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Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Elon Musk sees X's revenue drop, Alex Jones spreads deranged conspiracy theories after his reinstatement, Russia adds another charge against RFE/RL reporter, Epic Games boss reveals what he believes was Google's big mistake, Netflix releases viewing data, Warner Bros. releases a new "Dune: Part 2" trailer, and more. But first, the A1.

THE A1

A Sign of The Times

CNN Photo Illustration/Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto/AP

The future is now.

The New York Times on Tuesday announced the creation of a new newsroom position: editorial director of artificial intelligence initiatives. For the pioneering role, The NYT tapped Zach Seward, founding editor of the technology-focused outlet Quartz. Seward, The NYT said, will work to develop a plan and determine ways in which The Gray Lady can draw upon the powers of A.I. to improve her product, while also not denigrating the quality of her trusted journalism.

"One of Zach's first responsibilities will be to work with newsroom leadership to establish principles for how we do and do not use generative A.I.," Executive Editor Joe Kahn and Deputy Managing Editor Sam Dolnick said in a memo to staff. "One reason we're excited to have Zach in this role is that he shares our firm belief that Times journalism will always be reported, written and edited by our expert journalists."

It will be interesting to revisit the latter half of that statement in the years ahead. Will all of The NYT's journalism "always" be written and edited by human beings in 10, 20, 50 years? I'm not completely convinced. And I'm not sure anyone can really say with certainty, one way or another. OpenAI's GPT-4 can already string together sentences better than most humans can write — and far more quickly. In just a few years' time, the nascent technology will have matured and made significant advances. It's difficult to see how at some point, it will be economically viable to employ humans to write stories that a robot can do faster and better. (Of course, much of journalism will continue to require human reporters and editors.)

Regardless, the creation of Seward's role signals that A.I. will play an important and transformative role in producing and delivering the news to audiences. It's an acknowledgment that, to remain competitive as a business, the rapidly advancing technology will need to be delicately infused one way or another into the organization's DNA.

How organizations like The NYT go about harnessing the exciting and perilous technology is the chief question confronting editorial leaders. Some newsrooms have waded into the worrisome territory of publicly experimenting with A.I. to generate entire news stories. Doing so — with the technology currently at hand — has led to some embarrassing moments. CNET, for instance, discovered a multitude of errors spanning several stories and suspended its use of generative A.I. as a result. Newspaper giant Gannett, the renowned publication Sports Illustrated, the irreverent tech site Gizmodo, and others have also had painful public encounters with the technology.

Other newsrooms, like The NYT, have taken a different approach, believing that human journalists should always produce the news, but that A.I. can still be a very helpful tool in doing so. For example, A.I. can assist in tasks such as generating smart headlines. BuzzFeed boss Jonah Peretti has been a champion of the idea that A.I. can empower humans to be better storytellers and deliver innovative products to audiences.

Seward's role will be to pinpoint good use cases for A.I. inside The NYT's newsroom. In announcing his appointment, Kahn and Dolnick said he will "build a small team" and "experiment with generative A.I. tools and prototype ideas." What those ideas are remains to be seen, though Kahn and Dolnick included the possibility of The NYT moving to "incorporate generative A.I. tools into our publishing tools and digital products."

"He will track the industry's quickly shifting landscape to help ensure that The Times keeps pace as the internet evolves along with users' habits and reader expectations," Kahn and Dolnick added.

Given the breakneck pace at which the technology is maturing, and the pressures it will apply to the already struggling news industry, it's safe to say that Seward will have no shortage of work as he prepares to take on the task. For the sake of the news business, let's hope that leaders like Seward trailblaze a path forward in which journalists can work hand-in-hand with A.I. instead of seeing the already dwindling number of jobs in their profession erased by it.

