Media statistic of the week

In 2019, Meta (then Facebook) announced its three-year, $300 million commitment to global “news programs, partnerships and content.” 

Where did Facebook’s funding for journalism really go? Because Gabby Miller of the Tow Center reports that, four years later, less than $30 million in direct funding is traceable to local U.S. news organizations. About half of the 564 newsrooms got just $5,000. 

The Center has published the data at Columbia Journalism Review, and Mathew Ingram does the math: “$30 million in grants from the Facebook Journalism Project over three years -- it would take Meta about three hours to make that much in revenue.”

This past week in the media industry 

Threats to a free press 

First up this week, as Julie Makinen says, “This is very troubling and journalists — and citizens — across the US need to pay attention 👎.”

Per Matt Dixon of Politico, Florida governor and likely 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis wants to roll back press freedoms — with an eye toward overturning the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan Supreme Court ruling. 

Dixon has details on a proposed bill being pushed in Florida “at the governor’s urging” that would, among other things, weaken media protections in defamation suits and frivolous lawsuits, compel journalists to reveal sources and lower the threshold for a “public figure.”

Brian Karem is convinced, “The single greatest threat to free speech - even for his beloved FOX News - is Ron DeSantis. Make no mistake: The chill he would impose would make government accountability IMPOSSIBLE. #FreethePress.”

Adds Cristian Farias, “This bill is catnip for Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch—and a threat to journalists, their sources, and livelihoods. Maybe a letter opposing this bill is in order. I'd sign it.”

For more on DeSantis, read the ealier piece by Jason Garcia at Nieman Lab, Ron DeSantis is weaponizing partisan media - and weakening independent sources of news.

“The governor’s efforts to prop up supplicant sources of news—while trying to destabilize and delegitimize independent ones—make for a dangerous combination, @mbar62 tells @Jason_Garcia. That's the journalistic dichotomy: ‘supplicant’ vs. ‘independent,’” notes Dan Froomkin.

Jay Rosen appreciates this examination of what a potential DeSantis presidency could mean. He tweeted, “A simple way to describe the kind of 2024 coverage we need is this: Not the odds, but the stakes. Meaning: less that tries to handicap the race, more that shows what is at stake in that race. ‘DeSantis is weaponizing partisan media.’”

‘Every reporter can relate’

After 24-year-old Spectrum News 13 reporter Dylan Lyon was shot and killed while reporting on a murder investigation in Florida last week, Jamie Angus wonders, “Why is this story not getting more attention? It's a glaring press freedom issue, as well as a great tragedy.”

Brian Stelter wrote about the grind as well as the pride of working in local news, along with the increasingly serious threats, in a piece for Poynter, Among journalists, shock at Dylan Lyon's murder is coupled with a strong sense of ‘what if?’ 

“Because every reporter really can relate to Lyons and his approach to the job,” Stelter writes. “Every reporter can relate to feeling a target on the back, as well, but no one should have to.”

“You may not like what we report, but the good ones among us are after the facts and context to make sense of what's happening. It isn't easy and sometimes, it's dangerous. Support #localjournalism, local #journalists live in your community too,” tweets Brett Barrouquere.

Dominion v. Fox News

Fox News has repeatedly complained about censorship, but now it looks like it might be engaging in a little of its own internal censorship. On his “MediaBuzz” show on Sunday, Fox News’s Howard Kurtz revealed that the network won't let him cover the Fox-Dominion lawsuit. 

Corbin Bolies of The Daily Beast noted that Kurtz said, “I strongly disagree with that decision, but as an employee, I have to abide by it.”

As other outlets have reported this week, in his deposition, Rupert Murdoch acknowledged Fox News hosts endorsed the election fraud lie. Not only that, “Dominion also describes how Mr. Murdoch provided Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, with confidential information about ads that the Biden campaign would be running on Fox,” write Jeremy Peters and Katie Robertson of The New York Times. 

Margaret Sullivan spoke with former first amendment lawyer Jeff Kosseff for her latest column for The Guardian, Will a $1.6bn defamation lawsuit finally stop Fox News from spreading lies?

Kosseff was stunned by “the sheer barrage of acknowledgment, from the very top, that the things being said on the air were false,” calling the revelations “a media defense lawyer’s worst nightmare.”

“If Dominion prevails, Fox News may be forced to become less reckless,” Sullivan writes. “For a media company that’s caused so much harm to American society, that would be a very welcome reform.”

Unfunny papers

In a move that Tom Jones of Poynter dubbed “consequence culture…that is, if you say or do something stupid or, in this case, incredibly racist and harmful and divisive, you suffer the consequences,” hundreds of newspapers have dropped the ‘Dilbert’ comic after its creator’s rant about Black ‘hate groups.’

