Need to Know
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Useful insights for people advancing quality, innovative and sustainable journalism
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You might have heard . . .
Can better corrections improve news readers’ trust? (Poynter)
. . . but did you know:
Admitting your mistakes increases accuracy but reduces audience trust, a new study finds (Nieman Lab)
A new study has found that while corrections do help readers understand information more clearly, they also lower trust in the news organization. And readers were more likely to understand a correction clearly if it came from the news outlet itself, rather than a third-party source like a media critic — but the hit to its credibility was the same. That’s why the report’s author, Brendan Nyhan, says that it’s still on the whole better for news organizations to make their own corrections. “In other words, you’re going to take the hit anyway, but the audience will be less well-informed if you don’t admit error yourself,” he says.
+ Noted: Texas Observer, legendary crusading liberal magazine, is closing and laying off its staff (The Texas Tribune); Alberto Ibargüen steps down at Knight Foundation after 18 years (Editor & Publisher); NPR cancels 4 podcasts amid major layoffs (NPR); Grid News' website to shutter (Axios)
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A holistic vision for local news ecosystems with Michael Bolden, CEO of the American Press Institute (Local News Matters Podcast)
In this conversation with the Local News Matters Podcast, API’s CEO Michael D. Bolden discusses “journalism’s importance for democracy, the need to listen with humility, the need to build healthy and supportive cultures, the role of metrics in news and much more.”
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New ChatGPT handbook helps publishers use AI for local news (Medium, Center for Cooperative Media)
Joe Amditis of the Center for Cooperative Media has created a new ebook called the Beginner’s prompt handbook: ChatGPT for local news publishers, available in both English and Spanish. He says the goal is to provide a high-quality guide (written by a human, rather than AI) “that would help local news publishers leverage the power of generative AI and automation to enhance their news production.” The book offers specific examples on how to write good prompts and unexpected use cases for newsrooms.
+ Related: ChatGPT started a new kind of AI race — and made text boxes cool again (The Verge); Axios’s software business raises cash to fund AI expansion (The Wall Street Journal)
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The El País reading club creates community among Spanish-language readers (Nieman Lab)
Last November, Spanish newspaper El País launched its first reading club. Now, the club boasts 1,100 members, mostly in Spain and Latin America. Any paying subscriber to the newspaper can join, and they’re added to a members-only Facebook group that allows them to talk to journalists, authors and fellow subscribers. The reading club was premised on the idea that people had read more during the pandemic and wanted to continue the tradition — and connect with fellow readers. Members in Spain enter a raffle to attend an in-person event with the author; the event is also live streamed for all members.
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An obit lover took her passion, and dead people’s life lessons, to TikTok (Poynter)
Mary McGreevy is a video producer who created Tips From Dead People, a TikTok account that recounts life lessons that she’s gleaned from obituaries. They can be inspiring, funny or irreverent, and she says they offer tips into “the good life.” McGreevy also co-founded Epilogg, an online platform for memorizing loved ones that goes beyond the “cold, incomplete snapshot” provided by a newspaper obituary. She says the TikTok channel is an ideal medium for sharing life lessons and “staying connected to what matters to her the most about obits — that people’s lives mean something,” writes Kristen Hare.
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DeSantis wants ‘media accountability.’ A new bill makes suing journalists easier. (The Washington Post)
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis “has made open antipathy toward ‘corporate media’ a key part of his brand in his rapid ascent in conservative politics,” write Elahe Izadi and Lori Rozsa. Now, a new bill is moving through the legislation in Florida that will make it easier to successfully sue news organizations for defamation. The bill is framed as a way for individual citizens to protect their own reputations. Opponents worry that one provision of the bill, which “presumes reporting cited to anonymous sources is false,” will make investigative reporting nearly impossible.
+ Related: Man at center of Jan. 6 conspiracy theory demands retraction from Fox (The New York Times)
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