The Onion, under its new ownership that acquired it from G/O, among other changes for the better, has ditched its ties with Taboola.
The Associated Press? Was running Taboola's news-lite, sort-of-news crap at least seven years ago, then, this spring, announced it was entering the e-commerce world with guess who?
So, the question is more than rhetorical, and it's more than Onion snark.
It is weird — or laughable — that the New York Times publisher and owner chose to write the op-ed mentioned in this Substack in the Washington Post and not his own paper.
The jokes aside?
The substance?
"Both sides" reporting is still good, Pinch says. Well, sure. It prompts subscribers.
That said, the Substack IS Kevin Kruse, a good librul Democrat type who has no problem with his party putting thumbs on scales against third-party and independent candidates. Having 2-starred his most recent book, I know that.
The complaints against the NYT are valid, and on a LOT more than electoral politics.
For example, beyond not doing "both sides" on climate change, how seriously does the NYT report on and about and from climate scientists more alarmed than climate change Obamiacs Michael Mann, Katharine Hayhoe and their ilk? You know that.
How much does it really report about the reality in Gaza? You know that.
The reality of American exceptionialism that Kruse accepts? You know that.
This is Kruse working the refs first, with serious concerns about journalism a distant second.
But, this is about journalism, not BlueAnon and duopoly politics, which I did elsewhere.
What issues get covered, as well as how many sides of them get covered, is itself an issue.
There's a multitude of sins the NYT commits and I'd be typing out 5,000 words if I enumerated them all in detail.
As for Kruse, he either knows that, which shows his piece is about working the refs, or he does NOT know that — which, per his book, may be the case, at least in part — and that's an even bigger problem.
The Second Court of Appeals upheld a district court ruling earlier this month over copyright issues, filed by the book giant Hatchette (Hatchet!). The Archive had claimed fair use rights in the initial case and on appeal. It's unclear if it will appeal again to the Supreme Court or not. Full ruling here.
It should be noted the suit was against just one of the Archive's programs, one started in 2020 in response to COVID called the National Emergency Library. This, the Wired piece linked up top notes, was an expansion of its old Open Library. That had a one-to-one lending policy. The NEL did not.
The Second Circuit did offer what Wired calls a Pyrrhic victory, ruling that the Archive is non-commercial.
I don't understand why Archive staff is so puzzled by the ruling.
Had I read the district court's ruling when it came out, I would have seen this as correct. The story also notes the two sides negotiated terms of a settlement while the Archive filed the appeal.
And, I don't know who Ben Werdmuller is, but he's wrong.
Per a link in the story, the Archive probably should cut its losses and settle the lawsuit by music companies before it goes to trial. If it wants to lobby for cutting back some of the recent extensions in length of copyright? Fine. This is different.
So, the Observer's new executive director, Loren Lynch, worked at The Nation? Will she learn from it and her time there to get the Observer off its purity potty and start a paywall, online ads, or both? Anything else from her remains nothing more than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
I discussed these issues in MUCH depth 18 months ago re the Observer, and specifically compared it to The Nation, as well as Counterpunch. It can either learn, or not.
In fact, as I noted in another piece, the Observer has even gone backward in this respect in the last year, removing its "please become a contributor" Javascript screen. I wouldn't be surprised if it went belly-up by the end of 2025.
There's a new player in Texas statewide verbal media. (Verbal replaces "print" as I assume they're online-only.)
The "they"?
The Barbed Wire, per story last week by Semafor.
The players?
The Barbed Wire is a new state digital news outlet that on Monday will begin churning out Texas-focused stories on culture, politics, and entertainment. The project was the result of almost a year and a half of planning by Jeff Rotkoff, the Texas state director of Democratic-aligned super PAC Forward Majority, and Olivia Messer, a former Texas reporter and alumna of the Daily Beast (and a former colleague of this Semafor reporter at the Beast).
Big stuff.
And, they're swinging their weight:
The publication will be a mix of aggregation, essays, columns, and original reporting, including some statehouse coverage and longer-form investigations. The outlet will launch a newsletter called “Wild Texas,” which was influenced by Messer’s time working on the Daily Beast’s news roundup, the Cheat Sheet. The publication is launching with several columnists, editors, and reporters already on board who will cover entertainment, culture, food, and politics. Brian Sweany, the former editor-in-chief of Texas Monthly, and Jamil Smith, the opinion writer and editor-in-chief of The Emancipator, are both signed on as advisors.
There you go.
The timing of of additional interest with the Monthly having just dropped a paywall. The dollar amount for start-up is a lead-in, as with all such paywalls anymore. The intro appears to have been done subtly and ramped up.
The target appears to be primarily the Monthly, secondarily the Trib, and the Observer just getting any blow-by.
