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.
==
Update, June 16, 2025: Nine months in, the Barbed Wire is "decent" so far. I don't think the Trib has anything to sweat about. The Monthly, at least for the portion of their audience that wants triangulating on the news first, new BBQ joints second or even third? Maybe a bit of sweating.
For those in the media who have forgotten the name, Lee Zion was the small-town Minnesota newspaper publisher and owner who, with a variety of cockamamie claims about his journalism and a couple of cockamamie reasons about why he was leaving that I dissected here, with a short follow-up here, decided he "had to" get rid of his newspaper, and as I put it in Mark Twain terms, "see the elephant" by going to fight in Ukraine.
That was just over two years ago. I don't think I had googled his name in a full year, but something prompted me to a few weeks ago.
Well, lo and behold, more than a year ago, and, less than 10 months after doubling down on his determination to head to Ukraine? In early May 2023, he became editor of a weekly paper in Haines, Alaska. No, really.
He discusses his background:
“I’ve done a lot of things. I was the business reporter at the San Diego Business Journal. And in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I was a reporter/copy editor. Then there was Bryson City, North Carolina as an editor, which I greatly enjoyed. And most recently, I was the owner and other things at the Lafayette Nicollet Ledger in Lafayette, Minnesota.
For any "community" type newspaper editor, let alone one at or over age 55, even given the situation, that's a lot of wanderlusting.
He also discusses his time in Ukraine. He said he "put his back out" shortly before he was to head over, and it bothered him the whole time, and he only stayed a few months.
No indication if he offered to have sex for free with any Ukrainian girlchik porn bots, or with any Last Frontier women, either, per his time in Minnesota. Hope you like a LOT more snow and winter overcast than Minnesota had. (Less than 30 percent sunshine for half the year would probably drive me fucking nuts.)
To be totally honest, given the number of things he likely lied about with his Minnesota newspaper — claiming no staff help is a proven lie — he's probably lying about his time in Ukraine and why he didn't stay longer, either.
So, at the start of the month, as I had heard would happen, the Register officially named CNHI's Cleburne editor as the editor in Gainesville as well.
But, she doesn't just run that. She's also the editor at Weatherford.
Which means she probably doesn't do a lot of editing at any of the three. And, very little writing. (That's part of why Aledo's Randy Keck saw an opening to start an online-only alternative to the Weatherford Democrat.) So, in that sense, former Register editor Mike Eads won't be replaced.
And? Those pages? The Tuesday, Aug. 6 issue? Just 8 pages. First time I've seen them do that since dropping from triweekly to semiweekly. Don't know about the weekender after that, but the next Tuesday's issue? Eight again. (Why anybody would steal it at the local library other than for crosswords, I don't know.) They did have 10 on the Aug. 17 weekender, but if they'd not nearly a page and a half of legals, they might have dropped.
Aug. 20 midweek? Eight pages again. Ditto Aug. 27.
Looking ahead? Eads fought his way through football coverage and after that, the Register did nothing with sports, other than submitted letter of intent signings, the rest of the 2023-24 school year. Nobody responded to their ad seeking stringers. And, they've yet to start running one this year. That means no sports, in all likelihood.
But, it DOES have (checks notes) an eight-page! football preview. I didn't look in detail. Just saw it had an eight-page preview. Probably almost no ads. That said, in years past, Bill Patterson's Denton Wrecked-Chronic has only had a 12-page preview.
Update, Sept. 18: And, it's being VERY inconsistent in print in sports coverage. And, weirdly so. See more below on the Sept. 17 issue.
Sept. 3 midweek: Bare football scores with presumably submitted photos. 10 pages, in part due to tax rate legal notices.
Sept. 10 midweek: One-paragraph summaries of the Max Preps kind with submitted photos.
Sept. 17 midweek: NO scores, let alone story, even though it was Gainesville's homecoming. NO photos to go with. At least it was all local news on the front page, as the homecoming stuff meant no Texas Trib. But, it was just eight pages. Seriously. They ran a four-column photo, run vertically down to the shoes, of the king and queen, that basically ate up all of the front page on those columns, then a story about the alumni being honored and something about county Democrats to fill out the other two.
But, NO score from the game, let alone other area games.
Also, nothing online or in print about the demolition of an overpass crossing I-35 and how that might affect traffic.
