

    Some stories aren’t really news at all, but stem from personal experience. One New York-based journalist who wondered why police didn’t immediately jump onto subway tracks to save someone who fell looked into it to find they were working to stop trains.

    Curious about why stories about odd things done by Florida residents are a staple of news coverage, a staff member made a TikTok video showing that it’s partly because police there often release photos and details about incidents faster than other states.

    There’s also relatable content that provides a service, of a sort: asking young people on the street some of the excuses they’ve used to break a date.

    “News isn’t always what you think it is,” said Jessica Coen, U.S. executive editor, who’s had leadership roles at Mashable, Morning Brew and The Cut.

    The News Movement is not trying to be an aggregator, and cover every headline, Coen said. “We’re trying to cover issues where we can provide context and clarity,” she said.

    Story formats differ to reflect where they are placed. Most TikTok videos are about a minute, while a meaty YouTube piece about women’s safety and how London police react to assault cases ran for nearly 14 minutes.

    Some 60% of people in Gen Z, or young adults up to their mid-20s, say they get news through social media, according to a study by Oliver Wyman and the News Movement. Other studies show people in Gen Z have a lower opinion of traditional news outlets than their elders.

    Given this, the News Movement believes that efforts by news organizations to entice young people to their own sites or apps are tough sells.

    “News shouldn’t feel like work,” Beheshti said. “It should be part of your daily consumption.”

    One person who sampled some of the News Movement’s TikTok stories offered a mixed review, saying they often seemed to emphasize flash over substance. They need to “read the room” better, said Gabriel Glynn-Habron, a 21-year-old college student from Asheville, N.C. who is studying journalism.

    “I do appreciate the effort,” he said. “It’s part of what the news media should do more — just show the effort.”

    Often, those who try to appeal to young people are unsuccessful because they really don’t understand who they’re trying to reach, said Linda Ellerbee, whose “Nick News” programs for the Nickelodeon network in the 1990s offered a template for success. It’s a mistake to think Gen Z is apathetic; the generation led the way in protesting George Floyd’s death at the hands of police, she said.

    “Most attempts to try to deliver news to young people fail because they underestimate the intelligence of their audience,” Ellerbee said. “They talk down to them. They assume that because they’re young, they’re dumb.”

    One place where Ellerbee and the News Movement agree is in how many people are frustrated by traditional news because they feel like they’re getting only a piece of a story, or dipping in to a movie somewhere in the middle. That argues for more explainers.

    The company’s research found that while young news consumers fact-check information more readily than older peers, they’re also more susceptible to believing misinformation.

    Since news is shaky as a business, the News Movement has made diversification a part of its model from the start. It will work with traditional news organizations and help them build social media teams. The company is producing TikTok videos for The Associated Press, for example. The AP has provided office space for the company and Lewis is vice chairman of its board of directors.

    The News Movement advises brands on how to reach young consumers and has bought the Recount, which makes video content about American politics for social media and continues to operate as a separate unit.

    “We can’t have one way of making money,” Beheshti said.

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  • Gayle King receives Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism

    Gayle King receives Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism

    Gayle King receives Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism – CBS News


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    “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King was presented with the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. During Tuesday’s ceremony in Phoenix, Dean Battinto L. Batts Jr. said King’s “approach to covering important events and interviewing politicians, leaders, and celebrities is unparalleled.”

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  • How Richard Rushfield’s The Ankler Took on Hollywood

    How Richard Rushfield’s The Ankler Took on Hollywood

    Netflix is far from a death spiral, but one of the biggest media stories of 2022 turned out to be the company’s stunning subscriber stumble. The streamer lost almost half its stock value and came to be seen as a potential acquisition target. I asked Rushfield if he felt vindicated. “I wanna jump up and down,” he said, “and yell ‘I told you so’ every day.”

    Rushfield, 54, grew up in Pacific Palisades and attended Santa Monica’s prestigious Crossroads School, where he overlapped with future hotshots like Matthew Greenfield, Jay Sures, Brett Morgen, Jason Blumenthal, Maya Rudolph, and Jack Black. Rushfield’s younger sister, the TV writer Alexandra Rushfield, was friends at Crossroads with Jenni Konner, who went on to showrun HBO’s Girls with Lena Dunham. At Hampshire College in Western Massachusetts, Rushfield frequented punk shows—X, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Henry Rollins (he saw Black Flag in high school)—and wrote a decidedly gothy senior thesis about Jacques-Louis David’s paintings from the French Revolution (Marat bleeding to death in a bathtub, etc.). After graduating, he followed the grunge-era playbook of loafing around without a plan. Then he landed an entry-level gig with the ’92 Clinton campaign, sharing a small cigarette-smoke-filled office with Noah Shachtman, now editor in chief of Rolling Stone. “Even when we were kids, he was a figure from a different era,” Shachtman recalls. “I felt like he had stepped out of a Raymond Chandler novel.”

    After working as a field organizer for several other Democratic campaigns, Rushfield pursued a writing career. His first byline, a front-of-book item for Los Angeles magazine, highlighted a stand-up comedy show featuring rising stars like David Cross, Bob Odenkirk, Patton Oswalt, Margaret Cho, and Janeane Garofalo. (He became friends with a lot of these folks.) “I think it ran two sentences and I got $25,” Rushfield recalls. In 1998, he and his friend Adam Leff conceived a Spy-inspired trend-forecasting charticle, “The Intelligence Report,” which caught the eye of Graydon Carter. He gave them a contract with this magazine, where the column appeared several times a year until 2010. (Rushfield has also written a few features for Vanity Fair.) By the mid-2000s, Rushfield was working as a web editor at the Los Angeles Times, where a print higher-up once told him the only reason people wanted the online versions of articles was so they could print them out to read in the bathtub. He embraced the web, where he ended up spending the majority of his professional life. In 2009, Rushfield left the Times to become West Coast editor of Gawker. He then wrote a book about American Idol and did tours of BuzzFeed, Yahoo, and, finally, HitFix, where he was editor in chief before the site was acquired in 2016. “The second half of my career was working on every website, essentially,” he told me.

