Nada Arnot

When the American Journalism Project launched five years ago, our mandate was to create the conditions for community-led nonprofit news organizations to sustainably provide the journalism our democracy requires. Today, I’m pleased to share our 2024 Impact Report, a look at the progress we’ve made since our inception. In the five years since our launch, we’ve raised $175 million from national and local philanthropy, and built a portfolio of 44 nonprofit local news organizations —  diverse in size, scope, reach and leadership. Some highlights from the report: -In the last year alone, our portfolio of 44 grantee organizations generated $86 million in revenue — a 36% increase over their 2022 revenue. -Year over year, the organizations in our portfolio are seeing a 58% median growth. -And this growth is leading to more journalism – last year, our portfolio of grantees employed 568 editorial and newsroom staff – an 18% increase over 2022. Organizations are growing, diversifying their revenue, adding journalists, and strengthening their communities. I’m proud of the progress the portfolio has made, and remain clear-eyed about the future. This report sheds light on how far we’ve come and sets the stage for what’s ahead. I hope you'll take a moment to read it. https://lnkd.in/eipwwhxN

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I am quoted at length in Kendra Barnett's excellent piece in The Drum, examining the European Commission's inquiry into #Meta's protections for minor. I address various concerns about whether it is even possible to determine what in fact is designed as being addictive on a social media platform; I also talk about the practical challenges to enforcement and broad regulation, and the reputational risk impact on investors and advertisers. Finally, I address they the controversy about #Privacy and #security could never be fully resolved by a single framework, and propose alternative, limited strategy of pushing for improvements in specific areas. Worth reading are also the complementary perspectives by various #digitalrights experts quoted here. #EU #Europe #EuropeanUnion #regulation #EuropeanComission #Meta #socialmedia #Facebook #Instagram #dataprotection #dataprivacy #datasecurity #infosec #informationsecurity #cybersecurity #lawandorder #societyandculture #digitalrights #ageverification #censorship #lawenforcement #foreignpolicy #foreignaffairs #diplomacy #geopolitics #reputationalrisk #reputationmanagement #Reputationalmanagement

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#podcast Fadi Micaelian, CEO of SPARKDIT, is an AI strategist who brings insights into using generative AI to support political consultants and voters. These voters are weighing choices and making tradeoffs as they decide who to financially support and vote for. Using additional data points to predict voting behavior is increasingly essential as voters become more partisan and face pressure from friends and family to make decisions about candidates and issues.  We talk about training AI to think like humans, using tradeoff criteria to improve predictive models to identify likely voters & how voters make decisions. #SPARKDIT #AI #VoterSegmentation #PoliticalMessages #Voters SPARKDIT.com https://lnkd.in/g3Xa5X-j

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The recent Poynter Institute summit highlights the urgent need for more hackathons in journalism. Co-facilitated with Kelly McBride, Alex Mahadevan, Tony Elkins from Poynter alongside Burt Herman and myself representing Hacks/Hackers, this event showcased the transformative potential of collaborative innovation. By convening over 50 diverse participants - including news editors, futurists, and product leaders - the summit exemplified how collective creativity can reshape our information ecosystems. This gathering not only produced innovative ideas but also underscored the value of cross-disciplinary collaboration in addressing the complex challenges facing modern journalism. The summit challenged participants to think creatively about #AI applications in #journalism while maintaining ethical standards and addressing audience concerns. Six teams developed theoretical products ranging from local election tools to personalized news delivery systems, with one team even pursuing funding to turn their AI-powered community calendar into a real product. This experience highlights why we need to break out of our walled gardens to truly transform journalism. We must bring together diverse voices - journalists, technologists, community leaders, artists, and imagineers - so that we can co-create a vision for a thriving information ecosystem. These #hackathons serve as catalysts for creativity, fostering an environment where imagination flourishes, dialogue thrives, experimentation is encouraged, and rapid prototyping becomes possible. They generate innovative ideas that might otherwise remain dormant within the constraints of traditional organizational structures. The success of this summit proves that when we combine diverse expertise and perspectives, we can develop solutions that honor journalistic traditions while embracing the future.