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

CNN Photo Illustration/Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

An Unmerry X-Mas: How bad has the advertiser exodus been for Elon Musk's X? The imperiled social media company is "on track to bring in roughly $2.5 billion in advertising revenue in 2023 — a significant slump from prior years," Bloomberg's Kurt Wagner reported, citing sources. For comparison, Wagner noted that the company formerly known as Twitter generated $5 billion in revenue the year before Musk acquired it and that then-boss Jack Dorsey had set a goal of $7.5 billion in revenue by the end of 2023. It's also worth noting that the most recent — and most crippling — advertiser boycott has only hit the company in recent weeks, so it's likely that the picture will be even more bleak moving into 2024. Read Wagner's full story here.

X MARKS THE HATE

Media Matters fires back at Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, suing him over alleged First Amendment violations when he went after the progressive watchdog for its reporting on Elon Musk. (NBC News)
Nilay Patel writes about how Twitter "broke" the news: "Here is a very dumb truth: for a decade, the default answer to nearly every problem in mass media communication involved Twitter." (The Verge)
"Extremely softcore": Zoë Schiffer notes that "the old, pre-Elon Twitter was a workplace full of idealists who believed they were making the world a better place." She wonders, "Were they just naive?" (The Verge)
"Apple is holding the final nail for X's coffin," Dave Lee points out, contending that "precedent would suggest" the platform "is at risk of a ban from the App Store." (Bloomberg)
So what is Alex Jones doing back on X? On Tuesday, he helped promote the notion that Ukraine might stage a "false flag" to lure NATO into its war with Russia and said world elites have given "orders" to "conceal vaccination deaths," among other things.
Miles Klee writes about the "curious alliance" of Jones and Musk. (Rolling Stone)
Sandy Hook parent David Wheeler says that Musk is a "sociopath" for welcoming Jones back to his platform, adding that the fact he did it "based on the opinions of users and not his own convictions, tells me that he has no convictions." (TMZ)

THE INDUSTRY

THE FOURTH ESTATE

Russia has filed yet another charge against Alsu Kurmasheva, an RFE-RL journalist. "We strongly condemn Russian authorities' apparent decision to bring additional charges against Alsu," RFE/RL acting president Jeffrey Gedmin said. (RFE/RL)
The NYT marked a milestone on Tuesday: The printing of its 60,000th issue. (NYT)
Prince Harry must pay The Mail on Sunday 50,000 pounds, the cost of the U.K. tabloid's legal fees, after losing part of a libel fight. (Deadline)
The BBC is looking to hire its first-ever royal editor as audiences increasingly crave monarchic news. (Deadline)
MSNBC suffered an embarrassing — and fairly sustained — technical glitch Tuesday morning, forcing "Morning Joe" to start 11 minutes behind schedule. (Variety)
Chris Wallace spoke to Dominick Mastrangelo, teasing a bigger role at CNN covering politics in 2024: "David Zaslav called me this summer, which is unusual, and said, 'I really would like your voice to be part of our political coverage in 2024.' And I have to say, having been away from it for it for almost two years, I was getting itchy." (The Hill)
"How do you memorialize the people you loved and lost?" Anderson Cooper spoke to Rukmini Callimachi for a conversation centered on the question. (NYT)
Erie News Now is mourning the death of anchor Emily Matson. (ENN)

IN THE MARKET

SiriusXM is combining with Liberty Media's Liberty SiriusXM to create a new public company, "New SiriusXM." (THR)
Tubi has grown its partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery, allowing Fox's free, ad-enabled streamer to carry DC titles. (THR)
Spotify signed a podcast distribution and monetization deal with Warner Bros. Discovery. (THR)

MEDIA MOVES

MSNBC tapped Luke Russert as host and creative director of a new live events brand "MSNBC Live," set to launch in 2024. (THR)