    The Ankler almost didn’t happen. After HitFix, Rushfield was accepted to the USC Rossier School of Education to pursue a graduate degree in teaching. Around the same time, inspired by the success of The Information, Jessica Lessin’s subscription-powered tech-news publication, he started sending an email digest to a small group of friends, who started showing it to their friends, who then forwarded it to their friends. Before he knew it, he had an impressive distribution list. “It started getting passed around very quickly to the executive class,” Rushfield told me. He decided against USC Rossier and put his eggs in The Ankler instead. “It took me time to get up the guts to put down a paywall, but I made that leap.”

    Rushfield first met Min at the Golden Globes about a decade ago, “stuck at the kids’ table in the back,” Min joked. A former People and InStyle reporter and editor who became a mid-aughts media star as the editor in chief of Us Weekly, Min was in the midst of her celebrated reinvention of The Hollywood Reporter, which she ran until 2017. In 2021, as Min recovered from a brief stint at the train wreck that was Quibi, she and Rushfield started talking. “The Ankler had come to my attention because people were forwarding it to me, pretty senior people in the industry,” she recalls. “My thoughts were that entertainment was undergoing these crazy upheavals, both culturally and in the business model, and nobody was really owning that conversation.” They made it official with a New York Times piece shortly before Christmas and entered the Y Combinator program several months later. “In Silicon Valley terms,” Min said, “Richard would be ‘the product.’ ”

    The Ankler is no stranger to courtship. Penske Media, whose near-monopoly on major entertainment titles includes THR, Variety, Deadline, Billboard, and Rolling Stone, made a number of overtures up until several weeks before Rushfield and Min announced their business relationship. (Variety put an offer on the table in 2019 to add The Ankler to its newsletter lineup; later, Penske Media boss Jay Penske pursued an acquisition.) Additionally, Puck had conversations with Rushfield prior to its own launch. Min and Rushfield later explored partnerships with Axios and Lessin, an early Ankler booster who’d welcomed Rushfield into The Information’s inaugural accelerator program. Ankler Media’s decision to remain independent—albeit with investors—and to continue publishing on Substack, where they’re part of a growing crop of full-fledged publications, reflected a desire to “control our own destiny,” as Min put it.

    What does The Ankler’s destiny look like? Min envisions “a universe of bundled subscriptions” and a push into international markets. “The story of streaming is that it hit the ceiling in the United States before it was supposed to,” she said. “So everyone’s saying, ‘Let’s try to make money somewhere else,’ aggressively looking toward markets like Japan, India, Latin America, and that’s a great story.” When I asked for a pie-in-the-sky target of paid subscribers, she didn’t flinch: “a hundred thousand.” If they manage to get there—that’s a lot of paying subscribers!—it won’t have been easy. “I think they’re off to a tremendous start, but the road ahead is hard,” said Lessin, one of Ankler Media’s investors. “It’s a really difficult, long path.”

    In early 2018, Lessin hosted Rushfield and the other members of The Information’s first accelerator class at her home in San Francisco. Over dinner, she asked her guests to describe their five-year aspirations. When it was Rushfield’s turn, he said, “What drew me to newsletters was the chance to really write something meaningful and to be able to do your best work. If, five years from now, I could be doing that on a stable basis, I’ll be thrilled.”

    Here we are, five years later. I called Rushfield late one night while wrapping up this piece and read back his quote from Lessin’s soiree. “I couldn’t believe I was getting away with speaking so honestly and freely about this industry back then,” he said. “I still can’t believe I’m getting away with it.”

    HAIR, CHECHEL JOSON (MIN); MAKEUP, TAYLOR BABAIAN; GROOMING, STACY SKINNER; TAILOR, HASMIK KOURINIAN. SET DESIGN, BETTE ADAMS. PRODUCED ON LOCATION BY PRODUCTION SQUAD. FOR DETAILS, GO TO VF.COM/CREDITS.

    Joe Pompeo

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  • CBS’ Gayle King to get Cronkite journalism excellence award

    CBS’ Gayle King to get Cronkite journalism excellence award

    PHOENIX (AP) — “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King has been chosen to receive the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism from Arizona State University.

    The honor is given every year by the university’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

    King is expected to attend a Feb. 21 awards luncheon at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Phoenix.

    She is the 39th recipient of the award. Past honorees include Anderson Cooper, Judy Woodruff and Bob Woodward.

    King has been with CBS News since 2011. In recent years, she has earned notice for exclusive interviews with embattled singer R. Kelly and Cherelle Griner, the wife of formerly imprisoned WNBA star Brittney Griner, among others.

    Known for her frequent collaborations with close friend Oprah Winfrey, King is an editor-at-large for the Oprah Daily website. She also hosts “Gayle King in the House” on SiriusXM radio.

    The Cronkite School, named for the broadcast legend in 1984, focuses on teaching students journalism and multimedia skills. It includes public television station Arizona PBS, considered the largest media outlet globally that is operated by a journalism school.

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  • California-based freelance journalists win $100,000 prizes

    California-based freelance journalists win $100,000 prizes

    Two California-based journalists won $100,000 in the American Mosaic Journalism Prize, announced on Wednesday

    NEW YORK — Two California-based freelance journalists were awarded the American Mosaic Journalism Prize, giving them $100,000 each for their work, it was announced on Wednesday.

    The Heising-Simons Foundation gives the annual prize for excellence in long-form journalism about underrepresented groups in the United States. The foundation said it is the largest dollar prize given annually for journalism in the U.S.

    Cerise Castle, a journalist from Los Angeles, won for her investigative piece, “A Tradition of Violence,” which looked at gangs within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the foundation said.

    Her story first appeared in Knock LA, a nonprofit community journalism project, and quickly spread, including an article on NPR. The story last year received the American Journalism Online Award for best use of public records.

    The other award went to Carvell Wallace, a writer and podcaster based in Oakland. He was honored for a piece that appeared on Medium, “What if My Mother Had An Abortion,” exploring how her life would have been different if she hadn’t had him. Judges also cited his story on Black cyclist Justin Williams that appeared in Bicycling magazine.

    “I’ve long thought that the only thing that really matters is how we treat each other,” Wallace said. “I view everything through this lens, whether it’s sports, culture, politics, art or film.”

