NuseReal

Heartbreaking truth behind 'Afghan girl' photo (LINK) 30 June 2025

Pew Research Centre: How many people leave a news site when asked to pay? Only 17% of people were willing to hand over their cash to pay for a subscription in the past year, with 83% just moving on when they have bumped into a paywall (LINK) 26 June 2025

— Part of the problem could be that readers interested in perhaps just one news article are usually only given the option to buy a long-term subscription, which often means only regular readers of a site are willing to pay for access. But 49% of those polled said that they were mostly motivated not to pay because "there are plenty of other free news articles." Another 32% said they weren't interested enough in the story to pay. Only 10% said the cost was too high, and 8% said that when they did pay, what they got wasn't worth the cost.

— Gannett Co. Inc., which publishes around 200 regional and local daily newspapers in the U.S., making it the largest newspaper group in the country, has 1.8 million digital subscribers across all of them, generating $43.3 million in revenue. That was 7.6% of the company's total revenue of $572 million in the last quarter. Overall, Gannett has seen its total revenue decline by 24% from the same quarter three years ago.

Senior White House adviser Kari Lake issued mass layoff notices to 639 employees of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the federal outlet which owns the Voice of America and through which Congress directs money for other government-funded international networks, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia. (LINK) 20 June 2025

— The vast majority of the job cuts, intended to be a permanent reduction in the size of the workforce, affects Voice of America, the government-owned international network that has beamed news reports to countries under autocratic regimes since World War II. In a press release, Lake called her action "part of a long-overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy." She said 85% of jobs, or 1,400 positions, had been eliminated in total, in keeping with an executive order in mid-March from President Trump.

20 Minuten: last Swiss free daily to stop being printed (LINK) 17 June 2025

— Up to 80 full-time positions are to be cut in the editorial and publishing departments. The reason for the closure is the declining income in the print business, the company announced. The editorial offices in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland, which are currently run separately, will be merged into one national editorial office with locations in Lausanne, Bern and Zurich. This will mean the end of the regional offices in Basel, Geneva, Lucerne and St Gallen – also at the end of 2025. In future, regional news will be covered by an "agile network of correspondents".

6 ways the Dark Web is nothing like in movies, i.e. it is not all crime-related and has legitimate uses, especially for journalists (LINK) 15 June 2025

Gerry Adams awarded €100k in libel case against the BBC (LINK) 30 May 2025

— A court found the former Sinn Féin leader was defamed in a BBC NI Spotlight programme broadcast in 2016 and an accompanying online article, in which an anonymous contributor alleged he sanctioned the 2006 murder of Denis Donaldson. Mr Adams, 76, denies any involvement.

PBS suing Trump administration over defunding, three days after NPR filed similar case (LINK) 30 May 2025

Gary Lineker to leave BBC after social media 'error' sharing a social media post about Zionism that included an illustration of a rat, historically used as an antisemitic insult (LINK) 19 May 2025

— He will leave the BBC after presenting his final episode of Match of the Day on Sunday. Lineker, 64, reiterated that he didn't know about the post's antisemitic connotations, adding that he "recognises the error and upset that I caused, and reiterate how sorry I am. Stepping back now feels like the responsible course of action. I would never consciously repost anything antisemitic — it goes against everything I stand for." The repost was an Instagram story from the group Palestine Lobby. Along with 500 high profile people, in February 2025 he signed an open letter urging the BBC to reinstate a documentary on Gaza removed from iPlayer after it was revealed the narrator was the son of a Hamas official.

— BBC's director general Tim Davie, said in a statement: "Gary has been a defining voice in football coverage for the BBC for over two decades. His passion and knowledge have shaped our sports journalism and earned him the respect of sports fans across the UK and beyond. We want to thank him for the contribution he has made."

— In March 2023 he was suspended temporarily after a Tweet comparing UK to 1930s Germany for its asylum policy.

Social media lies fuelled a rush to war between India and Pakistan — (LINK) 28 May 2025

Authorship of famous 'Napalm Girl' photo called into question: a documentary film casts 50 years of photojournalism history into doubt (LINK) 16 May 2025

Voting technology firm Smartmatic accuses Fox News, Rupert Murdoch of destroying evidence in 2020 election defamation case (LINK) 13 May 2025

— Rupert Murdoch was chairman of Fox Corporation during the 2020 election, and his son was CEO. The elder Murdoch stepped down in 2023 and his son became Fox Corp. chairman. A Fox spokesperson said the latest allegations from Smartmatic were a "desperate attempt to distract" from a recent evidentiary ruling that was decided in the network's favour.

— Smartmatic claimed the deleted texts were from November and December 2020, when numerous Fox hosts promoted the debunked lie that Smartmatic machines rigged that year's presidential election against President Donald Trump.

Daily Beast: Washington Post staff sound alarm at Bezos's CEO's drinking: CEO Will Lewis has seen a mass exodus among staff — but staffers can't even find him. (LINK) 13 May 2025

Mexico is suing Google over 'Gulf of America' name change for US users: says name change only applies to the US portion of the oceanic basin (LINK) 10 May 2025

Heavy social media use linked to believing and spreading fake news: first-of-its-kind study (LINK) 10 May 2025

— "Individuals with signs of problematic social media use may also be more susceptible to health-related misinformation, so clinicians specializing in different fields may benefit from awareness of their patients' degree of social media use," said a researcher. "By identifying people who are more likely to believe fake news, we can help reduce its spread."

Journalist Ekaterina Barabash after escaping Russia: Russians have "always been taught that Ukraine is just a part of Russia. But this belief is a kind of poison. It's something that every Russian grows up with, often without even realizing it." (LINK) 10 May 2025

— "I often hear [...] 'Everyone lies.' They're willing to accept the lies from Russian propaganda, but they won't even consider competing narratives from other sources. 'Everyone lies,' they say. It's an awful argument — a foolish one, really."

Scientists who studied Fox News: 11 findings (LINK) 8 May 2025

— Trump's public attacks on Fox News correlated with dips in the network's ratings: Democrats responded by viewing Fox News as more moderate and were more open to watching it.

— Fox News viewers who watched Dr. Anthony Fauci were more likely to adopt COVID-19 mitigation behaviors, such as using disinfectant and social distancing, compared to those who saw him on other platforms like CNBC. Although watching Fauci didn't change beliefs about hydroxychloroquine, it did lead to increased commitment to health behaviour, but only when he appeared on Fox News. This suggests that scientists may be more persuasive when speaking directly to skeptical audiences through trusted channels.

— Using Fox News website correlated with reduced knowledge of societal issues, such as climate change, unemployment, and economic trends.

Nicaragua withdraws from UNESCO in protest over press freedom award to Nicaraguan newspaper, La Prensa (LINK) 4 May 2025

Voice of America could be back on air next week: the broadcaster fell silent in March after an executive order by US President Donald Trump (LINK) 3 May 2025

US federal court halts ruling ordering Voice of America to allow employees back to work and restore funding for Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks (LINK).

— The appeals court in a 2-1 decision suggested earlier judge lacked jurisdiction to order the employees to return to work and to require the restoration of $15 million in grants for Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

Radio Free Asia announces mass layoffs amid funding fight with Trump administration: about 90 percent of staff, and shutting down many of its language services (LINK) 2 May 2025

— Since 1996, RFA has broadcast in languages like Burmese, Cambodian and Mandarin to a weekly audience of around 60 million listeners.

President Trump orders Corporation for Public Broadcasting to end federal funding for NPR and PBS (LINK) 1 May 2025

whitehouse.gov: "Ending Taxpayer Subsidization Of Biased Media" (LINK) — 1 May 2025

2025 media headlines