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Stories of interest
FALLEN JOURNALISTS MEMORIAL FOUNDATION SELECTS CHICAGO-BASED JOHN RONAN ARCHITECTS TO DESIGN ITS MEMORIAL AT THE NATIONAL MALL IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
Washington, D.C. – The Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation today (March 13) announced the selection of John Ronan Architects to design the foundation’s namesake memorial, the first national memorial dedicated to press freedom and journalists who have lost their lives in service to that cause. The selection of the designer for the memorial marks a major milestone in the process leading up to the construction of the memorial, which was approved by Congress and received federal approval to be built at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Over the coming months, John Ronan FAIA and his team will work with the foundation’s leadership to establish a final design proposal to be presented to various agencies and commission.
John Ronan Architects is an internationally recognized design firm based in Chicago known for innovation, exploration of materiality, and rigorous attention to detail. The firm has received multiple American Institute of Architects (AIA) National Honor Awards for its buildings, including the Poetry Foundation, Gary Comer Youth Center, and the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where John Ronan is the John & Jeanne Rowe Endowed Chair Professor in Architecture. John is a past recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award, and his firm was a competition finalist for the Obama Presidential Center.
“Following a rigorous design team selection process, John Ronan Architects was selected because of his sound grasp of our vision for the memorial, as well as his creativity and attention to detail,” said David Dreier, Chairman of the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation. “Equally important, we were inspired by his unique and compelling design concept, which calls for the use of transparent materials to convey themes of clarity and light to reinforce the importance of the work of journalists, photojournalists and a free press.”
At its core, the memorial honors the lives lost in pursuit of the truth and celebrates the First Amendment rights in American democracy. The design concept outlines a compelling memorial experience that engages with the themes of transparency and light, reinforcing the importance of these factors to the work of journalists and to a free press. It will feature a layered assemblage of transparent elements that would appear different from all three sides of the triangular site, alluding to the multiple sides of a story that a journalist must analyze to discern the truth and encouraging visitors to investigate each space through their own journey. Just as journalists play a watchdog role in democracy, the design will highlight the memorial’s diligent watch over the Capitol dome, visible above the memorial’s eastern rim.
Read more here.
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U.S. News Organizations Could Receive $11 Billion Windfall If JCPA Passes. (Inside Radio)
Chances are “pretty good” that Google's precedent-setting decision in December to compensate Canadian news sites $100 million for the use of their content could translate into billions of dollars in payouts to local news sites in the U.S. So says Conan Gallaty, Chairman & CEO of the Tampa Bay Times and Times Publishing Co, who predicts that U.S. news organizations could receive an $11 billion windfall a year if the bill passes.
“If you are in the local news business, the chances of a windfall – and a continued windfall because it wouldn't just be a one-year payment, it would be an ongoing payment – those chances are building by the day. There's a lot of strong momentum,” he said Tuesday at Borrell Miami.
Three years after it was first proposed, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act is poised to be passed into law this year, said Gallaty who sits on the board of the News Media Alliance, formerly the Newspaper Association of America.
That optimism is based on the push it is getting from Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who sponsored the legislation, and from Senator John Kennedy (R-LA), the lead Republican sponsor. “There are 18 other senators that have co-sponsored the bill that are pushing it, split between Democrats and Republicans, so it's fully bipartisan bill,” Gallaty said in a session entitled “The Prospects of 'Windfall' Compensation for Local News Sites in 2024.”
Read more here. Shared by Linda Deutsch.
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A Forensics Expert on Princess Kate’s Photo—and How Credentialing Tools Can Help Build Trust in a World of Increasing Uncertainty (Time)
BY HANY FARID
As an academic who has spent the past 25 years developing techniques to detect photo manipulation, I am used to getting panicked calls from reporters trying to authenticate a breaking story.
This time, the calls, emails, and texts started rolling in on Sunday evening. Catherine, Princess of Wales, has not been seen publicly since Christmas Day. The abdominal surgery she underwent in January led to widespread speculation as to her whereabouts and wellbeing.
Sunday was Mother’s Day in the U.K., and Kensington Palace had released an official photo of her and her three children. The image had been distributed by the Associated Press, Reuters, AFP, and other media outlets. The picture then quickly went viral on social media platforms with tens of millions of views, shares, and comments.
But just hours later, the AP issued a rare “photo kill,” asking its customers to delete the image from their systems and archives because “on closer inspection it appears the source has manipulated the image.”
Read more here. Shared by Bill Sikes.
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People trust themselves more than they trust the news. They shouldn’t. (Columbia Journalism Review)
By JACOB L NELSON, ZEVE SANDERSON, SETH C LEWIS
If you’re reading this, you’re probably a news and politics junkie. Someone who reads multiple news sites a day, follows several news organizations on social media, and receives a few email newsletters.
Most people aren’t like this. A 2020 study found that news represents just 14 percent of Americans’ media consumption. Attention does pick up, however, during an election year. While roughly one-third of Americans closely follow the news in non-election years, 39 to 43 percent do so when there’s a presidential election, according to Gallup.
However, new research—and recent reporting about how artificial intelligence is changing the online information environment—suggests that even as people start tuning into the election, they could end up more misinformed, not less.
The reason: People have greater faith in their own abilities to “fact-check” the news than they have in the news itself. In the past year, we have published two academic studies that suggest this faith is misplaced, and that it actually leaves people more likely to believe misinformation.
Read more here.
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The Intersection Magazine: Redefining local reporting (Editor and Publisher)
Diane Sylvester | for E&P Magazine
If you visit the web page of The Intersection Magazine, you’ll notice something unique. The subject titles contain pairings: “PG Politics + Religion” and “Health + Politics.”
This is intentional, said its founder, Delonte Harrod: “As a Black reporter trained in the Black press, that is how Black people live their lives. I will say I think it’s universally how people live their lives. Traditional media reports listicles. So, it’s Politics, Business and Sports. Separated. And that’s not actually how reality works. In Black communities, Black people are heavily religious. And they are involved in politics. So, what does it look like to report on the intersection or convergence of all these things? That’s what I’ve started to do.”
Harrod, a former Maynard Institute Fellow, launched his digital magazine as a Medium site in 2018 to report hyper-locally in Prince George’s County, Maryland. In 2021, he took the magazine to a new level when he was selected to be in that year’s LION Publishing Google News Initiative Startup Boot Camp. The Intersection is a LION Publishing member.
Since then, Harrod has worked to develop a close relationship with community members and activists to learn what issues they are taking on and where his reporting might amplify their concerns and the solutions they seek.
Read more here.
Opinion | Elon Musk’s deal with Don Lemon goes sour (Poynter)
By: Tom Jones
Well, that didn’t take long.
X chief twit Elon Musk has canceled the platform’s deal with former CNN host Don Lemon after one taping of the show. That one taping? A “tense-at-times,” 90-minute interview that Lemon did with Musk.
In an Instagram post, Lemon wrote, “Elon Musk has canceled the partnership I had with X, which they announced as part of their public commitment to amplifying more diverse voices on their platform. He informed me of his decision hours after an interview I conducted with him on Friday. That interview will remain the premiere episode of The Don Lemon Show on Monday, March 18.”
So what happened in the interview that caused Musk to kill Lemon’s show before the first episode even aired?
Read more here.
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