Thursday, December 22, 2022

Welcome to the final edition of Reliable Sources in 2022! It's been quite the year. Thank you for sticking with us as we've traversed some challenging terrain together. Your readership means everything to us and we are grateful for it. We'll be back in your inbox on Monday, January 2.

Now, onward to the news. Scroll down for what the NFL-YouTube deal means for the future of media, how newsrooms are responding to TikTok's spying, and why the winter storm might spell some bad news for James Cameron. But first, the A1.

THE A1

The Year Ahead

CNN Photo Illustration/Fatih AktaÅ/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

At the end of every year, the non-profit journalism organization Nieman Lab asks a group of leading figures in the industry to predict what the future of media will look like in the next year. The predictions are posted throughout December on a rolling basis and Thursday marked the final day in which new predictions were published. I thought it would be fitting to begin the final edition of the newsletter this year highlighting the forecasts. Below are 10 I selected, but you can find the full list here.

► Jim VandeHei: "People will realize the idea that we had reached 'peak newsletter' was both stupid and undermined by the data and consumer preference."

► Jessica Maddox: "Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture: Content lives and dies by the number of people who engage with it. The press needs to stop giving attention away for free."

► Taylor Lorenz: "The 'creator economy' will get astroturfed: We cannot allow rich and powerful creators to disguise themselves as grassroots or to seize power online in order to promote extremist ideology."

► A.J. Bauer: "The good news is 2023 will be the year that journalists finally learn how not to cover right-wing extremism in the United States. The bad news? They'll learn by unwittingly bolstering its return to power in 2024."

► Priyanjana Bengani: "Partisan local news networks will collaborate: Networks with aligned interests will boost each other's narratives in a coordinated fashion to inundate readers with the same message."

► Brian Stelter: "Headlines, push alerts and social posts all tend to favor the news junkie over the grazer. There are sound business reasons for this — but it leaves a terrific amount of space for new businesses to emerge. And in 2023, they will."

► Alexandra Svokos: "Working harder to reach audiences where they are: There's a reason young people are looking to graphics in Instagram carousels to explain news topics to them."

► Nicholas Thompson: "New companies will appear that use AI to aggregate and summarize journalism; reporters will learn how to use the new tools to find ideas; writers will figure out how it can help them compose new stories or at least get through writer's block."

► Joanne McNeil: "Facebook and the media kiss and make up: Watch for Facebook to reemerge, promoting itself as the sensible, mature alternative to Elon Musk's Twitter chaos."

► Al Lucca: "Digital news design gets interesting again: Modern digital design has drained all sentiment and inventiveness from products we use on a daily basis. From streaming platforms and shopping apps to, of course, news websites, everything looks the same."

THE SIDEBAR

Chartbeat published its annual list of most engaging stories. ESPN's Jerry Sandusky investigation is No. 1, followed by the BBC's report on Queen Elizabeth II's death at No. 2. CNN had 36 stories on the top 100 list, the most of any publisher, followed by the BBC with 21. (Chartbeat)
Alex Sherman granted anonymity to 12 media executives so that they could candidly predict big media moves set for 2023. (CNBC)
Diane Garrett on why she believes Hollywood "is in for another bumpy ride in 2023." (Variety)
John Ourand has a few sports media predictions for the new year. (SPJ)
Nicholas Quah spoke to more than 220 people in the podcast industry to assemble this list of 2022's best podcasts. (Vulture)
Megan Garber, Sophie Gilbert, and Shirley Li have a solid list of the most essential television shows of 2022. (The Atlantic)
Dana Stevens breaks down the best feature films of 2022 — and includes helpful intel on where they are currently streaming. (Slate)
50 staffers and contributors at NPR worked to compile this list of 2022's 100 best songs. (NPR)

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

CNN Photo Illustration/Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images

TikTok's Spy Tactics: Employees at TikTok-parent ByteDance accessed user data to track journalists covering the company as they tried to identify the sources of leaks to the media, an internal investigation concluded, according to an explosive report Thursday from Forbes scoop machine Emily Baker-White. The Beijing-based ByteDance investigation, which was conducted by an outside law firm, failed to find any leaks and resulted in the firing of the company's chief internal auditor and the resignation of the senior executive he reported to, Baker-White reported. The journalists who were tracked included Baker-White and two of her colleagues, Katharine Schwab and Richard Nieva. All three formerly worked at BuzzFeed News before moving to Forbes. The Financial Times reported its own tech reporter Cristina Criddle, was also targeted. CNN's Clare Duffy has details here.

