Top News:
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Platformer is leaving Substack and migrating to Ghost, saying it doesn't believe Substack will publicly commit to proactively removing pro-Nazi material — After much consideration, we have decided to move Platformer off of Substack. Over the next few days, the publication will migrate …
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David W. Chen / New York Times:
As deepfakes warp elections overseas, US state legislators race to enact laws, with varying penalties, requiring disclosure of the use of AI in political ads — Sophisticated political deepfakes have warped elections overseas. Can U.S. legislators act fast enough to make A.I. campaign ads more transparent?
Discussion:
@votepenelope, more at Techmeme »
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Chavi Mehta / Reuters:
Insider Intelligence: US political ad spend is expected to rise to $12.32B in 2024, up ~30% from 2020, with traditional media accounting for 71.9% of all spend — U.S. political advertising spend will likely jump by nearly a third in 2024 over the previous U.S. presidential election year …
Katie Strang / The Athletic:
Emmy Awards organizer NATAS says ESPN won 30+ Emmys using fake names in its “College GameDay” entries; ESPN blames “a misguided attempt” and returns the awards — In March 2023, Shelley Smith, who worked 26 years as an on-air reporter for ESPN, received a call from Stephanie Druley …
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Oliver Darcy / CNN:
Sources: Cheddar News is hanging on by a thin thread, with no more than a half-dozen or so editorial staffers, down from a couple dozen in December 2023 — Not too long ago, on the 25th and 26th floors of the One State Street tower in lower Manhattan, a vibrant newsroom existed.
Discussion:
@oliverdarcy@threads.net and Talking Biz News
Tom Gerken / BBC:
Many prominent voice actors say they weren't told about the SAG-AFTRA's deal with Replica Studios setting out how AI-generated voices can be used in video games — Prominent voice actors say they weren't told about a landmark deal setting out how voices generated by artificial intelligence (AI) can be used in games.
Discussion:
gamedeveloper, NME, Decrypt, The Verge and GamesHub
Michael M. Grynbaum / New York Times:
CNN, Fox, and MSNBC carried Trump's conference after his NY fraud trial live, a reminder of his media advantage and readiness to exploit his trials — The coverage was a stark reminder that the former president's legal troubles offer an outsize media platform as he pursues the Republican nomination.
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Reuters, Adweek, Vanity Fair, The Hollywood Reporter, Associated Press, The Hill, Forbes and Mediaite
Neha Gupta / WAN-IFRA:
Project Oasis, a research initiative focusing on european digital-native media outlets, finds those with sales staff average 6x more revenue than those without — Digital native companies with dedicated sales teams and solid gender diversity are more successful than those that do not …
Discussion:
@nehahaz
Jon Allsop / Columbia Journalism Review:
A look at the post-election battle over Poland's state-run media, as the new moderate government aims to dismantle the hard right party's media legacy — A little over a year ago, Civic Platform, then the main opposition party in Poland, proposed a bill aimed at doing away …
Discussion:
Fox News, American Press Institute and New York Times
Michael Hardy / Texas Monthly:
Houston Landing journalists write to the board to reverse CEO Peter Bhatia firing EIC Mizanur Rahman and an investigative reporter; Bhatia cited a “reset” — Seven months after its official debut, a billionaire-funded media start-up just fired its editor and top investigative reporter.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Nieman Lab, @gusbova, @mkerrhardy, @juliaguilbeau, @amandabecker, @michaelgreshko, @jbenton, @robertdownen_, @brizzyc, @mattdpearce, @brookekushwaha, @jlbuch and Poynter
Charisma Madarang / Rolling Stone:
Dudesy, an AI-driven podcast curated by humans, releases an hour-long comedy special featuring an AI-generated recreation of George Carlin, who died in 2008 — The hour-long special arrived from Dudesy, a podcast run by artificial intelligence … Following the special's release …
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Todd Spangler / Variety:
Internal memo: Audible is laying off about 5% of its employees, or just over 100 staffers; a source says the layoffs do not affect Audible's content teams — The cutbacks come as other Amazon groups — including Prime Video, Amazon MGM Studios and Twitch — this week are pink-slipping several hundred workers.
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