Hospice care for digital publishing brands

The Muck Rack Weekly newsletter includes some of the most talked about stories in the journalism and public relations communities over the past week, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial opinion of Muck Rack.

Media statistic of the week

“Facebook users who deactivated their accounts for six weeks before the 2020 U.S. presidential election weeks may have been less likely to cast a vote for Trump as a result,” reports Laura Hazard Owen for Nieman Lab.

The study is called The effects of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 election: A deactivation experiment.

“In the study—the largest of its type to date—19,857 Facebook users and 15,585 Instagram users were paid to deactivate their accounts for six weeks,” Hazard Owen explains.

The results of the study are fascinating. 

This past week in the media industry

AI and Google

As Google introduces AI-generated answers for search results, creators are worried about web traffic. 

“The product, dubbed ‘Search Generative Experience,’ or SGE, directly answers queries with complex, multi-paragraph replies that push links to other websites further down the page, where they’re less likely to be seen,” Gerrit De Vynck and Cat Zakrzewski for the Washington Post report. 

The update was announced and discussed at Google I/O on Tuesday morning. 

Casey Newton for Platformer expands on the update:

“This new approach is captured elegantly in a slogan that appeared several times during Tuesday’s keynote: let Google do the Googling for you. 

‘People’s time is valuable, right? They deal with hard things,’ Liz Reid, the company’s head of search, told Wired’s Lauren Goode ahead of the event. ‘If you have an opportunity with technology to help people get answers to their questions, to take more of the work out of it, why wouldn’t we want to go after that?’”

Newton sums up why this matters:

“It remains to be seen how much this matters to the vast majority of people whose livelihoods do not depend directly on web traffic. I suspect billions of people will be happy to receive their answers to complicated queries directly on the search results page, uninterested in where the information comes from, so long as it’s accurate enough.

But to everyone who depended even a little bit on web search to have their business discovered, or their blog post read, or their journalism funded, the arrival of AI search bodes ill for the future. Google will now do the Googling for you, and everyone who benefited from humans doing the Googling will very soon need to come up with a Plan B.” 

Inside MSNBC

The New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg and Michael M. Grynbaum take a fascinating look inside MSNBC and how it's impacting parent company NBC.

Here’s a summary:

MSNBC placed a big bet on becoming comfort TV for liberals. Then it doubled down.

The moves have been a hit with viewers. MSNBC has leapfrogged past its erstwhile rival CNN in the ratings and has seen viewership rise over the past year, securing second place in cable news behind the perennial leader, Fox News.

But MSNBC’s success has had unintended consequences for its parent company, NBC, an original Big Three broadcaster that still strives to appeal to a mass American audience.

Dive into the full piece. 

Deadspin 3.0

Welcome back Deadspin?

“Deadspin’s latest revival is slated to take place next week, although its new Malta-based owners have given no indication about the editorial direction for the sports site,” reports A.J. Perez for Front Office Sports.  

More details from Perez: 

“Lineup Publishing—a start-up with no history of producing sports content or anything else— purchased Deadspin for an undisclosed sum from G/O Media in March, a move that coincided with Deadspin’s entire staff getting let go. A spokesperson told Front Office Sports via email that Deadspin will relaunch next week but offered no other details about the direction of the site.”

“Hospice care for digital publishing brands isn’t for the faint of heart,” tweets Brian Morrissey. 

‘Journalist fired for speaking to journalist’

Is this… meta?

“Sarah Leach, an experienced editor overseeing 26 Gannett community papers in four states, was fired via video conference first thing the morning of Monday, April 29. She was accused, she said, of ‘sharing proprietary information with (a reporter for) a competing media company.’

The reporter in question was me,” writes Poynter’s Rick Edmonds. 

Catch up on the full story. 

“Journalist fired for speaking to journalist,” tweets Kristen Hare. 

“News organization that trades in people providing information to its journalists fires veteran editor for providing information to a news organization,” adds Paul Farhi. 

A few more

• “A group of prominent conservative operatives and businesspeople are dishing out more than $1 million to launch a new media company aimed at reaching conservative members of Congress and their staffers, sources told Axios,” reports Sara Fischer. The publication is called Washington Reporter. 
• “Comcast will launch a three-way bundle — with Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ — offered at a deep discount, Comcast chief Brian Roberts said in an article reported by Todd Spangler for Variety. “Today in streaming wars and the re-emergence of cable,” tweets Jennifer Ochieng. 
• In an op-ed for The Hollywood Reporter, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan argues that creators should be eligible to win an Emmy. “The Emmys are a celebration of the best of television, and they should reflect what viewers are actually watching on their TV screens,” Mohan writes.  
• If you love Jeopardy! and pop culture, Prime Video just announced a spinoff: “Pop Culture Jeopardy!” “[The show] is part of a yearslong expansion of what the show’s producers have called the ‘Jeopardy!’-verse, as they have pushed new spinoffs and tournaments to shake up the brand, while also avoiding any major changes to the main show that might rankle its most devoted fans,” reports Julia Jacobs for the New York Times.
• “Rudolph W. Giuliani was suspended by WABC radio on Friday and his daily talk show was abruptly canceled after the station said he violated its policy by trying to discuss discredited claims about the 2020 presidential election on air,” reports the New York Times’ Nicholas Fandos. Check out the full story. 
• Uh oh. “Fake studies have flooded the publishers of top scientific journals, leading to thousands of retractions and millions of dollars in lost revenue,” according to Nidhi Subbaraman for the Wall Street Journal.  
• There is some turmoil at the New York Times where staffers have penned an open letter to Joe Kahn, “criticizing the paper’s top editor over comments they said were dismissive of young reporters,” according to Semafor’s Max Tani. Read the full story. 
• Taylor Lorenz and Drew Harwell for the Washington Post have the details about eight creators suing the U.S. government over the potential TikTok ban. They are “arguing that the law violates their First Amendment rights by potentially shuttering a medium of communication that has become a critical ‘part of American life.’” 

From the Muck Rack team

Sometimes a PR pro just wants to know: What would a journalist do?

Muck Rack’s recent webinar, hosted by CEO Greg Galant, unpacked the latest State of Journalism 2024, which surveyed more than 1,000 journalists to understand their pitching preferences, stance on AI, what social platforms they use and more.

During the webinar, attendees had the opportunity to ask Candice Frederick, senior culture reporter at HuffPost, and Aly Walansky, a freelance journalist, their most pressing questions.

Check out the frequently asked questions and journalist responses.