More on Twitter’s Death Spiral and Journalists’ Addiction to the Platform
I see myself in this piece, and I do not like it.
The first and most obvious reason is inertia. Journalists spent more than a decade building up their presences on Twitter, and they were never going to abandon the site collectively overnight. As long as they can still drive traffic to their stories, discuss those stories in public with their peers, and grow their audiences, they have little reason to leave.
Nate Silver Leaving ABC News
The second round of Disney layoffs once again hit ABC News on Tuesday, with Nate Silver’s data-driven politics and journalism brand FiveThirtyEight among those being impacted.
Silver told FiveThirtyEight employees in a Slack message that he expects to leave Disney when his contract is up, which he added would be “soon,” The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Media is always changing, just a lot this week.
US Political Attack Ads Using AI-Generated Images
The video features AI-created images appearing to show Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris celebrating at an Election Day party, followed by a series of imagined reports about international and domestic crises that the ad suggests would follow a Biden victory in 2024.
AI-generated imagery is becoming near impossible to distinguish from “real” video.
The use of generated imagery and video will become more common in local politics. AI generation significantly lowers the cost of imagery and video. Cost control is important in local election campaigns due to spending limits and a limited ability to raise funds.
Everyone is Replaceable: The Tucker Carlson Edition
During my guest talks / lectures, I often tell how I voluntarily departed Macleans in 2009 because I did not wish to go in the business direction they did. It was simple, nobody is entitled to a journalism job, and I knew I was not a good fit for where they were going.
[They needed to make a business choice, and considering that nobody does dedicated daily post-secondary coverage in Canada as a stand-alone section, my old position was not viable]
Turning back to the point of this short, Jack Shafer, senior media writer for POLITICO makes this point on the sudden departure of Tucker Carlson from Fox News.
When Ailes finally cast the show with his types, Ferguson writes, he summoned them to his office and had them stand in a semi-circle around his desk to explain why he was calling the show The Five. “‘I’m calling it The Five because you are types, not people. You all are about to become very famous, and you’re going to make a lotta money. A lotta money. But don’t ever forget. Right behind you I’ve got somebody exactly like you ready to take your place. So don’t fuck up.”
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Finding a Carlson substitute will be as easy for Fox as it was finding an O’Reilly substitute.