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  • Ukraine war coverage lands exiled Russia journalist Alexander Nevzorov a prison sentence

    Ukraine war coverage lands exiled Russia journalist Alexander Nevzorov a prison sentence

    Moscow — A Russian court on Wednesday sentenced in absentia veteran journalist Alexander Nevzorov to eight years in prison for spreading “false information” about Moscow’s war in Ukraine. The verdict is the latest in a series of high-profile rulings under new legislation that opponents of the Kremlin say was designed to criminalize criticism of the conflict.

    Nevzorov, 64, came under pressure from authorities for alleging that Russian forces deliberately shelled a maternity hospital in Mariupol, a port city in southern Ukraine that was captured by Moscow after a long siege.

    Russia Opposition
    Veteran Russian journalist Alexander Nevzorov speaks in St. Petersburg, Russia, in a February 24, 2012 file photo.

    Sergei Konkov/AP


    “Journalist Alexander Glebovich Nevzorov was found guilty… and sentenced to imprisonment for a period of eight years,” the press service for Moscow courts said in a statement on Telegram.

    Prosecutors had requested a sentence of nine years in jail. Nevsorov said in response to the verdict: “I don’t think Russia will exist in nine years’ time.”


    Russia defends attack on maternity hospital

    03:57

    According to the Reuters news agency, he told a Russian outlet that he didn’t plan to return to his country and accused its president, Vladimir Putin, of leading “a dictatorship based on dirt, blood and denunciations.”

    Nevzorov left Russia almost a year ago and did not take part in the hearings. The court said Wednesday that if he was to come home, he’d be sent to one of Russia’s notorious penal colonies. The court also formally banned him from managing online content for four years — a move unlikely to have much impact on his work in exile.


    Russia imposes new law criminalizing criticism of Ukraine invasion

    04:07

    Investigators launched the probe in March last year, saying Nevzorov had intentionally published “misleading information” with “inaccurate photographs of civilians affected by the shelling,” which prompted him to leave the country with his wife.

    He was designated a “foreign agent” one month later, a branding that carries Soviet-era connotations and piles bureaucratic pressure on people hit with the label.

    Nevzorov is a former member of parliament and his popular YouTube channel boasts nearly two million subscribers.

    After the Kremlin ordered troops into Ukraine last February, Russia introduced new legislation criminalizing what authorities consider to be false or damaging information about the Russian army and the offensive.

    Several politicians and public figures have faced jail terms under the new law, including opposition councilor Ilya Yashin, who was sentenced to eight and a half years behind bars.

    Russia Opposition
    Russian opposition activist Ilya Yashin gestures as he stands inside a glass cubicle in a courtroom, prior to a hearing in Moscow, Russia, December 9, 2022.

    Yury Kochetkov/AP


    Separately, a court in Russia’s Far East sentenced an activist to three years in jail for “discrediting” the military and being in contempt of court, Russian media reported on Monday.

    Vladislav Nikitenko sent out requests to authorities asking to initiate criminal proceedings against members of Russia’s Security Council, including President Vladimir Putin, for “acts of international terrorism.”

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  • Jane See White, Dedicated and Decorated Journalist, Dies

    Jane See White, Dedicated and Decorated Journalist, Dies

    Press Release
    –

    Jan 30, 2023


    SPRINGDALE, Ark., January 30, 2023 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Jane See White died January 11, 2023. She was 72. The Mexico, Missouri native had an award-winning 40-plus year career in newspaper and magazine journalism, including national reporting and editing with the Associated Press, and teaching journalism as part of  the University of Arizona School of Journalism.

    White was the daughter of Robert Mitchell White II and Barbara Whitney Spurgeon.

    At the age of nine White began a dedicated journalism career as the founding Editor and Publisher of The Mexico (Missouri) Junior Ledger. The summer weekly newspaper covered neighborhood news, but ceased publication when White began spending her summers at Camp Bryn Afon in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.

    She graduated from Mexico High School, then in 1972, from Hollins College with honors and a BA in History and American Studies.

    Upon graduation from Hollins College, White spent two years as a reporter for The Roanoke Times then moved back to Missouri as a feature writer for The Kansas City Star. There she earned awards for an investigative series regarding state-run schools for the mentally disabled, and another related to state psychiatric hospitals.

    In 1976 she transitioned to the Associated Press in New York City as an editor on the World Desk. From 1978 to 1981 she was also part of an AP six-person national writing team, writing feature news stories for datelines around the country. Her work included covering the Love Canal toxic crisis, exposing and examining the early controversy over the health effects of exposure to Agent Orange.

    Peter Arnett, awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting, and known broadly for his coverage of the Vietnam and Gulf Wars, was a colleague of White’s at the Associated Press. “I had the good fortune to be based in AP Headquarters as a Special Correspondent during the 1970s when Jane was steadily building her journalism career,” Arnett recently wrote.  “. . . touching tributes to Jane White on her purposeful life in journalism and her recent untimely death brought back memories of not only working with her, but also of Jane’s sparkling personality and her moxie, a very American word of that era used to describe courage and determination.”

    White joined Medical Economics magazine as a writer in 1982. Her progression with the publication included Professional Editor, News / Bureaus Editor and Head of the Editorial Division for the national bi-weekly non-clinical publication.

    In 1987, her passion for newspaper journalism led her back to Virginia and The Roanoke Times and World News where she was the Deputy City Editor, then City Editor. Her responsibilities included daily and Sunday news coverage by 40 reporters and six assistant city editors.

    White moved to Arizona in 1991, holding various writing and editing roles for The Phoenix Gazette and The Arizona Republic, including Features Editor and Assistant Managing Editor.

    From 2006 until her retirement in 2014, White was an Editor and editorial writer for The Arizona Daily Star. Editorials White researched and wrote won first-place prizes from the Arizona Press Club, the Arizona Newspapers Association, and were included in nomination for the Pulitzer Prize.

    Between 1997 and 2014, White also shared her expertise and passion for journalism with future journalists, as an adjunct Professor with the University of Arizona School of Journalism.

    Source: RMW3 Enterprises, LLC / Family

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  • Creating a

    Creating a

    Creating a “lie detector” for deepfakes – CBS News


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    With the proliferation of artificial intelligence software used to produce fake videos and photographs that can spread disinformation, Adobe and Microsoft have teamed up to develop new tools for verifying the attributes and history of images and videos on the web. Correspondent David Pogue looks at how Content Credentials can help retain trust in journalism, and protect democracy from propaganda.

