News CEOs (mostly) bullish on AI | Facebook labelling local news 'spam'
Plus Bloomberg Media hits 540,000 subscribers and New Zealand publisher Stuff fights news avoidance by scrapping the inverted pyramid story structure
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ITV hosted the first of at least two (and possibly three) UK general election TV leader debates last night.
Host Julie Etchingham was the winner in my view, with the tetchy candidates cancelling each other out. Reactions were more mixed about the glossy game-show style set and complicated format which appeared to limit the candidates to brief soundbites.
But I suspect if Starmer and Sunak had kept talking until midnight they would have continued to repeat their pre-rehearsed soundbites produced with an eye to being spread on social media and in news bulletin snippets.
See our general election round-up for details of the remaining TV debates. It is confirmed that Starmer and Sunak will face each other again on 26 June hosted by the BBC. Sky News has invited them to face off in Grimsby on 12 June but it has yet to be confirmed whether this will go ahead.
Today we also have an exclusive interview with Bloomberg Media chief digital officer Julia Beizer in which she talks about the innovation driving continued subscriptions growth in the consumer division of the global business news giants.
We reveal how Facebook has begun deleting posts from news publishers and labelling them as spam. Local community news publishers, often heavily reliant on Facebook for distribution of content, are being hardest hit.
We find out a New Zealand publisher is tearing up the journalism rulebook to tackle news avoidance.
And we also share insights from the top execs at DMG Media, The Guardian, Telegraph, The Sun and ITN who all shared the stage at a London media conference yesterday.
They struck a hopeful tone about the impact of generative AI on the news business and the prospect of deals being struck. But DMG Media CEO Richard Caccappolo warned that smaller publishers who are dependent on search could be wiped out by the new technology which answers reader questions directly without the need for a click.
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New from Press Gazette
Guardian CEO Bateson ready to ‘do a deal’ with AI companies ‘on the right terms’
“The technology businesses do seem to sort of believe that they’re exceptional, in a way, and that they don’t necessarily have to pay for the things that everyone else respects.”
Facebook deleting local news posts and labelling them as spam
“Bearing in mind we’re publishing 6,500 stories a year, most of them go to Facebook, so we’re probably doing ten to 15, maybe sometimes 15 to 20 stories a day to Facebook, and it happened to be a general election post that was taken down.”
News avoidance: Publisher rewrites journalism rulebook for most contentious stories
For stories that could sew division, Stuff.co.nz has instead decided to adopt a softer explainer-style approach that leads people into the most important and contentious elements of a story, including subjective takes on it, further down.
Bloomberg Media rolls out website upgrades as it hits 540,000 subscribers
Beizer said 30% of Bloomberg’s traffic comes direct to the homepage, making this an important area of development for the title.
News in brief
The fact that a baby found in East London is the third child abandoned by the same parents can be reported because of an application to change reporting restrictions by the BBC and PA. The judge agreed the story was of "great public interest". (BBC News)
Canadian business/tech news org The Logic has raised C$4m to expand its newsroom and business operations. FT Ventures led the fundraising, in its first Canadian investment, and the deal lets The Logic work with the business paper’s consulting arm FT Strategies.
The New York Times says it now has two million subscribers outside the US, one-third of them in Europe. The publisher had aimed to hit the target before 2025. Foreign readers "over-index" on stories focused on their home countries, the NYT said. (The New York Times Company)
Future plc has has launched a new division called Elevate which aims to sell its in-house adtech, CMS tech and management expertise to other publishers. (Future)
CNN is testing an expanded website registration wall, asking its most-engaged users to hand over their details after reading about ten articles in a day. (Axios)
The Daily Beast has appointed Hugh Dougherty as executive editor amid the departure of editor-in-chief Tracy Connor. Dougherty is New York Post deputy news features editor and previously worked at the Daily Mail, Evening Standard and Sunday Telegraph. (The Wrap)
G/O Media has sold Gizmodo to European consumer tech publisher Keleops, which will keep all staff members. Keleops’ CEO said the company had been looking for a US acquisition, that Gizmodo was "an obvious choice" and that they want to make the "iconic brand... even stronger". (The New York Times)
Jewish News co-publisher Justin Cohen has received an MBE for services to Holocaust remembrance and the Jewish community from Prince William. (Jewish News)
Sixteen writers have been selected for the Michael Sheen-backed A Writing Chance programme, which includes a £2,000 bursary each and sessions with and mentorship from Daily Mirror journalists and Substack staff and writers. (New Writing North)
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Latest podcast
Podcast 71: Daily Mail CEO Rich Caccappolo on keeping journalism free
This episode includes excerpts from an interview between Press Gazette editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford and Rich Caccappolo, CEO of Daily Mail publisher DMG Media. It also features media consultant Matthew Scott Goldstein. They talk about how to save journalism (and democracy) on the open web by adapting to Google’s plan to switch off cookies on Chrome.
Caccappolo also provides an update on DMG Media’s legal action against Google and reveals how his company is growing overall revenue in a tough market.
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Entries are now OPEN for the Future of Media Awards 2024 (which celebrate the best journalism-based digital products). Check out the full list of categories here. Note: These awards are free to enter.