THE INFO WARS

IN THE BATTLEFIELD

Chloe Simon and Audrey McCabe report on how Donald Trump's "diehard allies are endorsing his retribution rhetoric against political rivals and the media." (MMFA)
Fox News spent some time on Tuesday attacking Barack Obama over the new Netflix film "Leave The World Behind" that his "Higher Ground Productions" helped make, framing the film as having anti-White narratives, as Justin Baragona points out. (Threads)
Justin Horowitz chronicles how "manosphere" influencers like Andrew Tate are "promoting abuse and violence against women." (MMFA)
Lawyers for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis asked a federal judge to throw out Disney's lawsuit. (AP)
Morning Consult listed Fox Nation as one of the fastest growing brands of 2023. (AdWeek)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Google's Epic Mistake: Why did Epic Games prevail over Google when the outcome was so different against Apple? Chief executive Tim Sweeney offered a theory: "Google executives wrote things down," Sweeney told CNN's Brian Fung in an interview, whereas Apple executives were far more cautious about what they put in writing. "They wrote things down to tell each other their smart ideas," Sweeney said. "And they wrote things down to tell other people their accomplishments so that they would get a higher bonus, and they wrote things down to partners, and partners who received Google's proposals wrote things down about what they thought Google was actually trying to accomplish. That very clearly exposed all of their wrongdoing." Google has vowed to appeal the decision in the momentous antitrust case. Asked to respond, Sweeney said it is "full speed ahead." Read Fung's full story here.

TOO MANY TABS

Threads boss Adam Mosseri said the platform is "working to extend our fact-checking program" in 2024 with the election looming, adding that its "goal is for fact-checking partners to have the ability to review and rate misinformation on the app." (Threads)
Jacob Feldman writes about how Threads is harnessing the NBA to grow its user base. (Sportico)
Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses can now use A.I. to recognize objects and deliver suggestions. (The Verge)
Speaking of Meta: Nicole Goodkind writes about how Mark Zuckerberg "had a surprisingly good 2023." (CNN)
TikTok Shop "wants to beat Amazon at its own game," Spencer Soper and Alex Barinka report. (Bloomberg)
A judge sustained Texas' ban that prohibits state employees from using TikTok on state-owned devices. (Reuters)
YouTube "is now hiding which channels get a cut of ad revenue," Paresh Dave reports. (WIRED)
Users who subscribe to Snapchat+ can now deploy an A.I. image generator to create and send content. (TechCrunch)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Chris Bardgett/Alamy Stock Photo

The Netflix Numbers: For the first time in its history, Netflix on Tuesday revealed viewership data for its catalog, accounting for a staggering 100 billion hours of viewing time. The report didn't include all of Netflix's content, only titles that had more than 50,000 viewing hours. Nevertheless, the report, which will be released twice a year, offered an unprecedented look at how well shows and movies perform on the powerful entertainment platform. CNN's Ramishah Maruf has more.

🔎 Zooming in: As part of the deal the major studios hammered out with the writers, streamers agreed to increase transparency around content consumption. Co-chief executive Ted Sarandos spoke to reporters about the move to release the data to the public, saying that early on in Netflix's business, the company was afraid releasing data would "provide roadmaps to future competitors." But Sarandos conceded the lack of transparency fostered an "environment of mistrust around the data."

OFF STAGE

"Wonka" is looking at a $35 million debut. (Variety)
🚨 Warner Bros. Pictures dropped a third trailer for "Dune: Part Two." (YouTube)
Disney is moving more aggressively into the video game business. (Axios)
Wu-Tang Clan announced it will begin a residency in Las Vegas starting in February. (NYT)
Stephen Colbert spoke about his hospitalization after suffering appendicitis: "I was not aware of the amount of trouble I was in." (THR)
Joy Behar will be off "The View" all week due to Covid. (Deadline)
Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell spoke at the "Anyone But You" premiere about making "the rom-com big again." (Deadline)
"Saw XI" — yes, they're still making those — will drop on Sept. 27. (THR)
"Bridgerton" season three will drop in two parts in 2024, with the first half hitting Netflix on May 16. (Variety)
Netflix renewed "Live Is Blind" for two more seasons. (THR)
Seth Rogen says "we're going to do more" of his show, "Platonic," with AppleTV+. (THR)
Starz renewed "Hightown" for a third and final season. (TheWrap)

Thank you for reading! This newsletter was edited by Jon Passantino and produced with the assistance of Liam Reilly. Have feedback? Send us an email. You can follow us on Instagram, Threads, and LinkedIn. We will see you back in your inbox tomorrow.