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  • ChatGPT’s Mind-Boggling, Possibly Dystopian Impact on the Media World

    ChatGPT’s Mind-Boggling, Possibly Dystopian Impact on the Media World

    A couple weeks ago, in his idiosyncratic fan-correspondence newsletter, “The Red Hand Files,” musician and author Nick Cave critiqued a ”song in the style of Nick Cave”—submitted by “Mark” from Christchurch, New Zealand—that was created using ChatGPT, the latest and most mind-boggling entrant in a growing field of robotic-writing software. At a glance, the lyrics evoked the same dark religious overtones that run through much of Cave’s oeuvre. Upon closer inspection, this ersatz Cave track was a low-rent simulacrum. “I understand that ChatGPT is in its infancy but perhaps that is the emerging horror of AI—that it will forever be in its infancy,” Cave wrote, “as it will always have further to go, and the direction is always forward, always faster. It can never be rolled back, or slowed down, as it moves us toward a utopian future, maybe, or our total destruction. Who can possibly say which? Judging by this song ‘in the style of Nick Cave’ though, it doesn’t look good, Mark. The apocalypse is well on its way. This song sucks.”

    Cave’s ChatGPT takedown—“with all the love and respect in the world, this song is bullshit, a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human”—set the internet ablaze, garnering uproarious coverage from Rolling Stone and Stereogum, to Gizmodo and The Verge, to the BBC and the Daily Mail. That his commentary hit such a nerve probably has less to do with the influence of an underground rock icon than it does with the sudden omnipresence of “generative artificial intelligence software,” particularly within the media and journalism community.

    Since ChatGPT’s November 30 release, folks in the business of writing have increasingly been futzing around with the frighteningly proficient chatbot, which is in the business of, well, mimicking their writing. “We didn’t believe this until we tried it,” Mike Allen gushed in his Axios newsletter, with the subject heading, “Mind-blowing AI.” Indeed, reactions tend to fall somewhere on a spectrum between awe-inspired and horrified. “I’m a copywriter,” a London-based freelancer named Henry Williams opined this week for The Guardian (in an article that landed atop the Drudge Report via a more sensationalized version aggregated by The Sun), “and I’m pretty sure artificial intelligence is going to take my job…. [I]t took ChatGPT 30 seconds to create, for free, an article that would take me hours to write.” A Tuesday editorial in the scientific journal Nature similarly declared, “ChatGPT can write presentable student essays, summarize research papers, answer questions well enough to pass medical exams and generate helpful computer code. It has produced research abstracts good enough that scientists found it hard to spot that a computer had written them…That’s why it is high time researchers and publishers laid down ground rules about using [AI tools] ethically.”

    BuzzFeed, for one, is on it: “Our work in AI-powered creativity is…off to a good start, and in 2023, you’ll see AI inspired content move from an R&D stage to part of our core business, enhancing the quiz experience, informing our brainstorming, and personalizing our content for our audience,” CEO Jonah Peretti wrote in a memo to staff on Thursday. “To be clear, we see the breakthroughs in AI opening up a new era of creativity that will allow humans to harness creativity in new ways with endless opportunities and applications for good. In publishing, AI can benefit both content creators and audiences, inspiring new ideas and inviting audience members to co-create personalized content.” The work coming out of BuzzFeed’s newsroom, on the other hand, is a different matter. “This isn’t about AI creating journalism,” a spokesman told me.

    Meanwhile, if you made it to the letters-to-the-editor section of Wednesday’s New York Times, you may have stumbled upon one reader’s rebuttal to a January 15 Times op-ed titled, “How ChatGPT Hijacks Democracy.” The rebuttal was crafted—you guessed it—using ChatGPT: “It is important to approach new technologies with caution and to understand their capabilities and limitations. However, it is also essential not to exaggerate their potential dangers and to consider how they can be used in a positive and responsible manner.” Which is to say, you need not let Skynet and The Terminator invade your dreams just yet. But for those of us who ply our trade in words, it’s worth considering the more malignant applications of this seemingly inexorable innovation. As Sara Fischer noted in the latest edition of her Axios newsletter, “Artificial intelligence has proven helpful in automating menial news-gathering tasks, like aggregating data, but there’s a growing concern that an over-dependence on it could weaken journalistic standards if newsrooms aren’t careful.” (On that note, I asked Times executive editor Joe Kahn for his thoughts on ChatGPT’s implications for journalism and whether he could picture a use where it might be applied to journalism at the paper of record, but a spokeswoman demurred, “We’re gonna take a pass on this one.”)

    The “growing concern” that Fischer alluded to in her Axios piece came to the fore in recent days as controversy engulfed the otherwise anodyne technology-news publication CNET, after a series of articles from Futurism and The Verge drew attention to the use of AI-generated stories at CNET and its sister outlet, Bankrate. Stories full of errors and—it gets worse—apparently teeming with robot plagiarism. “The bot’s misbehavior ranges from verbatim copying to moderate edits to significant rephrasings, all without properly crediting the original,” reported Futurism’s Jon Christian. “In at least some of its articles, it appears that virtually every sentence maps directly onto something previously published elsewhere.” In response to the backlash, CNET halted production on its AI content farm while editor in chief Connie Guglielmo issued a penitent note to readers: “We’re committed to improving the AI engine with feedback and input from our editorial teams so that we—and our readers—can trust the work it contributes to.” 

    For an even more dystopian tale, check out this yarn from the technology journalist Alex Kantrowitz, in which a random Substack called “The Rationalist” put itself on the map with a post that lifted passages directly from Kantrowitz’s Substack, “Big Technology.” This wasn’t just some good-old-fashioned plagiarism, like Melania Trump ripping off a Michelle Obama speech. Rather, the anonymous author of “The Rationalist”—an avatar named “PETRA”—disclosed that the article had been assembled using ChatGPT and similar AI tools. Furthermore, Kantrowitz wrote that Substack indicated it wasn’t immediately clear whether “The Rationalist” had violated the company’s plagiarism policy. (The offending post is no longer available.) “The speed at which they were able to copy, remix, publish, and distribute their inauthentic story was impressive,” Kantrowitz wrote. “It outpaced the platforms’ ability, and perhaps willingness, to stop it, signaling Generative AI’s darker side will be difficult to tame.” When I called Kantrowitz to talk about this, he elaborated, “Clearly this technology is gonna make it a lot easier for plagiarists to plagiarize. It’s as simple as tossing some text inside one of these chatbots and asking them to remix it, and they’ll do it. It takes minimal effort when you’re trying to steal someone’s content, so I do think that’s a concern. I was personally kind of shocked to see it happen so soon with my story.”

    Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI, said in an interview this month that the company is working on ways to identify AI plagiarism. He’s not the only one: I just got off the phone with Shouvik Paul, chief revenue officer of a company called Copyleaks, which licenses plagiarism-detection software to an array of clients ranging from universities to corporations to several major news outlets. The company’s latest development is a tool that takes things a step further by using AI to detect whether something was written using AI. There’s even a free browser plug-in that anyone can take for a spin, which identifies AI-derived copy with 99.2% accuracy, according to Paul. It could be an easy way to sniff out journalists who pull the wool over their editors’ eyes. (Or, in the case of the CNET imbroglio, publications that pull the wool over their readers’ eyes.) But Paul also hopes it can be used to help people identify potential misinformation and disinformation in the media ecosystem, especially heading into 2024. “In 2016, Russia had to physically hire people to go and write these things,” he said. “That costs money. Now, the cost is minimal and it’s a thousand times more scalable. It’s something we’re definitely gonna see and hear about in this upcoming election.”

    The veteran newsman and media entrepreneur Steven Brill shares Paul’s concern. “ChatGPT can get stuff out much faster and, frankly, in a much more articulate way,” he told me. “A lot of the Russian disinformation in 2016 wasn’t very good. The grammar and spelling was bad. This looks really smooth.” These days, Brill is the co-CEO and co-editor-in-chief of NewsGuard, a company whose journalists use data to score the trust and credibility of thousands of news and information websites. In recent weeks, NewsGuard analysts asked ChatGPT “to respond to a series of leading prompts relating to a sampling of 100 false narratives among NewsGuard’s proprietary database of 1,131 top misinformation narratives in the news…published before 2022.” (ChatGPT is primarily programmed on data through 2021.)

    “The results,” according to NewsGuard’s analysis, “confirm fears, including concerns expressed by OpenAI itself, about how the tool can be weaponized in the wrong hands. ChatGPT generated false narratives—including detailed news articles, essays, and TV scripts—for 80 of the 100 previously identified false narratives. For anyone unfamiliar with the issues or topics covered by this content, the results could easily come across as legitimate, and even authoritative.” The title of the analysis was positively ominous: “The Next Great Misinformation Superspreader: How ChatGPT Could Spread Toxic Misinformation At Unprecedented Scale.” On the bright side, “NewsGuard found that ChatGPT does have safeguards aimed at preventing it from spreading some examples of misinformation. Indeed, for some myths, it took NewsGuard as many as five tries to get the chatbot to relay misinformation, and its parent company has said that upcoming versions of the software will be more knowledgeable.”

    Joe Pompeo

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  • Investigative journalist John Williams Ntwali, often critical of Rwanda’s government, killed in a car accident

    Investigative journalist John Williams Ntwali, often critical of Rwanda’s government, killed in a car accident

    John Williams Ntwali, one of Rwanda’s few journalists who published stories critical of the government, has died. 

    Ntwali was the sole fatality in a car accident in Kigali on Wednesday, police spokesman John Bosco Kabera told Reuters. The driver of the other vehicle has been arrested and “the accident file is being processed for onward transmission to prosecution,” Kabera said.

    Numerous human rights organizations called for an independent investigation into his death, as numerous journalists, advocates, and critics of President Paul Kagame and his ruling party have mysteriously disappeared, been found dead, or been jailed.

    Human Rights Watch said he “joins a long list of people who have challenged the government and died in suspicious circumstances.”

    “John Williams Ntwali was a lifeline for many victims of human rights violations and often the only journalist who dared report on issues of political persecution and repression,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

    In Rwanda, the media environment is oppressive, tightly controlled, and dangerous. During the last two decades, 17 journalists have been killed, according to data collected by the Committee to Protect Journalists.  As the editor of the newspaper The Chronicles, Ntwali investigated high-profile political trials, corruption cases, and other sensitive issues. He often posted items on his social media feed and YouTube channel critical of the government’s approach. On Jan. 10, Ntwali posted on his Twitter account a report that the Rwandan government was meddling in religious administration.

    He had been arrested numerous times throughout his career and spoke often about fearing for his life and safety. 


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  • Bernard Kalb, former CBS News journalist, dies at age 100

    Bernard Kalb, former CBS News journalist, dies at age 100

    Bernard Kalb, veteran correspondent and former CBS News journalist, died Sunday, his daughter confirmed to CBS News. He was 100.

    A statement from Kalb’s family called him the “ultimate reporter” who had “boundless curiosity and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.” 

    Bernard Kalb in CBS Newsroom, 1972
    Bernard Kalb in CBS Newsroom. Image dated June 15, 1972.

    CBS News Archive / Getty Images


    “Above all, he was a person of impeccable integrity who embraced peoples and cultures all over the world and loved his family deeply,” the statement continued. “We have lost a journalistic giant. We will miss him enormously.”

    Kalb’s younger brother, Marvin Kalb, another former CBS News reporter, told The Washington Post that Kalb died at his home in the Washington suburbs following complications from a fall.

    Over the course of his journalistic career, which spanned over six decades, Kalb worked at CBS News from 1962 to 1980, and accompanied former President Richard Nixon to China during his historic trip in 1972. Kalb was also responsible for the opening CBS News’ Hong Kong bureau in 1972, was a Washington anchorman on “CBS Morning News” and was well-regarded for his reporting on Southeast Asian affairs.

    Portrait Of The Kalb Brothers In The CBS Newsroom
    Portrait of American journalists and brothers Bernard Kalb (left) and Marvin Kalb as they pose before a wall of electronic equipment, November 5, 1969.

    CBS News Archive / Getty Images


    Kalb also co-authored two books with his brother — one a biography on Henry Kissinger, and another a novel about the fall of Saigon.

