Gabriel Brotman

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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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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Seeing great posts from friends, colleagues and media safety & freedom orgs today marking #WorldPressFreedomDay. Important time to appreciate the critical work and severe challenges - often risking life and freedom - that journalists face today. There is no more important part of my team's mission than enabling the exceptional work of all the Dow Jones-publications across conflict areas, covering crucial economic and business stories securely, telling the stories of climate and disaster, and working within increasingly hostile autocracies. Risky work that gives us all purpose - at the The New York Times, The Washington Post and beyond. "In a world increasingly characterized by geopolitical tensions and sweeping government restrictions, the role of journalists has never been more crucial—or more challenging. As they navigate the complexities of reporting from countries with significant security concerns, they face a myriad of risks that threaten both their safety and the integrity of the press. From the criminalization of independent journalism in Russia, to the surveillance-heavy landscape of China, and even the operational difficulties in Africa, our journalists encounter daily challenges just to bring us honest, reliable news." - Dow Jones

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A brilliant new column in Observer by Roy Swan that will unpack how we can strive for a better form of capitalism that can work for all of us, rooted in innovation, prosperity, and fairness. Check it out!!

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The amount of scam websites out there grows by the day—and what's particularly frustrating is that social media and search engines are taking the scammers' money without performing due diligence, enabling them to amplify their bad goods to consumers far and wide. I suggest you show your displeasure (On the open web, premium publishers and the adtech infrastructure are also getting played—but that's because of cloaking technology.)

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People will pay for #trustworthy #journalism, even in Spain, where people traditionally refuse to pay for news. The founder and CEO of eldiario.es, Ignacio Escolar, has just published the updated financial results for this leader in investigative journalism. They now have 87,000 “partners” who pay for this free — that’s right, free — publication. The number of partners grew by more than 40% since the beginning of 2023, driven largely by their relentless #investigativereporting revealing the lies and corruption involving some of the country's most outspoken political figures. Escolar and elDiario are models of #transparency in terms of the sources of their revenue and how they spend it. https://lnkd.in/e32ikUQf

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The #FT has signed a licencing deal with OpenAI, joining Associated Press, Axel Springer, Le Monde, and PRISA. Is it time to Embrace AI? My latest substack is inspired by a chat with wayne kennedy frm Blizzard Entertainment. I had been fiercely proud my published work, including my substack was all original thought, typos and all, but is that realistic in the pace AI moves? It affects media strategy too for all businesses. Not forgetting the Singapore government is gearing up to retrain 40+ as the AI revolution moves much faster than anyone thought possible. Read my latest post https://lnkd.in/eBuHNZd2

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Check out Elaine Pofeldt's latest Social Capital Book suggestion at the Center for Social Capital: The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder by Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao. "Stanford professors Robert Sutton, author of The No-Asshole Rule, and co-author Huggy Rao tackle the forces that make it hard to get anything done in a large organization in this insightful book. Offering ideas on how to identify, diagnose and eliminate “destructive friction,” they embrace the powers of civility, caring and even love in the workplace — and allowing for certain types of friction that will help everyone on the team get better at what they do. Running a Social Capital company, at its essence, means busting through inertia, and you’ll learn plenty about how to do that in these pages." Plus check out all the rest of Elaine's amazing Social Capital books at the link below: https://lnkd.in/de7imW9F #books, #ceomindset, #businessleadership

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Congestion pricing was supposed to start today in New York City. It didn't after Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this month announced an indefinite pause. My latest article in The Wall Street Journal traces the rise and pause of congestion pricing — a tale that involves 17 years and around $700 million. The abrupt reversal, which some attribute to Hochul’s reluctance to impose a new fee in an election year, leaves metro New York grappling with a historic missed opportunity and fiscal mess. There is no relief in sight for the city’s traffic congestion, which is the worst in the world, according to data published last week. The epic collapse in New York shows how a fear of dramatic change can give the status quo stubborn power over those trying to solve some of America’s most intractable challenges. That leaves policymakers nibbling at the edges of deeply rooted problems, even after investing huge sums of money and political capital. Blown up in a New York minute were plans for around $15 billion of planned improvements to the city’s ailing mass-transit system, the largest transportation network in North America. The reversal cast aside around $700 million in meticulous prep work, including a $555-million contract to install tolling cameras—which are already up and ready to go—and $33 million for a customer-service center with 100 employees who have already been brought on, officials said. Planners invested thousands of hours, including going to London and Stockholm to research their congestion-pricing programs, according to people familiar with the travel. What was supposed to be a transformative moment when New York led the way and boldly tackled traffic congestion, air pollution and transit funding, has instead turned into a surprising loss for a broad coalition that includes major employers, real-estate developers and subway riders. Surprised by the reversal were Hochul’s own lieutenants, including Janno Lieber, a fierce champion of congestion pricing and the chief executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The MTA—which carries around 5.5 million passengers each day in the New York metro area—now faces a $16.5 billion-financial hole from the loss of money from congestion pricing and federal matching funds. Just days after Hochul’s announcement, a beleaguered Lieber joined a conference call with advocates in which he said he was equally shocked and remained committed to the program, three people familiar with the exchange said. “This is devastating,” he said, according to a person on the call. Here's the latest from me and Joseph De Avila —>

