THAT'S A WRAP #9
We’re back! Here are some talking points for your dinners, dates, and calçotadas this weekend :)
IN SEARCH OF FACTS WE TRUST ☝️
On Tuesday , Alphabet and Meta appeared before Brazil’s Supreme Court to defend their exemption from responsibility for content generated by third parties unless a judge orders its removal. Earlier this month, President Lula’s government announced it was looking into how to regulate social media platforms and hold them accountable for monetized content that spreads misinformation.
These efforts come in the wake of post-election pandemonium that some blamed on the spread of misinformation via social media. In response , Google and Meta cited the several million posts voluntarily removed from YouTube and Facebook for misinformation, harassment, and child endangerment.
On the same day, Google Search announced the launch and expansion of several features meant to increase results transparency, including :
It’s time to get that structured data in order and write those author bios!
DONATIONS SAVE THE TEXAS OBSERVER 🎁
On Sunday, editorial staff at the 68-year-old nonprofit magazine the Texas Observer found out via reporting in the Texas Tribune that they were all being laid off at the end of this week, at which time the publication would go on an indefinite hiatus. They responded by creating a GoFundMe page to save the magazine and their jobs. It was not clear how the board would respond —all but two members had voted in support of laying off journalists.
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In three days, they raised $300k and the board announced it would reverse its previous decision. The Texas Observer will stay in business and institute several reforms. The president of the board said she would step down but remain a donor.
One study found that donations to news organizations increased by over 50% between 2018 and 2021. The Guardian, which is owned by the charitable organization the Scott Trust, reported a 13% revenue increase during this same period thanks to digital donations. Philanthropy also pays the salaries of the 50 journalists at Mother Jones, whose CEO Monika Bauerlein spoke out against the proliferation of paywalls , saying they lead to “good information that is accessible only to people who can pay and disinformation and garbage that is free and abundant.”
NEWS STARTUPS PIVOT IN SEARCH OF NEW CASH FLOWS 💰
Journalists at the Observer weren’t the only ones to get a shock in recent days. Staffers at the news startup The Grid have had their site taken offline just one year into publication after being informed last week that they had been acquired by a new venture called The Messenger which aspires to generate over $100 million without a paywall through advertising and events. The Grid belonged to the same cohort as other venture-capital-funded news startups like Semafor and Punchbowl. However, it started losing money at the end of last year , reported around the time that its former CEO stepped down.
Vanity Fair pointed out that the season premiere of Succession’s quotable line from Kendall talking up his “Substack meets MasterClass meets The Economist meets The New Yorker” idea will have felt all too poignant for former staff of The Grid.
Speaking of Substack, they were passed over by VC investors last year , and Tuesday launched a campaign aimed at individual investors, including their own writers . They will take anything over $100.
…and that’s a wrap!