    In addition to his prolific news career, Kalb is also known for a short employment stint at the U.S. State Department. In the announcement of his new role at the State Department in 1984, the New York Times called him “a widely traveled foreign correspondent,” who covered the office for eight years — through five secretaries of state — before being named as their spokesman. 

    “This is the first time that a journalist who covered the State Department has been named as its spokesman,” the Times wrote.

    Kalb resigned publicly in 1986, after a misinformation campaign following U.S. airstrikes that had hit Moammar Gadhafi’s compound earlier in the year. The Washington Post exposed the campaign, reporting that the U.S. had leaked false information to reporters, which Kalb knew nothing about, according to The Associated Press.

    State dept spokeman Bernard Kalb in 1986
    State dept. spokeman Bernard Kalb RE: Haiti elections in 1986.

    Cynthia Johnson / Getty Images


    “I am concerned about the impact of any such program on the credibility of the United States,” Kalb said, adding, “Anything that hurts America’s credibility, hurts America.” 

    He later returned to journalism, becoming the first host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” in 1992.

    He is survived by his wife, Phyllis, and his four daughters, Tanah, Marina, Claudia, and Sarinah, according to The Associated Press.

    C Mandler


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    C Mandler is a social media producer and trending content writer in New York, focusing on LGBTQ+ issues.

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  • What Happened to The New York Times’ Media Column?

    What Happened to The New York Times’ Media Column?

    It was this time last year that New York Times media columnist Ben Smith announced he’d be giving up one of the most coveted jobs in journalism. The former BuzzFeed editor’s abrupt departure quickly sparked a guessing game among media-watchers and members of the newsroom as to who would take his place. While Smith went on to build and launch Semafor, his new media start-up with cofounder Justin Smith, the Times has yet to fill his old slot. 

    I’m told people involved with hiring have solicited beat memos from journalists both inside and outside the paper, though it’s unclear what, if anything, has come of them. A few names outside have emerged as contenders, including the Washington Post media writer (and former Vanity Fair special correspondent) Sarah Ellison, former CNN anchor Brian Stelter, and Puck media columnist Dylan Byers; all three had conversations with newsroom leaders, according to sources. (Semafor’s Max Tani reported earlier on potential candidates in Smith’s new media newsletter, which is now blasted out on Sunday nights around the same time his old Times column used to appear online.) I’m told that Byers was in talks with management about the job but took himself out of the running late last year. Stelter, meanwhile, has had additional meetings with the Times in recent weeks. 

    It’s surprising for such a high-profile perch—one that Smith made a weekly destination for media junkies not seen since the David Carr era—to be dormant for this long. A Times insider last year told me that Smith’s departure presented an opportunity “for rethinking the focus” of its signature column. And yet, one person who talked to the Times for the gig told me they got the impression that the Times was still trying to figure out what they were doing with the column—and looking for a columnist to come to them with a clear vision for it. “We continue to seek to fill the position,” a Times spokesperson told me, “but don’t have anything further to share on our personnel processes.”

    Meanwhile, the paper’s media coverage is without a permanent media editor ever since editor Jim Windolf moved to a new role in Styles about a year ago. Joe Plambeck, an editor on the Business desk, has been editing a lot of the section’s copy in the interim. The Times approached Financial Times US business editor Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson about the media editor job, according to a source familiar with the information. (Edgecliffe-Johnson declined to comment.)

    Perhaps, one contributing factor to the delay is the number of cooks in the kitchen—among those involved in the columnist hiring process is business editor Ellen Pollock, deputy managing editor Sam Dolnick, and, of course, executive editor Joe Kahn—and the fact that the Times doesn’t seem to know what it even wants the column to be. That’s in stark contrast to Smith’s appointment, which famously came together after then executive editor Dean Baquet, knowing exactly what he wanted, took Smith out to a midwinter Lambs Club lunch. 

    Charlotte Klein

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  • CBS Weekend News, December 31, 2022

    CBS Weekend News, December 31, 2022

    CBS Weekend News, December 31, 2022 – CBS News


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    Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI dies at 95; Rubik’s Cube continues to inspire new generations of problem solvers

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  • Iconic news anchor Barbara Walters dead at 93

    Iconic news anchor Barbara Walters dead at 93

    Iconic news anchor Barbara Walters dead at 93 – CBS News


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    Trailblazing broadcaster Barbara Walters has died at 93. Walters is being remembered for transforming the world of broadcast news in a barrier-breaking career spanning half a century. Adriana Diaz has more on her illustrious career.

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  • Journalists, TV Personalities Honor Legendary Journalist Barbara Walters

    Journalists, TV Personalities Honor Legendary Journalist Barbara Walters

    Media personalities and journalists are paying tribute to legendary TV journalist Barbara Walters following her death at the age of 93 on Friday.

    Walters, whose career lasted over 50 years, leaves behind a legacy as a trailblazer as she became the first woman to co-host a national TV network’s evening news program – “ABC Evening News” – in 1976.

    Walters also impacted a number of the other programs during the course of her career, as well, such as co-founding “The View” in 1997, spending a quarter of a century as co-host on ABC News’ “20/20″ and her time at NBC’s “Today” show.

    Walters’ list of interviews includes every U.S. president since Richard Nixon, Michael Jackson, former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro as well as an interview with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1977.

    TV icon Oprah Winfrey wrote in an Instagram post on Friday that without Walters there wouldn’t be any woman in evening, morning and daily news – including herself.

    “She was indeed a Trailblazer. I did my very first television audition with her in mind the whole time,” Winfrey wrote.

    “Grateful that she was such a powerful and gracious role model. Grateful to have known her. Grateful to have followed in her Light.”

    “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts also echoed Winfrey’s classification of Walters as a “trailblazer.”

    “Forever grateful for her stellar example and for her friendship. Sending condolences to her daughter and family,” Roberts wrote on Twitter.

    Dan Rather, who anchored “CBS Evening News” for 24 years, described Walters as a “true pro” and referred to her death as a loss of “a pillar of professionalism, courage, and integrity.”

    “She outworked, out-thought, and out-hustled her competitors. She left the world the better for it. She will be deeply missed. RIP,” Rather wrote.

