The potential and perils of personalization 

The advent of AI has boosted the potential for the personalization of news. It’s also intensified the debate: Do audiences want home pages with stories selected by editors, or by an algorithm that “knows” their preferences?

The conundrum was captured by Press Gazette’s editor in chief, Dominic Ponsford, last month in a review of a panel discussion at an event his publication hosted in New York. One of the panelists, The Wall Street Journal’s head of digital, Taneth Evans, described the “tricky” calculation with audiences.

“They say ‘I pay for the Wall Street Journal to tell me what’s important that day.’ And so it’s important to us that we retain that kind of curated editorial experience and editorial homepage,” she said.

Citing Ponsford’s piece, tech and media journalist Simon Owens said on LinkedIn that he could hardly think of any news publishers personalizing their homepages. “To be fair, the vast majority of publishers don’t produce a high enough volume of content to make personalization work, but you’d think there would be at least some experimentation with the largest media outlets, especially as they came to realize that homepage traffic was worth more than virtually every other kind of traffic,” he wrote. 

Meanwhile, also on LinkedIn, Lars K Jensen, the audience lead at Berlingske Media in Copenhagen, recommended a study from researchers in Denmark and posed a thoughtful question about personalization: “Will people think more about the stories they consume based on the fact that they will be seen as signals to be used for future recommendations?” he wrote.

News In Focus
Headlines, resources and events aligned with API’s four areas of focus.

Civic Discourse & Democracy

>> Trump keeps insulting female journalists (The Guardian)

The president’s rudeness to female journalists “opens them up to harassment from his acolytes,” writes Arwa Mahdawi, while also sending “a message to the world about what he thinks about press freedom and what he thinks about women.”

>> University of Alabama suspends Alice, Nineteen Fifty-Six student magazines (The Crimson White)

The Department of Student Life suspended the university-funded magazines, citing a memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi. A petition calling on the university to reinstate the publications said the move was “a direct attack on free speech.”

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Culture & Inclusion

>> What does peer support in journalism look like: Insights from U.S. and international experts (Source from OpenNews) 

As journalists face increasingly hostile environments, peer support is essential, writes Naseem Miller. She provides examples as well as recommendations for establishing and strengthening these support systems.

>> Teaching journalism at this moment (The Word) 

Stacy Kess spoke with four university instructors who describe the challenges of teaching journalism in the current environment, how they build their course content and the lessons from their own careers that they hope they can impart to their students.

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Community Engagement & Trust

>> AI isn’t our best defense against misinformation just yet (The Seattle Times)

Kevin Matthe Caramancion, a course instructor in the Department of Cybersecurity and Information Assurance at Western Governors University School of Technology, outlines why we should be wary of using AI-generated content for fact-checking. “Not all search engines that provide AI-generated answers perform the same or provide reliable results,” he writes.

>> Help us help you: Take API’s needs and impact survey

API remains steadfast in our mission to support and strengthen local news leaders through practical programs, research, tools and training. Now, we’d love to hear from you. Please take our impact and needs survey.

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Revenue & Resilience

>> Nonprofit led by veteran journalist David Greene to acquire LNP (LancasterOnline)

A new nonprofit led by journalist David Greene, a former NPR host, will assume ownership of LNP/LancasterOnline. The transfer “opens the door to philanthropic and charitable giving to bolster local news reporting,” writes Jeff Hawkes. Greene is a Lancaster native.

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What else you need to know

📣 SPJ urges White House to take down ‘media offenders’ webpage (Society of Professional Journalists)

🏭 Rust Belt cities may have shrinking populations, but their newspapers have a big traffic edge over Sun Belt peers (Nieman Lab)

📰 Joe Kahn, New York Times executive editor, answers reader questions (The New York Times)

📝 Boat strike scandal shows the limits of Hegseth’s news media crackdown (CNN)