“CEO said a thing!”

"CEO Said A Thing!" Journalism

"CEO said a thing!" journalism involves parroting the claims of a business leader or executive with absolutely no context, correction, or challenge whatsoever, no matter how elaborate the delusion.

The Media Can't Stop Propping Up Elon Musk's Phony Supergenius Engineer Mythology

"CEO said a thing!" journalism is now utterly pervasive, and includes parroting billionaire and CEO claims with a total disregard for whether or not anything being said is actually true.

The Era Of The Business Idiot

Fair warning: this is the longest thing I've written on this newsletter. I do apologize. Soundtrack: EL-P - $4 Vic Listen to my podcast Better Offline. We have merch. Last week, Bloomberg profiled Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, revealing that he's either a liar or a specific kind of

Whoops, The Tech Press Mythologized Another Unethical Asshole

Lazy access journalism is pathologically obsessed with helping unremarkable, unethical weirdos cultivate elaborate supergenius engineer mythologies while covertly undermining the public interest.

How Google and AI Nearly Made a Seasoned Reporter Spiral — ProPublica

I thought I had missed something major in my reporting. Turns out I had stumbled into an AI-fueled feedback loop that involved a real LLC’s fictional website and a search engine that’s thrusting unreliable answers on users.

Independent journalists are mission-driven, but financially strained, a new report says

"Journalism isn't immune to the larger trend of the gig-ification of labor."

About — Crackdown Podcast

Garth Mullins—Crackdown’s Host and Executive Producer—is a longtime activist and drug user as well as a member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and the BC Association of People on Methadone. Crackdown was born out of the idea that journalism can be rigorous, fair, and meet the expectations enumerated in the Canadian Association of Journalists, while also containing a clear and transparently-stated point of view. We believe that journalism can and should seek to serve the public good. We believe that journalism need not be produced by people who are distant from the topics and communities they are covering. And we believe that - rather than hiding behind a mask of “objectivity” - journalism is most truthful when it clearly communicates its point of view to the audience.

Seven Rules For Internet CEOs To Avoid Enshittification

It seems that we’ve had a rash of formerly loved internet services going down the enshittification curve. As coined (brilliantly) by Cory Doctorow, enshittification is the process by which a compan…

NewsGuild president writes to ProPublica management: Get serious on AI — ProPublica Guild

Artificial intelligence is guaranteed to shake up journalism in varied and unexpected ways. This could be a moment in which experienced journalists leverage a powerful new tool to produce even bigger and better investigations. Or it could be one in which management pivots to yet another new technolo

What Happened When Marissa Mayer Tried to Be Steve Jobs (Published 2014)

The inside story of how Yahoo’s C.E.O. lost her way.

Opinion | Twitter Has an Old Media Problem. Here’s a Solution. (Published 2016)

The company has become an indispensable news source for millions but as a business, it needs a white knight to swoop in.

Five Things You Notice When You Quit the News

I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information produ...

Artificial Intelligence in the News: How AI Retools, Rationalizes, and Reshapes Journalism and the Public Arena

<p>Download the pdf here. Executive Summary Despite growing interest, the effects of AI on the news industry and our information environment — the public arena — remain poorly understood. Insufficient attention has also been paid to the implications of the news industry’s dependence on technology companies for AI. Drawing on 134 interviews with news workers […]</p>

The Disastrous Bari Weiss Experiment May Be Coming To An End At CBS/CNN

When right wing billionaire Larry Ellison (and his nepobaby son David) hired blog-troll Bari Weiss to run CBS News, Weiss arrived with the promise of “balanced, fact-based news,” “independent, prin…