Eduardo Medina of The New York Times reported on a number of the major news organizations — including USA Today Network, which publishes more than 200 newspapers — that pulled the comic in the wake of Scott Adams’ YouTube livestream diatribe over the weekend. And then, on Sunday night, syndicator Andrews McMeel Universal announced it was severing its relationship with Adams.

For some at least, the absence won’t be all that significant. Harry McCracken said, “I didn’t realize that there was such a thing as an edition of The New York Times that carried comics at all, let alone Dilbert.”

And Evan McMurry highlights that “The SF Chronicle stopped running Dilbert months ago. The editor-in-chief: ‘Very few readers noticed when we killed it.’”

Coming to Adams’ defense — no big surprise here — Elon Musk, who says the media is 'racist against whites.'

As Will Oremus notes at The Washington Post, Musk “offered no criticism of Adams’s comments, in which the cartoonist called Black people a ‘hate group’ and said, ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with them.’”

In the wake of Musk’s latest comments, Oremus reports that Color of Change president Rashad Robinson is reiterating his call for advertisers to boycott Twitter.

RIP Politwoops 

Speaking of Musk, in another blow to political transparency and accountability, it’s “RIP Politwoops 🫡 yet another casualty of Musk-era Twitter,” tweets Kaleigh Rogers. 

Derek Willis reports that After a Decade of Tracking Politicians’ Deleted Tweets, Politwoops Is No More. Service changes made after Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter have rendered it impossible for ProPublica to continue tracking these tweets.

“Lovely eulogy for a decade of tracking politicians' deleted tweets at Politwoops by @derekwillis,” tweets Alex Howard. “ His ‘behind the scenes’ look at how journalists maintain a public record is wonderful. NB: he says @ProPublica would keep running it, if @Twitter would help.”

Bad and good reads

There have been quite a few heavy stories in this week’s round-up, so how about a change of pace to close things out. 

First, is Mia Sato’s piece for The Verge on how AI-generated fiction is flooding literary magazines - but not fooling anyone. Some tip-offs: All the short stories titled “The Last Hope” and all the characters with “piercing green eyes.”

If nothing else, as Taylor Moore says, “The idea that literary fiction is being packaged by influencers as a lucrative, get-rich-quick scheme is so funny and divorced from reality.”

And we’ll wrap things up with Amy L. Weiss-Meyer’s profile of “the poet laureate of puberty” in The Atlantic, Judy Blume Goes All the Way. (Yes, “Tales of a Perfect Headline,” as Katherine Rosman says.)

“Judy Blume has played a central role in the growing up of my two girls, so I was naturally drawn to this profile by @AmyWeissMeyer,” says Gal Beckerman. “But let me tell you, this phenomenal piece of writing is really for anyone who has ever been a kid. It's perfect.”

And Nicholas Fandos sums it up this way: “A perfect lead. A compelling protagonist. A deeply human appraisal. And, yes, a Wordle hack. I may not be entirely objective about @AmyWeissMeyer's tour de Blume. But read it, and I think you'll agree this is a splendid profile of puberty's poet laureate.”

More notable media stories

• According to a new survey by Gallup and the Knight Foundation, half of Americans agree that most national news outlets “intend to mislead, misinform, or persuade the public.” Nieman Lab’s Sarah Scire acknowledges that “The study sidesteps valid questions about referring to ‘the media’ in survey questions without attempting to differentiate between news sources.” However, like others, this study showed Americans trust local newsrooms more than national ones.
• Ozy Media and its CEO Carlos Watson were charged with fraud last week after the former COO pleaded guilty to fraud and identity-theft charges in a secretive federal court proceeding. James L. Fanelli of The Wall Street Journal reports that Watson was arrested Thursday morning. On the plus side, Ethan Fedida says, “Explaining the incredibly short OZY stint on my resume keeps getting easier.”
• A year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Marina Chentsova of the International Journalists Network takes a look at the war’s impact on journalists and the future of journalism in Ukraine.
• From Andrew Roth and Pjotr Sauer of The Guardian, ‘Faithful to my profession to the end’: Russian journalists endure under Putin’s onslaught.
• The New York Post is looking to get into the TV game with a first-look unscripted deal with producer Asylum Entertainment Group. Peter White has the exclusive details at Deadline Hollywood.
• Also on the tube, Boston Globe Media, which is expanding into television news with “Boston Globe Today,” a weekday show it will produce with New England Sports Network, per Larry Edelman of The Boston Globe.
• From Ivan Mehta at TechCrunch, here’s a helpful breakdown of how every social media company is trying to adopt subscriptions.
• You’ve seen the movie (or at the very least, the trailer). Now Zack Sharf of Variety has The True Story Behind ‘Cocaine Bear’: A 175-Pound Beast, a Dead Drug Smuggler in Gucci Loafers and More.

From the Muck Rack Team

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