    Several other media personalities paid tribute to Walters and reflected on their shared moments with her.

    You can read their reactions to Walters’ death below.

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  • Elon Musk’s Twitter Wants Reporter To Take Down His Tweet – But He Won’t Give In

    Elon Musk’s Twitter Wants Reporter To Take Down His Tweet – But He Won’t Give In

    CNN correspondent Donie O’Sullivan, one of several journalists suspended from Twitter earlier this week, said he won’t succumb to demands from Elon Musk’s social media platform to delete a tweet that allegedly violated its “rules against posting private information.”

    O’Sullivan, a technology correspondent for CNN, told anchor Fredericka Whitfield said he has to agree to an action “at the behest of the billionaire” and remove a tweet where he reported about – but did not directly link to – the since-banned @ElonJet account that shared publicly available data on Musk’s private jet flights. (You can watch his comments on the network below).

    O’Sullivan – whose tweets are now visible following his “reinstatement” – told Whitfield that he could tweet again if he takes down his tweet about the @ElonJet account, something he said he isn’t planning to do.

    “There is an option to appeal. So that’s what I’m doing and we’ll see what’s happening…,” said O’Sullivan, who added that he believes The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell is set to appeal a tweet that Twitter said “violated” its rules.

    “…Well, we’ll see what happens. It’s all getting a bit absurd,” O’Sullivan said.

    O’Sullivan later added that the suspensions – along with Twitter’s call for accounts to either remove tweets or appeal the platform’s flagged violations in order to tweet again – “could potentially have a chilling effect” on those who report on Musk.

    You can listen to more of O’Sullivan’s remarks on CNN below.

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  • Lake George water study could delay commercial construction

    Lake George water study could delay commercial construction

    LAKE GEORGE — The Village Board is expected to announce a moratorium on any new commercial property water hookups in the town outside of the village in order to conduct a 10- to 12-week water study.

    The board will vote on the resolution at its December meeting. The moratorium is proposed for six months.

    According to a news release from the village, the board hired C.T. Male Engineering to conduct a study of the village’s water system to evaluate options for the growing needs of the area.

    Lake George Town Supervisor Dennis Dickinson said Richard Schermerhorn’s plans to develop housing at the former site of Water Slide World was a driving force in deciding to conduct the study.

    “We’ve had some interest from developers for large water usage projects and the village has enough water, but they want to make sure they can get to the volume needed for these projects, so that prompted us to have the water study done,” Dickinson said.

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    The village of Lake George water filtration system currently serves over 1,800 residents and businesses in the town and village of the Lake George. The town and village boards have agreed to conduct a study looking at options to continue to provide water services to the growing development in the area.




    While the town and village both operate water filtration plants, the town-operated facility in Diamond Point serves fewer than 100 residents with a well water system, while the village plant serves over 1,800 residents in the village and town with more than 1,400 water service connections.

    Currently, the village water is pumped directly from Lake George by a pump station on Beach Road to a modern water filtration station on Ottawa Street and distributed throughout the system.

    The village supplies users north to Hearthstone Park on Route 9N and south to Route 9L, as well as on the east side of the lake.

    The village news release not only cited the plans for the old Water Slide World site, but also the recent conversion of the old Ramada Inn into residences and multiple other condo developments on Route 9L and Bloody Pond Road, as reasons to conduct the water study and explore options for services.







    photo 2

    Demolition was ongoing this fall at the former home of Water Slide World, after real estate developer Richard Schermerhorn purchased the property with plans to build housing on the site. The plans, while not yet submitted to the town of Lake George, are a driving force behind the decision for a townwide water study.



    Jana DeCamilla



    “Village officials are concerned that the current filtration plant will not be able to service the expected higher volume and have joined with the Town Board to finance the $43,000 study. The study is expected to take 12-14 weeks,” Tuesday’s release states.

    The study is meant to examine the present capacity of the system, point out areas of concern or possible limitations and provide conceptual designs of improvement to continue to accept additional customers in the planned areas of development.

    “We do not want to hinder growth in the town of Lake George,” village Mayor Bob Blais said. “We want to be able to service all customers that wish village water in the town-outside-village and at the same time maintain an adequate reserve for the village.”

    Jana DeCamilla is a staff writer who covers Moreau, Queensbury, Warren County and Lake George. She can be reached at 518-903-9937 or jdecamilla@poststar.com.

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  • Protecting Journalists Is Protecting Freedom Of Expression For All

    Protecting Journalists Is Protecting Freedom Of Expression For All

    In October 2022, the European Parliament published its commissioned study concerning safety of journalists and media freedom globally which found the progressive erosion of media freedom around the world. The study concluded that “impunity remains unacceptably high, with most cases of killings remaining unresolved. Imprisonments are on the rise, while online spaces are becoming increasingly hostile and replete with gender-based hate speech.”

    The study cited data collected by the Committee to Protect Journalists indicating that a majority of killings between 2012 and 2021 occurred in 11 countries, including Syria (137 killings), Iraq (39), Somalia (35), Mexico (33), Afghanistan (31), India (27), Pakistan (22), Brazil (21), Yemen (19), Philippines (16) and Bangladesh (11). The study found that a majority of fatalities was due to journalists being killed by way of reprisal for their work, while some were killed in a battlefield or in a military context. “Among those killed because of their work, 28.8% were working on political journalism, 23.8% were war reporters, 15.8% were human rights reporters, while 10.7% were investigating crime and 9.6% corruption cases.”

    Such killings are met with glaring impunity. The report refers to a data collected by the Committee to Protect Journalists which states that “from 224 cases of complete impunity during 2012-2021, 185 (82.6%) were recorded in 12 countries (…): Mexico (26 cases); Somalia (25); Syria (22); India (21); Afghanistan (17); Iraq (17); Philippines (14); Brazil (14); Pakistan (12); Bangladesh (7); South Sudan (5); and the Russian Federation (5).”

    Apart from such targeted killings, journalists are also subjected to imprisonments and other methods to use and abuse law to silence journalists. In 2021 only, the Committee to Protect Journalists recorded 293 cases of imprisonment. The mostly used charges in such cases included: “accusations of anti-state activities dominate (61.5%), ‘no charge’ (14.8 %), retaliatory action (11.7 %), false news (7 %) and defamation (3 %).”

