Crispin Odey sues FT | Gerard Greaves leaves Mail group
Plus OpenAI's content boss on its deals with publishers, BBC releases image alt text guidance and Daily Maverick boosts member income
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There’s frustration at the Financial Times, I imagine, as almost a year after they first revealed sexual assault allegations against hedge fund manager Crispin Odey – ergo, almost clear of the deadline for legal action – he filed a libel claim against them. Another point of interest on the timing is that this very investigation is shortlisted for the Paul Foot Award next month. The FT says it will “vigorously” defend its reporting.
Meanwhile there was big news from the Mail’s New York office last night as Gerard Greaves, currently editor-in-chief in the US, was confirmed to be leaving. He’ll be replaced by Katie Davies, who has been leading an expansion in the US of The Times and Sunday Times for the past several months.
I’ve got another report from the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress where a major topic was the relationship between AI companies and publishers. OpenAI’s chief of intellectual property and content Tom Rubin was the final major speaker and admitted even he did not realise “just how overwhelming” the focus of the conference would be on AI.
Rubin shared some useful insights about what the deals being signed with news organisations actually mean (much more on display of their work in ways we haven’t seen yet and less on training) and acknowledged the importance of boosting smaller publishers and not just the News Corps and Axel Springers of the world.
From our partners at WAN-IFRA we have a look at the successful memberships programme of the Daily Maverick in South Africa, where this direct relationship with readers is now making up 40% of revenues.
And we have a comment piece from BBC journalist Johny Cassidy which is well worth reading on the importance of alt text in digital journalism, especially in this world of fancy visual data work, with some handy tips for publishers to quickly improve accessibility.
Jobs of the week
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New from Press Gazette
Gerard Greaves to leave Mail group as Katie Davies named new US editor
Davies was appointed US editor, a newly-created position, at The Times and Sunday Times in October last year and previously led The Independent’s US editorial team and spent seven years at the Daily Mail in New York as a senior editor.
FT to ‘vigorously defend’ Crispin Odey libel claim
“Our investigative journalism about Mr Odey was carefully prepared and publication was in the public interest. We stand by our reporting and look forward to vigorously defending it.”
OpenAI content boss: ‘Incumbent’ on us to help small publishers, not just the giants
“When a user has a very particular interest, or even a niche interest, that’s a particular opportunity for a small publisher using our technology to associate that content with the user and put it before them.”
Memberships making up 40% of revenue for South Africa’s Daily Maverick
The Daily Maverick’s general manager of reader revenue and grant funding said the publication had seen a 75% growth in membership in two and a half years.
How alt text can stop visual data journalism being ‘unequal’ experience
“The stark reality for blind people is that not enough thought, time or resources are being put into how to make visual data more accessible. This glaring accessibility gap means that blind audiences are missing out on huge swathes of vital information.”
News in brief
Gary Lineker has said he regrets that a tweet he wrote about Government language on small boat crossings led to a "fallout between me and the BBC and it should have been a fallout between the BBC and the Daily Mail". He added the BBC should worry less what the Mail thinks. (The Guardian)
Paul Waugh, who stepped down as the i's chief political commentator in January to stand for Labour in Rochdale but was not selected, has now been chosen to contest the seat. He hopes to win it back from George Galloway after the recent by-election. (BBC News)
The BBC is investigating after the details of about 25,290 current and former employees in its pension scheme were exposed in a data breach including their name, date of birth, sex, address and national insurance number. (The Guardian)
National World says its revenue was up 18% in the 21 weeks to 25 May due to print advertising growth and the effect of acquisitions made last year. A transition towards "full automation of content production" and "highly monetisable specialist content" continues. (National World)
Meanwhile the NUJ has hit out at National World, saying the company is proposing to increase Local Democracy Reporter salaries this year by the BBC-required minimum of 1.5% while all other journalists at the company receive a minimum 4% increase, rising to 6% for those earning under £30,000 a year.
Google has confirmed that a leaked trove of thousands of pages of documents about its Search ranking algorithm is genuine. (The Verge)
The BBC has launched a thematic review of "portrayal and representation in BBC output", examining "how accurately and authentically the BBC portrays and represents different groups and communities across the UK". Its terms of reference may be read here.
And BBC News at One will begin permanently broadcasting from Salford from Monday. As well as the change in location the bulletin will now be an hour long and "work closely" with BBC Breakfast to add more human interest stories "reflecting the communities across our nations". The first broadcast will be presented by Sally Nugent, and the pool of presenters includes Ben Brown, Anna Foster, Tina Daheley and Jon Kay.
Rest of World has retracted a story critically reporting on alleged failures by 11 Whatsapp-based misinformation 'tip lines' to accurately identify AI-created content. The outlet’s editor said it had failed to contact all the fact-checking organisations named in the story, which meant it "failed to identify potential flaws in our own reporting methodology". (Rest of World)
Documentary footage filmed by MTV before the shooting of Lyra McKee was played as three men went on trial accused of her murder. (Belfast Telegraph)
CNN has reported on Hoodline, a network of local news sites in the US that it says switched in the past year from being written by humans to largely being populated by stories produced by AI and attributed to fictitious authors. (CNN)
The Atlantic's staff union has said it is "deeply troubled" by the "opaque" deal the magazine has struck with OpenAI, demanding management "immediately make the terms of the deal available to Atlantic staffers". (NewsGuild of New York)
OpenAI says it has disrupted covert online campaigns using generative AI that were run by state actors or private companies in Russia, China, Iran and Israel. The company said the campaigns had failed to gain traction even before its intervention, however. (The New York Times)
AI manipulation of images has gone from being negligible before 2023 to a leading vector for disinformation, Google researchers have found. (404 Media)
Russian authorities are attempting to prosecute and fine journalists connected to exiled independent news outlet Meduza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
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