Further layoffs, new AI products – weekly news digest

The news industry in the US and UK has seen further layoffs as publishers are cutting costs amidst disappointing financial results and an uncertain business outlook.

In the US, tech publication TechCrunch laid off eight people “part of a larger restructuring at the title as it seeks to refocus its coverage around the investors, founders and startups of Silicon Valley”, Adweek writes. The Wall Street Journal is planning to restructure its Washington bureau with some layoffs in store, Axios reports.

In the UK, Channel 4 announced it would cut almost 20% of its staff – some 200 people – blaming an advertising downturn. The broadcaster also plans to sell its London headquarters, FT notes.

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Top news publishers are racing to build their generative AI products and employ AI in newsroom operations. Most recently, Bloomberg started providing AI summaries of companies earning calls for its terminal, an expensive product for financial professionals that underpins the company’s business model.

In the meanwhile, The New York Times announced it’s building a full-fledged AI team “focused on prototyping uses of generative AI and other machine-learning techniques to help with reporting and how The Times is presented to readers”, the organisation’s new Editorial Director of Artificial Intelligence Initiatives Zach Seward wrote on Threads. The team will include several engineers, a designer and a few editors. 

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The Russian government continues its crackdown on the remaining independent press and building up its propaganda machine. Most recently, the Kremlin pronounced DOXA, a prominent student magazine, an “undesirable organisation”, essentially outlawing it.  

In the meanwhile, Russia and Belarus are looking to create a joint state media outlet. “The decree signed on Jan. 29 would entail the creation of a jointly-run media operation incorporating two preexisting newspapers, an online magazine, and a television channel”, Kyiv Independent reports.

Just on Tuesday, the Russian internet experienced a mass blackout. One theory behind the outages is that it was a botched testing of the Kremlin’s plan to further isolate Russian internet; though other theories assume a hacking attack or a technical issue.  

Source of the cover photo: https://unsplash.com

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