    Other abuses of journalists include kidnappings and enforced disappearances. According to Reporters Without Borders, in 2021, at least 65 journalists and media workers were held hostage. Most hostage takings occurred in three countries: Syria (44); Iraq (11); and Yemen (9). One journalist was abducted in Mali. The Islamic State was responsible for 28 abductions, the Houthis in Yemen for 8 cases and the Syrian Jihadi group for 7 cases. According to Reporters Without Borders, 46 journalists disappeared between 2003 and 2021. The Committee to Protect Journalists recorded 69 journalist disappearances between 2002-2021 with Mexico topping the list with 15 cases (followed by Syria (10), Iraq (9) and Russia (7)).

    Such targeting of journalists requires comprehensive responses.

    On November 2, the U.N. marks the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, a day that the U.N. General Assembly established to urge states to “prevent violence against journalists and media workers, to ensure accountability through the conduct of impartial, speedy and effective investigations into all alleged violence against journalists and media workers falling within their jurisdiction and to bring the perpetrators of such crimes to justice and ensure that victims have access to appropriate remedies.” It calls upon member states to promote a safe environment, accommodating journalists in their work through legislative measures, raising awareness, carrying out adequate investigations, monitoring and reporting attacks committed against journalists, and by publicly condemning attacks.

    2022 also marks the 10th anniversary of the U.N. Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, the first concerted effort within the U.N. to address attacks and impunity of crimes against journalists.

    However, despite some steps done in this direction, it is clear that the promises to provide better protection for journalists is still unfulfilled. Unfortunately, as in many cases, state actors are the perpetrators of such attacks against journalists, there is little, if any, hope that the situation will ever be addressed. However, protecting journalists we must as protecting journalists is protecting freedom of expression for all.

    Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab, Contributor

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  • BBC tries to understand politics by creating fake Americans

    BBC tries to understand politics by creating fake Americans

    NEW YORK — Larry, a 71-year-old retired insurance broker and Donald Trump fan from Alabama, wouldn’t be likely to run into the liberal Emma, a 25-year-old graphic designer from New York City, on social media — even if they were both real.

    Each is a figment of BBC reporter Marianna Spring’s imagination. She created five fake Americans and opened social media accounts for them, part of an attempt to illustrate how disinformation spreads on sites like Facebook, Twitter and TikTok despite efforts to stop it, and how that impacts American politics.

    That’s also left Spring and the BBC vulnerable to charges that the project is ethically suspect in using false information to uncover false information.

    “We’re doing it with very good intentions because it’s important to understand what is going on,” Spring said. In the world of disinformation, “the U.S. is the key battleground,” she said.

    Spring’s reporting has appeared on BBC’s newscasts and website, as well as the weekly podcast “Americast,” the British view of news from the United States. She began the project in August with the midterm election campaign in mind but hopes to keep it going through 2024.

    Spring worked with the Pew Research Center in the U.S. to set up five archetypes. Besides the very conservative Larry and very liberal Emma, there’s Britney, a more populist conservative from Texas; Gabriela, a largely apolitical independent from Miami; and Michael, a Black teacher from Milwaukee who’s a moderate Democrat.

    With computer-generated photos, she set up accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok. The accounts are passive, meaning her “people” don’t have friends or make public comments.

    Spring, who uses five different phones labeled with each name, tends to the accounts to fill out their “personalities.” For instance, Emma is a lesbian who follows LGBTQ groups, is an atheist, takes an active interest in women’s issues and abortion rights, supports the legalization of marijuana and follows The New York Times and NPR.

    These “traits” are the bait, essentially, to see how the social media companies’ algorithms kick in and what material is sent their way.

    Through what she followed and liked, Britney was revealed as anti-vax and critical of big business, so she has been sent into several rabbit holes, Spring said. The account has received material, some with violent rhetoric, from groups falsely claiming Donald Trump won the 2020 election. She’s also been invited to join in with people who claim the Mar-a-Lago raid was “proof” Trump won and the state was out to get him, and groups that support conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

    Despite efforts by social media companies to combat disinformation, Spring said there’s still a considerable amount getting through, mostly from a far-right perspective.

    Gabriela, the non-aligned Latina mom who’s mostly expressed interest in music, fashion and how to save money while shopping, doesn’t follow political groups. But it’s far more likely that Republican-aligned material will show up in her feed.

    “The best thing you can do is understand how this works,” Spring said. “It makes us more aware of how we’re being targeted.”

    Most major social media companies prohibit impersonator accounts. Violators can be kicked off for creating them, although many evade the rules.

    Journalists have used several approaches to probe how the tech giants operate. For a story last year, the Wall Street Journal created more than 100 automated accounts to see how TikTok steered users in different directions. The nonprofit newsroom the Markup set up a panel of 1,200 people who agreed to have their web browsers studied for details on how Facebook and YouTube operated.

    “My job is to investigate misinformation and I’m setting up fake accounts,” Spring said. “The irony is not lost on me.”

    She’s obviously creative, said Aly Colon, a journalism ethics professor at Washington & Lee University. But what Spring called ironic disturbs him and other experts who believe there are above-board ways to report on this issue.

    “By creating these false identities, she violates what I believe is a fairly clear ethical standard in journalism,” said Bob Steele, retired ethics expert for the Poynter Institute. “We should not pretend that we are someone other than ourselves, with very few exceptions.”

    Spring said she believes the level of public interest in how these social media companies operate outweighs the deception involved.

    The BBC experiment can be valuable, but only shows part of how algorithms work, a mystery that largely evades people outside of the tech companies, said Samuel Woolley, director of the propaganda research lab in the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas.

    Algorithms also take cues from comments that people make on social media or in their interactions with friends — both things that BBC’s fake Americans don’t do, he said.

    “It’s like a journalist’s version of a field experiment,” Woolley said. “It’s running an experiment on a system but it’s pretty limited in its rigor.”

    From Spring’s perspective, if you want to see how an influence operation works, “you need to be on the front lines.”

    Since launching the five accounts, Spring said she logs on every few days to update each of them and see what they’re being fed.

    “I try to make it as realistic as possible,” she said. “I have these five personalities that I have to inhabit at any given time.”

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