🔎 Zooming in: The explosive report comes at a perilous time for TikTok, which has seen a growing number of Republican governors ban the app on state devices over its Chinese ownership, adding pressure to high-stakes negotiations with the US government on a potential deal to address lingering national security concerns.

Here's how TikTok and the news outlets are responding to the revelation:

► TikTok: "The misconduct of these individuals, who are no longer employed at ByteDance, was an egregious misuse of their authority to obtain access to user data. This misbehavior is unacceptable, and not in line with our efforts across TikTok to earn the trust of our users."

► Forbes CCO Randall Lane: "This is a direct assault on the idea of a free press and its critical role in a functioning democracy. We await a direct response from ByteDance, as this raises fundamental questions about what they are doing with the information they compile from TikTok users."

► BuzzFeed News: "We are deeply disturbed by a report that ByteDance employees accessed the personal user data of a reporter for BuzzFeed News, showing a blatant disregard for the privacy and rights of journalists as well as TikTok users."

► Financial Times: "Spying on reporters, interfering with their work or intimidating their sources is completely unacceptable. We'll be investigating this story more fully before deciding our formal response."

► FCC commissioner Brendan Carr: "This should be the final nail in the coffin for the idea that U.S. officials can trust TikTok."

CNN Photo Illustration/Patrik Pleul/AFP/Getty Images

Still Locked Out: Thursday marks one week since Elon Musk banished several reporters from Twitter. And while the profiles of CNN's Donie O'Sullivan, The NYT's Ryan Mac, The WaPo's Drew Harwell, and VOA's Steve Herman have been made publicly viewable again, they all remain in Twitter jail unable to tweet. That's because Musk is requiring them to delete the tweets he falsely claimed shared his "exact real-time location" and violated Twitter's rules. O'Sullivan, Harwell and Herman have told me that they appealed the decision, but have not received any response. Spokespeople for CNN, The NYT, and The WaPo did not offer a comment on Thursday.

► It's also worth noting, Fox Business correspondent Susan Li remains totally banned from the platform. Li has said she was banned last Friday after a day of reporting on the bans of O'Sullivan, Mac, and Harwell. Fox News as a network has conspicuously declined to comment on the matter, but in a Thursday interview with Talking Biz News, Li insisted she "didn't break any of Twitter's official rules" and said she doesn't believe "being the arbiter of truth should rest on the shoulders of one person."

THE BUSINESS

CNN Photo Illustration/Jane Gershovich/Getty Images

YouTube Gets Its Ticket: It's official: Google has snagged the rights to the coveted "Sunday Ticket" for its YouTube TV service. The WSJ reported that the company paid a whopping $2 billion a year for the NFL rights, which are expected to last seven seasons, in just the latest sign that sports rights are slipping away from traditional linear television (DirecTV, in this case) and toward Big Tech-owned platforms. The completion of the deal means that Apple, Amazon, and Google are now all in on the sports media business. Ex-ESPN exec Josh Kosner put it like to The NYT: "With this deal, the three major sleeping giants have all woken up."

🔎 Zooming in: But do the economics make sense? The Ankler's Sean McNulty described the math on the deal as "tough" and Vox's Peter Kafka called it "head scratching." Kafka elaborated, "Obviously Google can afford to blow billions without near-term return. But not forever. Best possible argument is that this helps set them up to buy actual NFL broadcast rights one day. But NFL will hang on to broadcast, while slicing off slivers to digital, as long as it can."

📖 Recommended read: THR's Alex Weprin argues that with the YouTube deal, the NFL "has cemented itself as the most powerful force in entertainment."