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A new Nielsen report sheds light on the fastest-growing consumer demographic in the U.S. According to Jackie Liu of The Pollack Group, Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander audiences are a diverse powerhouse influencing culture and commerce. The report reinforces that understanding AANHPI communities requires nuanced insights beyond surface-level generalizations through data-backed trends and unique media habits. Jackie shares top takeaways on communicating authentically to diverse Asian audiences. Discover proven strategies for success by exploring the full report at the link below. 👇

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An evolving digital landscape has led to some new stategies for how communicators can most successfully manage the reputation of the brands they represent -- Ronn Torossian, 5WPR Chairman and Founder, 5WPR https://odwpr.us/44DT29H

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Looking forward to advance the conversation on the ethical use of AI in journalism!

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How can political campaigns in the US effectively reach critical voters, many of whom are underrepresented in traditional voter files? 👥 During the 2024 #USElection campaign season, it's essential to reach the right audience with the right message at the right time to win the battle for voter attention. One of the most profound shifts in political advertising is the use of contextual AI to understand and predict voter interests and behaviors. By focusing on the context of ad placement, campaigns can engage voters more organically, aligning political messages with content that voters are already consuming on a privacy-first basis. 📈 Discover how contextual targeting can enhance voter engagement in this Digiday article by our Head of Political, Issue Advocacy and Goverment Kara Ullmann: 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eDHFKc2K #PoliticalCampaigns #2024Election #ContextualAI

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The American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) could significantly reshape the US digital advertising landscape as the first national data privacy framework. With strong bipartisan support and a promising initial hearing, this game-changing regulation could be Congress' best chance to pass this comprehensive law. https://ow.ly/ZhIr50SxOS3 #dataprivacy #digitaladvertising

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AI-generated dreck posing as local news, aka pink slime journalism, is proliferating. The cost of making it is practically zero. The incentives for bad actors to create it range from money -- by delivering programmatic advertising and affiliate links to unwitting readers -- to political manipulation via misinformation and disinformation. And the platforms that distribute it don't care. John Biggs at The Media Copilot recently lamented this situation. "AI isn’t just stealing our jobs," he wrote. "It’s also going to steal the truth." It doesn't have to, though. Here are two things you can do to protect the truth: 1. Give your attention to real publications. Taproot Edmonton employs actual people who you can meet in real life. We live here and we care about this place. And we put our names on what we publish. You'll never be fooled by pink slime if you intentionally read and listen to work made by humans you know instead of just consuming the news-eque junk an algorithm may serve you. 2. Help real publications pay for those people. A $20/month subscription to ChatGPT can generate an awful lot of words; a full-time employee doing the work of finding stuff out and telling you about it costs considerably more. We don't put a paywall around Taproot's work because we don't want to live in a world where only those who pay get real journalism and the rest get pink slime. That means we have to fund ourselves by other means. If you have a business, you can now buy a business membership to Taproot. That lets you easily sign up all of your employees to receive Taproot's work, which in itself will help your organization better understand the community it serves. But you'll also be helping us continue to inform and connect the people who live in this place that we love. You can sign up for a business membership here: https://lnkd.in/gRWAm_Ay. And you can learn more about what this is and why we're offering it here: https://lnkd.in/gNc3yvAW If a business membership isn't right for you, you can become an individual member for $100 per year or $10 per month here: https://lnkd.in/g6yRVG77 As Mack Male said at Taproot Publishing Inc.'s event during Upper Bound with Katrina Ingram, AI helps our responsible local news outlet scale our ability to pay attention to our community. We're excited about the technology's potential to help us do the work. But humans report and write what you read. "While human-led AI is a boon, non-human-led AI is an existential threat," Biggs writes (https://lnkd.in/gDj55fEm). "We all need to be ready to fight it." I'm inviting you to join us in the fight. #yegmedia #edmonton #yeg #edmontonmedia #futureofmedia

