New York Times: Dissecting Elon Musk’s Tweets: Memes, Rants, Private Parts and Echo Chamber. “In order to assess how the social network may evolve under Mr. Musk’s watch, The Times reviewed nearly 20,000 of his tweets, analyzing posts from recent years and images he published over the past decade, as well as the relatively small number of users that he follows.”
NiemanLab: @nytimes is now on TikTok. “When The New York Times launched its flagship TikTok this week, on January 24, it started with hard news, featuring Brandon Tsay, the 26-year-old who disarmed a gunman at a dance hall in Alhambra, California.”
Motherboard: Blockbuster NYTimes Story Accidentally Leaked Phone Numbers of Russian Soldiers Criticizing War. “In its investigation, the Times decided to publish only the first names of the quoted soldiers to protect their identities. The inclusion of apparent phone numbers undermines that effort. Armed with a phone number, Russian authorities may be able to track down who was critical of the government’s wartime efforts. Motherboard found the Times website included not only the numbers of apparent soldiers on these calls, but also the alleged family members back home.”
New York Times: Times Past. “The end of the year is an opportunity to look back and reflect. So today we’re bringing you something in that spirit: an interview with Jennifer Parrucci, a senior taxonomist at The Times, about the interesting things she has found digging through the paper’s 171-year archives.”
Gizmodo: New York Times Runs Bizarre Softball Article on FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried. “FTX filed for bankruptcy on Friday, leaving reasonable people to wonder how a cryptocurrency platform founded in 2019, which reached a valuation of $32 billion in 2021, could plummet to zero in such a short time. There’s a new piece in the New York Times which gained exclusive access to FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, but if you’re looking for answers, you’re not going to find it there.” I was wondering about the NYT article, which has a “What a scamp, boys will be boys” vibe. Gizmodo breaks down why it’s so weird.
New York Times: Personal Tech Has Changed. So Must Our Coverage of It.. “Our tech problems have become more complex, so we are rebooting the Tech Fix column to focus on the societal implications of the tech we use.”
New York Times: Showcasing 27 Published Experiments in AR Storytelling. “Spatial data, real-scale explainers, interactive visual stories, 3D art, and immersive environments can enhance our readers’ understanding of the world. Since 2020, R&D has experimented with dozens of these stories in collaboration with the newsroom using Instagram’s Spark AR platform.”
Lifehacker: This Bot Can Tell You How Good You Really Are at Wordle. “If you’ve played Wordle recently, you can visit the tool in the same browser and it’ll know how you made your guesses—but you can also upload a screenshot of a Wordle you have played in the past. I’m going to introduce you to the bot with some older screenshots, but then we’ll dive into strategy for today’s puzzle, number 293, so either stop reading or go solve it now if you don’t want to see spoilers.”
New York Times: Verifying Images of the War in Ukraine. “Before The Times can use footage from independent sources for its Ukraine reportage, its reporters and editors make sure they can verify its authenticity. The Visual Investigations team, which produces in-depth video journalism, such as how a U.S. military drone struck the wrong target and an analysis of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, finds and analyzes many of the files. Below, learn how Visual Investigations verifies content from Ukraine.”
New York Times: The New York Times launches a Telegram channel to deliver news about the war.. “To make our journalism more accessible to readers around the world, The New York Times has launched a new, dedicated channel on Telegram, a messaging platform with more than half a billion active users. This Telegram channel delivers reporting on the war from our continuous live blog, where Times journalists are providing witness accounts, interviews and breaking news from the conflict.”
GameRant: New York Times Shuts Down Wordle Archive. “Wordle Archive was a service dedicated to the preservation of previous Wordle answers, allowing fans to dip into the backlog and play older puzzles, dating all the way back to the first one. However, the service has since been shut down at the request of the New York Times, as announced by an update on the application’s webpage.”
NiemanLab: The New York Times debuts a fellowship for crossword constructors. “The New York Times announced a new fellowship for crossword constructors on Monday aimed at increasing the number of puzzles created by underrepresented groups, including women, people of color, and those in the LGBTQ community.”
NiemanLab: The New York Times hopes to hook listeners on audio. Will a new standalone app do the trick? . “The new app will feature the Times’ own podcasts alongside narrated versions of news, opinion, and magazine articles across a handful of publishers. For those who aren’t participating in the closed beta, nothing will change for the moment. The Times is not putting any podcasts behind a paywall or making them exclusive to the new app with this announcement; you can still listen to The Daily or The Ezra Klein Show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and wherever else you like to hit play.”
New York Times: How We Built a 3-D Model of the Collapsed Surfside Condo Tower. “To help readers understand more about the possible reasons for the building’s failure, one of the worst in U.S. history with 98 people killed, a Times team also began an investigation. Journalists from the Graphics and National desks, including two editors who are trained architects, collaborated to review the original designs and construct a 3-D model of the building. They also examined videos, engineering reports, 911 calls and photographs to glean details about what might have gone wrong.”
Deseret News: This tool shows you the smoke forecast for Utah and the West. “The New York Times has a new tool that will help you see the forecast for wildfire smoke in the coming days. The tool — which you can find here — tracks wildfires across the West. Right now, it shows three major fires in California.” I tried opening this in an incognito window and I was not paywalled.
