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Video on 404 Media’s YouTube channel (1 hr) by Staff 12/31/24
The Media Year in Review
Here’s a special year in review episode! We riff on the last year in AI, media, journalism, and more. We’ll be back with a normal news show in the new year!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5RuHgk52MM
Article in Poynter By Rick Edwards, 12/23/24
Headline: “Opinion | The most-read news stories of 2024? Lots of politics but some surprises, too”
Subhead: “On one major list, half of the top 10 were from CNN — including several true romance stories about ‘chance encounters’ “
“You would expect that in the feverish year now closing, politics would draw digital readers like no other topic. And you would be right. But audiences also spent a lot of time on engaging narratives, often about murders and violence, but not always.
“That’s the pattern in the 10th edition of Chartbeat’s annual ‘most engaging stories’ list — as measured in story-by-story minutes each is read on its 60,000 publisher client sites. Five of the top 10 stories were about the presidential race. But at the very top of the list was something else entirely: a CNN story on the arrest of the father of a school shooter near Atlanta who provided the gun.”
https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2024/top-news-stories-2024-chartbeat-cnn-new-york/
Article in The Guardian by Margaret Sullivan, 12/20/24
Headline: “US media is in big trouble – but I find far less to be worried about at the Guardian”
Subhead: “The US is in urgent need of well-funded, truly independent journalism in 2025”
“As a media critic and longtime journalist, I have serious worries about today’s news environment and its effect on democracy.
“I’m concerned about corporate or chain ownership of news outlets that can skew the decision-making and priorities of media leaders. The bottom line seems to loom larger, at times, than tried-and-true journalistic standards do.
“I’m concerned about declining trust in the press, which causes citizens to decide that they can’t believe anything they read or hear. That’s a dangerous situation for democracy, which must have truth as its firm foundation.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/31/us-media-guardian
Article in the New York Times by Emma Bubola, 12/27/24
Headline: “Italian Journalist Is Detained While Reporting in Iran”
Cecilia Sala, 29, was arrested on Dec. 19, but news of her detention only became public on Friday. The reason for the arrest of Ms. Sala, a well-known reporter, has not been made public.
“A prominent Italian journalist was arrested in Iran and jailed in the country’s infamous Evin prison after spending days reporting in Tehran, Italian officials said.
Italy’s foreign ministry said Cecilia Sala, 29, was arrested on Dec. 19, but news of her arrest and detention only became public on Friday. The reason for the arrest of Ms. Sala, one of Italy’s most renowned foreign correspondents, has not yet been made public.
R. Crumb
Article in the Daily Beast by Janna Brancolini, 12/27/24
Headline: “Right-Wing Media’s Hilarious Self-Own Over Tulsi Gabbard”
Subhead: “Writers for the National Review are duking it out in print over Trump’s pick for head of national intelligence.”
“A writer for the right-wing National Review has eviscerated his own magazine for two editorials it ran in support of Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for head of national intelligence.
“The conservative-media stalwart had previously published pieces by former CIA counterterrorism director Bernard Hudson and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) arguing that decades of instability in the Middle East have eroded Americans’ faith in the intelligence community.”
Article in The Giardian by Cecelia Nowell, 12/28/24
Headline: “Trump’s threat to defund all US public media has NPR and PBS on the back foot”
Subhead: “President-elect’s agenda and Project 2025 playbook align in stripping Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s license”
“On the campaign trail this year, Donald Trump routinely criticized US media. The president-elect called for CBS to be stripped of its broadcast license after it aired an interview with Kamala Harris, refused to participate in an interview with 60 Minutes and routinely called journalists the “enemy of the people”.
“But perhaps no American media has attracted as much ire from the president-elect as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – a non-profit corporation created by federal law in 1967 to distribute funding to public media organizations like PBS and NPR. . . ”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/28/trump-npr-pbs-funding-cut
Article in Slashdot, 12/27/24
Headline: “Meta Envisages Social Media Filled with AI-generated Users”
“Meta is betting that characters generated by AI will fill its social media platforms in the next few years as it looks to the fast-developing technology to drive engagement with its 3 billion users.”
“. . .” ‘We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do,’ said Connor Hayes, vice-president of product for generative AI at Meta. ‘They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform … that’s where we see all of this going,’ ”
Article in The Hill by Dominick Mastrangelo, 12/27/24
Headline: “Kari Lake sparks concerns at Voice of America”
“President-elect Trump has nominated GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake to lead Voice of America (VOA), a decision that is renewing worries of partisan meddling at the government-funded global news agency.
“Lake, who ran for governor and senator in Arizona and previously was a local news anchor, is one of a number of loyalists Trump has called on to serve in his Cabinet and administration.
“. . .But Lake’s attacks on the media and history of floating unfounded theories about voter fraud are sparking widespread concern that the outlet could be used by the federal government as a megaphone to push pro-Trump propaganda around the world.”
https://thehill.com/media/5048504-trump-nominates-lake-voa-concerns/
Article in the New York Times by Benjamin Mullin and Kate Conger, 12/27/24
Headline: “NPR and PBS Stations Brace for Funding Battle Under Trump”
Subhead: “Republicans in Congress have tried to defund public media for decades. With the help of Elon Musk, could they finally make good on their threat?”
“Elon Musk is gunning for public media.
“In his new role advising President-elect Donald J. Trump, Mr. Musk has floated sweeping cuts to the federal government, including the elimination of entire departments and the firing of agency leaders. One of the most concrete proposals on his list is eliminating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding that the government funnels to PBS and NPR stations, home to cultural touchstones like Elmo, Big Bird and “Fresh Air.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/27/business/media/npr-pbs-funding-trump-musk.html
ARticle in The Hill by Ashleigh Fields, 12/26/24
Headline: “Most Americans want to reduce political news consumption due to fatigue: Survey”
“Americans feel like they should increasingly avoid political news content, according to a study published Thursday by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago.
Their research found 65 percent of adults have felt the need to limit their media consumption about the government and politics due to information overload, fatigue, or similar reasons, and half feel the same for overseas conflicts.
Democrats were the demographic most likely to say they feel the need to avoid media referencing the government and politics, with 72 percent of party participants saying they avoid the topic in the survey.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5056424-americans-political-news-consumption-poll/