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We talk about the evolution of #AI @CadeMetz, technology correspondent at @the-new-york-times on the latest episode of "Night Owls."  https://lnkd.in/eJc-VWW4  Cade wrote a great book on the subject, called "Genius Makers." https://lnkd.in/eUZPtrbe It is well worth reading and very readable.

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Who is leading Europe at this critical juncture? Featuring two of our contributors Dr. Jana Puglierin and Jacob Ross we further explored this theme from our Spring 2024 issue cover section: how to entangle the apparent "leadership paradox" within the #EU with #France unable and #Germany unwilling?

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The Hearst DevHub continues to focus on building practical AI-powered tools for our local newsrooms, and we're excited about our latest initiative: Emcee, a quiz-generation engine. 🧠 Emcee (M.C. = multiple choice) is built on the back of our newsrooms' reported, edited and vetted work. No hallucinations here. We scrape our most popular stories, use gen-AI to turn the stories into a multiple-choice format, spin up one of the DevHub's interactive Quiz templates, and alert the editor, whose job is to read through the questions and answers, edit for taste and accuracy, and then publish the quiz manually. No direct publishing to the web; a human is in the loop and in control of every piece of content. We're live in our (Albany) Times Union, Hearst Connecticut Media Group and Houston Chronicle newsrooms, with more programs on the way. The newsrooms are smartly taking this quiz tech and turning it into a weekly program to engage new readers. Win-win. Check out paywall-free examples, and if you're in New York, Connecticut or Texas, test your knowledge: ❓ Albany: https://lnkd.in/efbA-ekJ ❓ Connecticut: https://lnkd.in/eFy7_jUu ❓ Houston: https://lnkd.in/eFTeRDGK

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Join us for an important conversation next week about platform design and elections with Glenn E., Ravi Iyer, Kaili L., and Nicole Schneidman - how is tech getting in the way and/or facilitating election integrity? 🤔 https://lu.ma/59uxawc5

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Journalism is not a crime

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🗞 As someone who consumes news in many formats / channels - online, social, audio and even print (will always love my magazines and weekend newspapers), it’s magical to have most of what you love in one place (ahem, Yahoo News).  💫 It’s even more magical to say that the Yahoo News app is going through a major glow up with next-level personalization from Artifact. 🙌 In a world where it sometimes feels overwhelming to cut through so much information, sometimes you want the tl;dr.  Other times, you want to dig in, read the full article (and then another and another), and share highlights seamlessly on social or in group text threads with your BFFs. The new Yahoo News app launches today and it’s awesome - here are some of the reasons why: 📱 AI-Powered Personalized Feed 📝 Key Takeaways to summarize articles  🚩 Ability to Block Keywords and Flag Clickbait 💫 Easy one-touch Sharing Tools 🔥 Badges and Streaks to share with friends Learn more in this WIRED exclusive by Boone Ashworth https://lnkd.in/gs-V-4vp 📰 Katelyn Brehony 🗞 Estela Weinmann 📰 Caragh Fisher O'Connor 🗞 Kat Downs Mulder 🗞 Andrew Machado 📰

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New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s last-minute suspension of NYC’s congestion charge is sold as cost-relief but is pure politics. Democrats want to flip some swing seats in the NYC suburbs and this may appease some drivers there. But it comes at a steep cost. Pricing congestion is like pricing carbon and, as London’s approach demonstrates, implementing such transformative policy means either going big or going home. Hochul’s move, even if ultimately reversed, bodes poorly for a great city that faces far more difficult choices as it prepares for the threats posed by climate change. Read about it here at Bloomberg Opinion https://lnkd.in/e3VZQbUH

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