For the Record

Tribune Offers More Buyouts:

According to Kerry Flynn of CNN, Tribune Publishing "is offering buyouts to employees for the second time in two years and months after hedge fund Alden Global Capital became the largest shareholder in the company." Buyouts will be open to employees who have worked at the media company for eight or more years. "Alden Global Capital's reputation as a destroyer of local newspapers should alarm all citizens in every city with a Tribune Publishing newspaper," said Gregory Pratt, a Chicago Tribune reporter. "We need a civic minded owner who understands that journalism is critical to the communities where we work and that news outlets can't be a piggy bank for hedge funds to raid."

McConnell Cosponsors Journalism Bill:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he will cosponsor the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act. The bipartisan bill would provide a four-year antitrust exemption to newspapers and digital publishers, enabling them to "to negotiate with Google and Facebook over how their articles and photos are used online and what payments the newspapers get from the tech companies," according to Cecilia Kang of The New York Times. NiemanLab's Joshua Benton noted that multinational corporations may be reluctant to jeopardize other business relationships with the major platforms, mitigating the potential impact of the legislation.

Trump Cooperating With Woodward:

In a Friday interview with Fox News anchor Laura Ingram, President Trump said that he is cooperating with a forthcoming book on the administration by 1973 Public Service and 2002 National Reporting contributor Bob Woodward. "I was interviewed by a very, very good writer, reporter," Trump said. "I can say Bob Woodward. He said he's doing something and this time I said, 'maybe I'll sit down.'" The president previously lambasted Woodward as a "Dem operative" and a "con" while also accusing the longtime Washington Post associate editor of fabricating reportage following the publication of "Fear: Trump in the White House" in 2018.

Facebook Bans Deepfakes, Doubles Down on Political Ads:

Although Facebook announced Monday that it will ban manipulated "deepfake" videos, the platform will continue to permit potentially misleading political ads. "People should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all," the platform said in a blog post. However, the company will introduce a feature that will enable users to "choose to see fewer" political ads, according to Laura Hazard Owen of NiemanLab. "I am not willing to bet the 2020 elections on the proposition that Facebook has solved its problems with a solution whose chief feature appears to be that it doesn't seriously impact the company's profit margins," said Ellen Weintraub, a member of the Federal Election Commission.

ICIJ's Walker Guevara Moves to Pulitzer Center:

Marina Walker Guevara will succeed Indira Lakshmanan as executive editor of the Pulitzer Center, the nonprofit news organization announced Thursday. As director of strategic initiatives and network at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), she managed the 2017 Explanatory Reporting Prize-winning Panama Papers project and the Paradise Papers follow-up project. "Marina has worked with journalists throughout the world, managing complex investigative projects and forging collegial collaborations among hundreds of media outlets," said Executive Director John Sawyer.  Lakshmanan joined National Geographic (a frequent partner of the Center) as senior executive editor this month. (The Center, which was founded and endowed by the family of former Pulitzer Prize Board Chair Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. in 2006, is not affiliated with the Pulitzer Prizes.)

CPI Launches Model Legislation App:

According to Ren LaForme of Poynter, the Center for Public Integrity has launched Copy, Paste, Legislate, a "model legislation tracking tool [that] make[s] it easy to locate widespread lobbying efforts across the United States." The site "regularly pulls in new legislation from across the country and parses the text for similar language," enabling journalists to research these bills (which are "often written by moneyed special interests that want government to help them achieve a political goal") during the statehouse legislative process. "This tool is not a silver bullet and not going to do the work for you," said CPI News Developer Pratheek Rebala. "But it can enrich traditional reporting."

Teen Vogue Removes Misleading Facebook Sponsored Content:

Teen Vogue deleted an article on Facebook's efforts against disinformation in the 2020 election Wednesday after readers deduced that it was "sponsored content [and] not a reported piece of journalism," according to Tom McKay of Gizmodo. Prior to its removal, the news organization updated the article to disclose the arrangement while falsely attributing the work to contributor Lauren Rearick, eliciting widespread confusion on Twitter. A spokesperson for Condé Nast told The Washington Post that they had "made a series of errors labeling this piece [and] apologize for any confusion this may have caused." Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg also deleted a post lauding the article that did not disclose the arrangement.

Caro Sells Literary Archive to NYHS:

Two-time Pulitzer winner Robert Caro's archive has been acquired by the New-York Historical Society, Jennifer Schuessler of The New York Times reported Tuesday. In addition to "research notes, drafts, annotated news clippings, correspondence and other documents" that will be made available to researchers, the Society will create a permanent exhibit on to Caro's research methods. Although the journalist has completed over 600 manuscript pages of the final volume in his Lyndon Johnson pentalogy (including the 2003 Biography Prize-winning "Master of the Senate"), no publication date has been scheduled.

PEN America Receives Newmark Gift:

PEN America announced Tuesday that it has received a $250,000 endowment from Craig Newmark Philanthropies "for its work to combat disinformation and harassment online over the next 12 months." The gift will enable the free expression advocacy organization to "expand its online harassment self-defense trainings for newsrooms, journalism schools, and writers' associations" in addition to cultivating "best practices for protecting journalists from online abuse" in conjunction with The Dallas Morning News and The San Diego Union Tribune. "During a fraught political moment, we're especially honored that Craig is doubling down on his contributions to our vital work in promoting truth and transparency and defending journalists and writers from online abuse," said CEO Suzanne Nossel. 

New Year's Prognostications:

An array of prominent journalists (ranging from Columbia University sociologist Todd Gitlin to Bulwark Editor in Chief Charlie Sykes and former Pulitzer Prize Board member Margaret Sullivan) offered predictions on 2020's media landscape in a joint Guardian-Columbia Journalism Review report. "There are people who are trying to figure out what this political moment is — very, very uncomfortable with the extremes and really liking the fact that we can talk to one another," said Sykes. "So in the typical feedback that I get, I would say 80% of them begin with something like 'I am a liberal Democrat, but I don't like…' or there will be other people who say 'I've been a lifelong Republican, but I can't stand what's happening.' I consider myself kind of a political orphan." Sullivan added: "When things are 'racist' we're willing sometimes to use that word. We're willing to use the word 'lie.' We've come a ways in that sense, but I'm still not particularly positive about how we're going to deal with 2020."