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Have loved reading (and listening to) Kimeko McCoy, Digiday ask questions when it comes to #genai and what how to mitigate marketers' concerns. Razorfish's Cristina Lawrence joined in on the conversation, with a big point around brand reputation and perception when it comes to #ai. Have a read: "At the end of the day, with the brand clients, what they care about is the perception of the brand and the implications to brand perception. As we continue to refine the content labeling and that provenance piece, I think we will get to a point eventually where that apprehension will subside." https://lnkd.in/gb2wPKT8

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Watching "AI in the Children’s Space: A Conversation with an FTC Official" with the amazing trio of Rukiya Bonner, Michelle Rosenthal, and Dona J. Fraser. https://lnkd.in/gXmcV5K6 My quick notes, bear with me: 1. FTC's interest: How does AI usage deceive the viewer? Is it clear what it is (the AI content)? Or is the content creating false trust through Gen AI deception. 2. What data is collected? Is the data used for training parsed so youth data is deleted? If youth data is collected, was it obtained through verifiable consent? 3. From my POV on this call, it seems: Federal Gov is more focused on research, partnership with operators, and learning from EU's AI act, DSA (for governance), and GDPR (for ops) before they create legislation. Meanwhile, States are proactive in this space - and in their quick response are somewhat overlapping rules (which may make it difficult for a federal approach?). 4. Imperative to consider children as a subset (automatically) of any reference in legislation/regulation focused on "sensitive data". 5. In virtual environments, they're focused on topics like "NPC statements vs NPC sales in-game and how that may be manipulative or challenging advertising laws. Or how deep-fakes are abusive of Generative AI and endangering youth (data, well-being, etc). Lots of resources: CARU's "pre-screening review", COPPA safe harbor (woot) & resources (they're great partners to support compliance), the FTC's various resources & current case reviews, NIST -- understand section 5, updates to COPPA, DSA, GDPR, the EU's AI laws, etc. Mad props to Dona Fraser. I've worked with her on/off for the last 15 years (from ESRB to now BBB). She's amazing.

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Very interesting discussion of code switching here and using that term re: Vance's identity, something I'd considered, but not seen in previous stories

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Hey, remember when David Cohen contradicted (https://lnkd.in/ehjYYgQV) the IAB's Internet For Growth's own lobbying agenda? If anyone needs further proof that IAB/I4G is pretending to advocate for small business while actually serving as a mouthpiece for Google, here you go! I wrote about this, and more in my piece for Ricky Sutton's Future Media. Check it out, if you haven't already. Link: https://lnkd.in/emyyX8Gi #transparency #adtech #bigtech

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Really useful qualitative study that looks at emerging use cases of Gen AI and the news, giving some indications of the challenges ahead

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Major elements of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), but especially the central English-language operation within its flagship broadcaster, the Voice of America (VOA), have lost their purpose and effectiveness. My view of 100% tax-funded VOA staffed by U.S. federal government employees and contractors is the same as Uri Berliner’s view of NPR, only partially government-funded: “An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America.” VOA does not reflect America because that has been the choice of USAGM longtime leaders, whom the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), accuses of corruption in the latest HFAC report. Signs of USAGM’s ineffectiveness are everywhere: Afghanistan, Iran, African nations siding with Russia against Ukraine and with Hamas against the U.S., China … the list is endless. Former VOA journalists and executives among us helped to win the Cold War with strong support for the concepts of non-violence and basic human rights. Some of the current VOA editors and journalists express one-sided support for Hamas. It did not have to be like this if USAGM and VOA had different senior leaders who would not tolerate violations of the VOA Charter, would not hire former propagandists for Putin’s state media without proper vetting, and would not allow activist journalism by VOA’s federal government employees, including calls for violent destruction of Israel. I wrote in THE HILL that the agency is in need of a change of leadership and reform, with bipartisan support from Congress and the White House.

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