Bloomberg: Russia ‘Spits’ on EU Sanctions in Escalating Propaganda Battle. “The European Union promised to shut down the flow of Vladimir Putin’s propaganda after Russia invaded Ukraine, slapping sanctions on state-backed media RT and Sputnik days after the attack. Nearly two years into the war, the Kremlin appears to have the last laugh.”
Poynter: How Russian falsehoods spread to the US through faux local news. “After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, tech platforms enforced bans against Russian state media. But actors found ways to circumvent these bans and continue circulating Russian propaganda — often through websites posing local news.”
NiemanLab: A new station in Mexico City is making radio for social media — and filling local news gaps. “What happens when a capital city of 22 million people and 16 boroughs doesn’t have enough local news sources to cover its massiveness Welcome to Mexico City, Mexico, where this is a reality that a new radio station is trying to address. Radio Chilango, launched on August 28, is the newest wing of Chilango, a news and culture magazine covering Mexico City. The station is starting off with four shows: The morning show ‘¿Qué chilangos pasa?’ discusses need-to-know news for the day, along with tips for surviving the unique challenges of the megalopolis (the traffic, the air pollution, gentrification, the works).”
Poynter: How some local newsrooms are using AI. “When OpenAI unveiled its natural language model ChatGPT in November, local news publishers quickly took notice, imagining what the tool could do for their journalism. One of them was Scott Brodbeck, founder and CEO of Local News Now, which operates local news sites in Virginia including flagship ARLnow.”
NiemanLab: Google News Initiative grants in Africa and the Middle East yield mixed results, study finds. “Innovation — in newsrooms and elsewhere — takes more than a new idea. It requires transforming that idea into value for the organization… A new study investigates reasons that one-year grants supplied by Google News Initiative in Africa and the Middle East resulted in a number of projects that fall short of that definition, instead producing ‘minimum viable products’ that were under-realized versions of the original ideas.”
NiemanLab: Pocket will show users more local news. “On Wednesday, Pocket, which is owned by Mozilla, launched a partnership with the American Journalism Project to bring its adherents, and Firefox browser users, more of a type of story that previously flew under the radar of its recommendation system: local news.”
NiemanLab: AI will soon be able to cover public meetings. But should it?. ‘”Is it ready for primetime, ready to be released to the masses? Absolutely not…But can it be done? Can you design an AI system that attends a city meeting and generates a story? Yeah, I did it.”‘
The Verge: Gannett lawsuit claims Google’s ad monopoly is hurting the news business. “Gannett filed a federal lawsuit against Google and parent company Alphabet on Tuesday, alleging that Google has monopolies on the ad tech market that have hurt local news.”
Today’s Gizmo combines the authority of the FCC TV license database with local news search. And when I say local, I mean, like, a street. Here’s how StreetScoop Local News Search works: – Enter an address in the United States – The address converts to latitude/longitude – A dataset is consulted to find the nearest large city to that address – That city name is searched in the FCC’s TV permit database and the domain names of local TV stations are aggregated into a query string – The query string along with the street name are bundled into a Google search which opens in a new window. Local news search! Authoritative sources!
Do you like news? Do you like local news? Do you like local news that is confirmed to be local news and not just what some SEO convinced Google was local news? I made something for you. Marion’s Monocle v2 uses the #FCC license database to look up American #TV stations by state and group them by city. Once found, you can either explore the stations’ Web space via a Google search or look for recent news stories indexed by Google News. It’s free, no ads except for a Patreon banner. https://searchgizmos.com/mm2/.
Hold the Front Page: Local news archive launched with €676,000 grant disappears offline. “An online local newspaper archive launched with a €676,000 Google grant has disappeared without explanation…. The project was set up after securing funding from Google’s Digital News Innovation Fund in 2017, but now appears to have been scrapped by Archant’s new owner Newsquest.”
HoldTheFrontPage: Websites take a back seat as publisher changes tack at nine regional titles. “A regional publisher is making nine titles ‘newsletter-led’ enterprises that will see their websites take a back seat. Reach plc has announced the move at its digital-only ‘Live’ titles covering Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Sussex and Hampshire.”
Reuters: German Cartel Office Ends Proceedings Against Google News Showcase. “Germany’s cartel office has concluded proceedings against Google over its online news service after the tech giant made several changes benefiting publishers, the office said on Wednesday.”
Northwestern Local News Initiative: Pro-Journalism Legislation Faces a Make-or-Break Session. “The clock is ticking on the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act. With the midterm elections coming up on Nov. 8, the lame-duck session could be the last realistic chance for Congress to pass this bipartisan effort to make Google and Facebook pay for local news content on their platforms.”
WINA: Petition launched to bring The Hook archives back online. “The publishers of C-Ville Weekly, who also published The Hook before it was shut down in 2013, transferred ownership of its website/archive to an anonymous buyer last year. Earlier this year, the buyer removed the website/archive from the internet. The publishers of C-Ville Weekly’s have so far refused to explain why they made the decision to sell.”
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