Newspapers Ditch Endorsements, AI Project for Local News Launches: Media News Recap for October

Welcome to Media Insider, PR Newswire’s roundup of media news stories from the month.

October was another busy month for the media, dominated by election-related headlines — how the media will cover Election Day, presidential endorsements, the campaigns’ media appearances and more. But aside from the election, other big topics broke through, including a new AI collaborative for local media, the latest media trust findings and some positive news for the print industry.

We’re covering these trends and more in the monthly media news recap.

‘Washington Post’ won’t endorse in White House race for first time since 1980s

The Washington Post will not to make a presidential endorsement for the first time in 36 years, a decision that publisher and CEO Will Lewis explains as a return to the newspaper’s roots. Sources say that editorial page editor David Shipley had approved an editorial endorsement for Kamala Harris but that the Post’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, decided there would be no endorsement.

Shipley said the decision aims to create “independent space” where the newspaper does not tell people for whom to vote.

The backlash was fast, with several staffers resigning, including Editor-at-large Robert Kagan, former Post Executive Editor Marty Baron calling the move “cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty,” and more than 200,000 subscription cancellations since the announcement. (NPR)

Bezos has since defended the decision to ditch the presidential endorsement, saying in an op-ed, “Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.”

Catch up on these big stories about the election and the media:

• The Post’s announcement followed a similar decision by the Los Angeles Times, which resulted in similar reactions from staff and readers. (Semafor)
• When it comes to election news, many Americans are seeing news they think is inaccurate – and having a hard time distinguishing fact from fiction. (Pew Research Center)
• The Associated Press will have a record 5,000+ people working on election night. (Axios)
• The stakes for press freedom are high in the election, both in the U.S. and abroad. (Committee to Protect Journalists)
• Amazon will make its news debut with live Election Day coverage featuring Brian Williams. (New York Times)
• Student News Live, a coalition of university journalism programs and media advocacy organizations, will bring together young journalists for 24 hours of student-produced news coverage on Election Day. (PR Newswire)
• After the New York Times announced it would no longer endorse candidates in New York’s local elections, a group of prominent journalists launched the New York Editorial Board to try to fill the gap. (CNN)

Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low

For its annual media trust survey, Gallup found that 31% of Americans have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.” While it’s on par with last year’s 32%, it’s the third consecutive year that more U.S. adults have no trust at all in the media (36%) than trust it a great deal or fair amount.

Levels of trust differ along party lines, with 54% of Democrats, 27% of independents and 12% of Republicans saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. Media trust isn’t all that’s measured in the study, which also found that trust in the news media is about level with trust in the legislative branch of the federal government, consisting of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. What institutions scored the highest in terms of trust? Local and state governments and the American people as a whole. (Gallup)

In other trust and media industry news this month:

• Pew Research found that Republicans and young adults are nearly as likely to trust information from social media sites as they are to trust information from national news outlets. (Pew Research Center)
• According to Kantar’s new study, Media Reactions 2024, newspapers are considered the top media channel for both trust and relevancy/usefulness as well as advertising receptivity. (MediaPost)
• Intelligencer talked to 57 of the most powerful people in media on its future, covering topics like paywalls, local news and the return of print. (Intelligencer)

OpenAI, Microsoft fund $10M Lenfest Institute AI local news project

OpenAI and its minority owner Microsoft are funding a $10 million AI collaborative and fellowship program operated by the Lenfest Institute, making it the largest AI-specific local news development collaborative. The deal does not include any sort of licensing terms or real-time data exchanges to train and serve large language models at OpenAI and Microsoft. (See the press release)

In the initial round of funding, five U.S. metro news organizations — Chicago Public Media, Newsday (Long Island, NY), The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Seattle Times — will each receive a $500,000 grant to hire a two-year AI fellow to pursue projects that focus largely on driving sustainable businesses for local news. Three more newsrooms will be awarded fellows in a second round of grants in the coming months.

The outlets will experiment with AI for different projects, including transcription, data summarization, advertising and a conversational search interface.

“While nothing will replace the central role of reporters, we believe that AI technology can help in the research, investigation, distribution and monetization of important journalism,” said Tom Rubin, chief of Intellectual Property and Content, OpenAI. “Local news is a particularly vulnerable area of journalism, and we believe AI can help it thrive.” (Axios)

In other local media and AI news:

• At least one newsroom in every state and two U.S. territories will get a piece of $20 million in Press Forward funding. (Poynter)
• As part of a new content deal with Hearst, OpenAI products like ChatGPT and SearchGPT will be able to display content from more than 20 magazine brands and more than 40 newspapers. (CNBC)
• More than 3,200 print newspapers have disappeared since 2005, according to the State of Local News report from Medill’s Local News Initiative, which chronicles declines in local news across the U.S. (NiemanLab)
• In a lawsuit filed in October, the Wall Street Journal and New York Post accuse AI startup Perplexity of ‘massive freeriding’ and ask the court to block its use of their material. (Wall Street Journal)
• New research finds that content written by journalists is easier to understand than AI-generated articles. (LMU)

The Print Magazine Revival of 2024

While the old model of print is gone, some magazines seem to be figuring out a new way forward. Titles like Field & Stream, Sports Illustrated and Vice have committed to restarting their physical products in 2024 and other small, print-forward indie publications like Apartamento and the Drift have continued to build an audience.

Print magazines offer benefits to readers – no tech middlemen – and advertisers – glossy ads offer the promise of catching a reader’s attention. Digital subscribers are also likely to be interested in the offer of a (good) print edition to complement their online access. It’s all part of what defines print magazines’ new role as a “luxury item,” according to Interview Editor-in-Chief Mel Ottenberg.

With print, there are no paywalls and no pop-up ads – things many readers dislike about reading online. “They allow both publishers and advertisers the opportunity to show the public the best, most put-together versions of themselves, and they offer readers an opportunity to spend an hour or two reading and looking at things they know were made by people who actually care about the finished product,” Amanda Mull writes for Bloomberg.

The print world had several good headlines in October:

• The Atlantic is returning to a full 12-month print schedule. (MediaPost)
• Sourcebooks and Hearst Books announced Cosmo Reads, in collaboration with Cosmopolitan. The new line will focus on inclusive romantic and pop fiction, aiming to publish four to six titles per year. (Hearst)
• ASCENDING Magazine launched with its inaugural Fall/Winter 2024 print edition. Its mission is to “lift, guide, and inspire women across the full spectrum of their professional careers.” (WJBF)
• The bi-annual print magazine i-D will appear in March 2025 for the first time since 2019. (MediaPost)

Bonus Reads

In addition to the large trending topics like AI and the media’s coverage of the election, there were plenty of other unique stories that came out in October:

• Media Moves: Popular tech columnist Taylor Lorenz is leaving The Washington Post to launch User Magazine, which will “cover technology from the user side.” (The Hollywood Reporter)
• AI+Podcasts: Google’s NotebookLM went viral for its ability to mimic the speech cadence of podcasters. (WIRED)
• Social Media: LinkedIn is ramping up its promotion of news articles and partnerships with news publishers. (The Information)
• Press Freedom: A new documentary follows four journalists in Mexico to illustrate the state of press freedom in the country. (Los Angeles Times)
• Sports Media: The NFL has partnered with Remezcla Media Group to grow its Hispanic fan base and sponsorship offerings. (PR Newswire)

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