IN THE INDUSTRY

"A Delaware Supreme Court judge has agreed to consolidate Dominion Voting Systems' defamation suit against Fox News, meaning there won't be a second trial to sue the network's parent company, Fox Corp.," Stephen Battaglio reports. (LAT)
"Today I say goodbye": Ana Cabrera said goodbye to CNN viewers after making the decision to depart the network. (Twitter)
Longtime Philadelphia WPVI-TV anchor Jim Gardner signed off after a 46-year career: "The American free press has been under attack, not by forces from other countries, but from elements embedded in our own society, and even our own government. It worries me deeply." (Inquirer)
Does the Friday news dump still work? Drawing on data, Eleanor Hawkins writes that the tactic "needs an upgrade." (Axios)

MEDIA MOVES

Meaghan Tobin has joined WaPo as a China correspondent, based initially in Taiwan. (WaPo)
Deanna Donegan has been promoted to art director of Well at The NYT. (NYT)
The Association of Film Commissioners International has named Jaclyn Philpott as its first executive director. (THR)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/zz/John Nacion/STAR MAX/IPx/AP

Avoiding Elon: The most serious problem facing Twitter for Elon Musk continues to be the reality that advertisers — who account for the vast majority of the company's revenue — want nothing to do with the platform with him at the helm. New data from research firm Pathmatics found that a staggering 70% of the company's top 100 advertisers have ditched the social media platform since Musk took over.

🔎 Zooming in: The WSJ's Suzanne Vranica, Patience Haggin, and Alexa Corse reported that Musk's lieutenants "have tried to calm fears and drum up interest" in recent weeks. But it doesn't appear to be working. "He has made it so that advertisers can't avoid the association. He created that vulnerability and he continues to double down on it," one ad buyer commented to the paper. Read the full story here.

TOO MANY TABS

Twitter is now publicly displaying the number of impressions each tweet receives. As Alex Kantrowitz notes, it shows "there's a real incentive to being a [Musk] reply guy." (Twitter)
Google has told employees that more of them might be at risk for low performance ratings next year. (CNBC)
The National Crime Prevention Council is asking the Department of Justice to probe Snapchat over fentanyl sales. (Associated Press)
Alex Thompson writes about Eric Schmidt's "growing influence" inside the Biden White House, reporting that he is "helping to fund the salaries of more than two dozen officials." (POLITICO)
The FBI warned that cybercriminals are placing ads in search results to impersonate brands, and recommends using an ad blocker. (TechCrunch)
Karen Weise and David McCabe write about how Microsoft intends to employ a "nice guy" strategy to close its $69 billion Activision deal. (NYT)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Caitlin Ochs/Reuters

First in Reliable | Sean Hall Speaks: CNN FlashDocs is set to take a look at the Taylor Swift "Shake It Off" copyright lawsuit with "Taking On Taylor Swift," which will air Friday at 9pm. In the documentary, plaintiff Sean Hall speaks out for the first time since he took legal action in 2017. "I wasn't nervous. I wasn't scared," Hall told CNN, about filing suit. He went on to say he's "gotten death threats," but added that "it doesn't faze" him. "There have been points in time where it's been a thing," he said. "But scared? I wouldn't say scared. The situation is bigger than me."

The Cold Embrace of Christmas: "Avatar: The Way of Water" continues to make its splash across the world, having now surpassed $600 million at the global box office. But, of course, the path to $2 billion — which filmmaker James Cameron has said is the "break even" mark — is not an easy one. While the movie has been within projections this week, the winter storm wreaking havoc across the country could hinder ticket sales. "Christmas Eve landing on a Saturday, combined with the nationwide winter storm impact, are going to compound that for not just Avatar but all movies," Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at Box Office Pro, told me Thursday. The film has also faced an uphill climb in the key Chinese market, with an uptick of Covid causing issues there. But as Robbins noted about the film's success, "It's all about the long haul this time of year. Post-New Year's will give a more objective view on where the film is likely to finish."

OFF STAGE

Charlie Cox says "Daredevil" likely "won't be as gory" when it is reincarnated on Disney+. (Variety)
See some new photos from "Yellowjackets" season two. (TV Line)
Netflix has green lit a spinoff series of "Inside the World's Toughest Prisons." (Deadline)

Thank you for reading! This newsletter was edited by Jon Passantino. Have feedback? Send us an email here. Again, this is the final edition of 2022. We will be back in your inbox next year.