The Los Angeles Times is preparing to unveil a “bias meter” to appear on news articles and columns on the news outlet’s website, according to the news outlet’s owner.
The bias meter, which could launch as early as January, will be operated by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
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by Carl M. Cannon For the American media, 2024 has been a fiasco. And it’s still only February. Nine days into the new year, highly respected Los Angeles Times editor Kevin Merida resigned rather than tolerate another round of layoffs and the meddlesome ways of a billionaire publisher and his progressive political activist daughter. Two weeks later, California’s largest newspaper announced it was shedding 20% of its staff, including half of its Washington bureau. Sports Illustrated was still reeling from an ethical lapse that cost its CEO his job (the magazine used AI to generate news stories under fake bylines) when management told the staff in a seven-minute Jan. 19 Zoom call of mass layoffs. Many SI journalists were terminated that day via email. Earlier that week, new Baltimore Sun owner David D. Smith met with the apprehensive staff of his new acquisition. The meeting didn’t go well. Smith, a television executive, told the reporters and editors at the venerable 187-year-old daily that he hadn’t read the paper in years. That didn’t stop him from insulting the quality of their journalism. Nor did Smith disavow his previous critique of U.S. print journalism as being “so left-wing as to be meaningless dribble.” Perceived bias…
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The decline of the mainstream media continued in the first month of 2024, with over 500 journalists being fired in January alone.
As Politico reports, there were 538 layoffs in the month of January in the media industry, including jobs in print, broadcast, and digital media. The report from Challenger, Gray, & Christmas suggests that the trend first seen in 2023 will not be slowing down in 2024. Last year, there were 3,087 layoffs in the news industry, which marked the highest annual total since the 16,060 firings in the year 2020, which was primarily due to the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic.
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An English-language newspaper controlled by the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda department paid U.S. media companies nearly $2 million for printing and advertising expenses over the past six months, even amid heightened scrutiny over Beijing’s disinformation efforts in the West.
China Daily paid The Wall Street Journal more than $85,000 and the Los Angeles Times $340,000 for advertising campaigns between May and October 2020, according to a disclosure that the propaganda mill filed this week with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
China Daily also paid Foreign Policy magazine $100,000, The Financial Times, a U.K.-based newspaper, $223,710, and $132,046 to the Canadian outlet Globe & Mail for advertising campaigns, according to the filing.
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Reuters A cyberattack caused major printing and delivery disruptions Saturday at the Los Angeles Times and other major U.S. newspapers, including those owned by Tribune Publishing Co., such as the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun. The cyberattack appeared to originate outside the United States, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing a source with knowledge of the situation. The attack led to distribution delays in the Saturday edition of The Times, Tribune, Sun and other newspapers that share a production platform in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reported. Tribune Publishing, whose newspapers also include the New York Daily News and Orlando Sentinel, said it first detected the malware Friday. Malware The West Coast editions of the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times were affected as well because they are also printed on the shared production platform, the Los Angeles Times said. Tribune Publishing spokeswoman Marisa Kollias said the virus hurt back-office systems used to publish and produce “newspapers across our properties.” “There is no evidence that customer credit card information or personally identifiable information has been compromised,” Kollias said in a statement. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Most San Diego Union-Tribune subscribers were without a newspaper Saturday as the virus infected the company’s business systems and hobbled its ability to publish,…
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On Wednesday’s Gill Report – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 1510 WLAC weekdays at 7:30 am – Star News Digital Media National Political Editor Steve Gill was flabbergasted regarding an “alleged” incident at a recent football game at Santa Ana High School in Orange County, California. According to principals of the schools and further spun by the Anti-American media, students were chanting “USA, USA” and holding up posters that read, “we love white.” The posters actually read, “we love red, white, and blue.” He goes on to describe the principals’ blatant attempt to label that schools students racist and a offense to ‘dreamers’, however, the other team’s school was allowed to proudly wave their Mexican flags during the game. Gill said: As we look back on 911 and look at the way that some in this country don’t appreciate America it’s not just the NFL athletes on the field. We’ve now got school systems that are attacking students for shouting, “USA, USA” in the stands during a football game. An Orange County high school football game, Orange County, California, was marred by allegations of racism earlier this week. An issue where posters allegedly seen at the Friday night game between…
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by Tim Pierce Adopting more active forest management policies such as increased thinning of trees and conducting controlled burns will help mitigate damage from future wildfires, the Los Angeles Times editorial board writes. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke began advocating similar policy prescriptions earlier in 2018 after President Donald Trump blamed California’s “bad environmental laws” for creating a wildfire-prone environment. California forests have grown drier and less healthy from overcrowded trees, infestations of bark beetles and the effects of climate change, the LA Times writes. California’s restrictions on active forest management have contributed to the poor and worsening conditions of the forests, allowing them to grow uninhibited while suppressing fires that would normally naturally control the forests’ growth. “Fire is not necessarily bad for forests. California used to burn with regularity, and low-intensity fires are vital in some ecosystems to clear excess brush and small trees from the landscape,” the editorial board writes. “But there’s been a change in fire behavior over the last century, as the state and federal government began dousing the blazes. Decades of fire suppression have allowed forests to grow dense with trees.” “Combined with drought, insect infestations and the stress of a warming climate, those management…
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