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Thursday, November 15, 2018
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How The Wall Street Journal is preparing its journalists to detect deepfakes“We have seen this rapid rise in deep learning technology and the question is: Is that going to keep going, or is it plateauing? What’s going to happen next?” By Francesco Marconi and Till Daldrup. |
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Consumers love smart speakers. They don’t love news on smart speakers. (At least not yet.)People are still much more likely to use smart speakers for music and weather than news. But that could change as news organizations design news briefings specifically for the speakers. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
CNN Business / Brian Stelter
Judge postpones — until Friday — his decision in CNN’s White House lawsuit →
“Burnham, who’s been tasked with defending President Trump and several White House aides from CNN and Jim Acosta’s lawsuit, was responding to a hypothetical from Kelly. Burnham said that it would be perfectly legal for the White House to revoke a journalist’s press pass if it didn’t agree with their reporting. ‘As a matter of law… yes,’ he said.”
Medium / Paula Montañà Tor
Six questions you should ask yourself before launching a membership model →
Including: “How do you feel about being transparent and vulnerable?”
The New York Times / Sheera Frenkel, Nicholas Confessore, Cecilia Kang, Matthew Rosenberg, Jack Nicas
“You threw us under the bus!”: How Facebook’s leaders fought internally through crisis →
“While Mr. Zuckerberg has conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook's critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, lobbying a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.” Here’s the Times’ TLDR.
Facebook Newsroom
“New York Times Update”, Facebook’s response to the investigation →
“We did not name Russia in our April 2017 white paper — but instead cited a US Government report in a footnote about Russian activity — because we felt that the US Director of National Intelligence was best placed to determine the source…. The New York Times is wrong to suggest that we ever asked Definers to pay for or write articles on Facebook's behalf – or to spread misinformation.”
Reuters / Stephen Kalin
Saudi Arabia seeks the death penalty for five out of 11 subjects charged with Jamal Khashoggi’s murder →
Deputy public prosecutor and spokesman Shalaan al-Shalaan “said the Washington Post columnist was murdered after ‘negotiations’ for his return to the kingdom failed and that the killing was ordered by the head of a negotiating team sent to repatriate Khashoggi after he decided it was unfeasible to remove him from the consulate.”
Los Angeles Times / Benjamin Oreskes
How the Chico Enterprise-Record is reporting on its hometown Camp fire →
“The challenge, though, has been where to deliver the Paradise Post. ‘How do you distribute a newspaper to a town that's not there?’ So they have been taking the full press run to evacuation centers while updating the website constantly.”
Variety / Todd Spangler
After major restructuring, digital media company Mitu rehires its CEO and raises $10 million →
“Burstin's return to L.A.-based Mitu comes following the layoff of around 30% of its employees in July, as the company shut down its longer-form, premium productions and cut its marketing team. As part of the refocusing, CEO Herb Scannell — who had been hired 10 months earlier — resigned, while president and co-founder Beatriz Acevedo stepped down to serve in an advisory capacity.”
The New York Times / Jack Nicas
Why this tech reporter uses burner phones and doorbells to cover Silicon Valley →
“But now, of course, there's an app for that. It's called Burner and it lets you make calls and send texts with different phone numbers. I can even pick the area code so my subject thinks I'm calling from nearby, just like the spammers! (We have a lot in common, some people say.)”
Digiday / Max Willens
How McClatchy plans to pursue national advertisers’ digital budgets →
“In the third quarter of 2018, McClatchy's overall ad revenues declined 18 percent to $95 million. But digital ad revenue rose 47 percent year over year. Digital ad revenue also surpassed print advertising for the first time during the third quarter, the company said in its earnings. Most of the digital ad growth has been driven by video ads, digital marketing services provided through Excelerate and branded content programs, which have been growing healthily since McClatchy launched a branded content studio a little over two years ago, [new advertising head Nick] Johnson said.”
Deadline / Dino-Ray Ramos
Vox’s Netflix show “Explained” gets a second season →
As we wrote earlier this year at Nieman Lab, “Vox's new Netflix series is really good, but it doesn't get us any closer to figuring out what news on streaming platforms looks like.” TBD on Season 2.