Journalism Today. 25 Nov 2024

By Gretel Kahn and Marina Adami

🗞️ 3 top news stories

1. Israel cuts all ties with Haaretz. The Israeli government approved a proposal by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi that mandates any government-funded body from ceasing to engage with the newspaper Haaretz and stop placing any advertisements in the paper. The decision, according to the government's explanation, is a reaction to "many editorials that have hurt the legitimacy of the state of Israel and its right to self defence.” | Read

📚 From our archive. Back in August, we published a piece by our colleague Matthew Leake exploring how war is already the 'new normal' for many newsrooms in the Middle East. Editors at two of the leading newsrooms in the region explain how they stay resilient, care for their staff and stick to their editorial principles under the most challenging of circumstances. The piece includes the voices of two respected editors: Noa Landau, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Israel’s influential Haaretz newspaper, and Nayla Tueni, Editor-in-Chief of Lebanon’s An-Nahar newspaper. | Read

2. The new White House Press Secretary. President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Karoline Leavitt as his White House press secretary. At 27, Leavitt will be the youngest White House press secretary ever. She has been currently serving as the national press secretary for Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. | Read

• A quote. “There is a hostile press that covers the president dishonestly, and they need to be held accountable for that. But I think if this election taught us anything, it's that the American people are no longer listening to the news media, the legacy news media, and are getting their news and opinions from outside voices like podcasters and its social influencers, and President Trump did an excellent job on the campaign of engaging with those outside voices,” said Leavitt in an interview with New Hampshire’s Seacoastonline. 

3. BBC Expands its podcasting licence deal. BBC Sounds has announced a licensing deal for two popular Goalhanger titles, The Rest Is Football and The Rest Is History meaning audiences will be able to enjoy episodes on BBC Sounds starting next week. The arrangement comes in the form of a one-year deal with the opportunity to extend, with episodes remaining available on BBC Sounds for three years. The move is the latest in a string of successful acquisitions by BBC Sounds, aiming to broaden and deepen the content offered by acquiring independently produced podcasts, licensed for the UK, non-exclusively and ad-free. | Read

📚 From our archive. Our 2023 Digital News Report had a special chapter on what audiences are looking for when consuming podcasts. Across these markets, overall usage has grown from just over a quarter of our sample to about a third (34%). Podcast listeners tend to be richer, better educated, and crucially much younger: younger people in most countries are more likely to say they prefer to listen to news content when compared with older groups. Specialist subjects, like history, are the most popular amongst audiences with 15% of our sample saying they listened to that type of podcast in the last month while sports is the least popular with 7%. | Read

📊 Chart of the day

🤐What do audiences think about political influence on the media? Our Digital News Report 2022 found that audience members in southern and eastern Europe were significantly less likely to feel the news media was independent of political influence than those in northern European countries. | Read the report

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☕Coffee break

How can journalists use generative AI tools in their work? Chris Moran, the Guardian’s head of editorial innovation, has listed some tips on using Google’s new tool NotebookLM in this thread on Bluesky, including for storing and sharing documents, searching and comparing them. If you’re mostly interested in ChatGPT, this blog post is a good place to start exploring applications to journalistic work. 

A UK journalist’s experience of harassment is part of a new police campaign against online abuse launched on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (25 November). The journalist, who is a woman, was sent unsolicited and non-consensual pornographic content and misogynistic messages. This is a crime in the UK. | Read

A local Hawaii newspaper has ‘fired’ its AI broadcasters after just two months. It appears a negative reception from the outlet’s audience may have played a part in the decision. The two AI avatars would ‘discuss’ news topics between themselves in videos adapted from articles, but failed to move on from a ‘matter-of-fact’, emotionless tone and struggled with certain words and Hawaiian names. | Read

📚 One piece from our archive

Many are discussing the impact of male podcasters and news influencers following Trump’s re-election in the US. But what about female news influencers? Gretel Kahn talked to three female journalists with large online platforms to learn more about their experiences and the obstacles they face. | Read

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