The Business Insider website. (Status)
On Thursday afternoon, Business Insider staffers received a long-awaited memo from editor in chief Jamie Heller, outlining the Axel Springer-owned outlet’s rules for using artificial intelligence. The guidelines had been eagerly anticipated since earlier this summer, when Mathias Döpfner, chief of the German publishing giant Axel Springer, urged employees at a corporate town hall to weave A.I. into their daily work, but left the specifics to individual publications.
Heller’s note filled the information vacuum, spelling out both restrictions and expectations for staff. “This policy is designed to enable and encourage us to experiment with A.I., a rapidly changing technology, as we continue to pursue the biggest stories about business, tech, innovation, and more for our audience,” she wrote in the memo, obtained by Status.
The guidelines unsurprisingly said that BI journalists can use A.I.—"just like any other tool"—for tasks such as research. And they said staffers "may use approved A.I. tools for specific tasks and enhancements for images and video." But it was, of course, the rules about using ChatGPT in writing that caught the attention of most staffers…
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The New York Times building. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Trump Sues The Times: Donald Trump is once again attempting to weaponize the courts against the press, this time filing an outrageous $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times. The lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Florida names four journalists, multiple articles, and a book. In the filing, Trump rages that The NYT “maliciously peddled the fact-free narrative” that others like “The Apprentice” producer Mark Burnett made him famous, insisting instead he was already a “mega-celebrity.” A spokesperson for The Times dismissed the case as “meritless,” and legal experts noted it stands little chance under the high bar for defamation against press. The NYT publisher A.G. Sulzberger denounced the lawsuit in a memo to staff as “frivolous,” adding that “everyone, regardless of their politics, should be troubled by the growing anti-press campaign led by President Trump and his administration.” Of course, while Trump’s suit is unlikely to succeed legally, his real aim is to intimidate and punish journalists for coverage he doesn’t like.
While Trump was filing his suit against The NYT, A.G. Sulzberger spoke at the Investigative Reporters and Editors 50th anniversary celebration: "Democracy is in retreat across the world. Aspiring strongmen are undermining the laws, norms, and institutions that are the bedrock of free societies. A primary target of this project is the press—because when journalists are kept from providing independent information to the public, it becomes far easier for those in power to act with impunity." [NYT]
👀 NewsNation beat CNN and MSNBC in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 aged demo in prime time on Saturday. [Forbes]
This is cool: Sara Fischer reported The Atlantic plans to offer every public high school in the U.S. free digital access to its journalism. [Axios]
Alex Heath launched an independent newsletter called "Sources" and a Vox Media-produced podcast co-hosted with Ellis Hamburger called "Access." Vox Media will sell advertisements for both and Heath will remain a contributor to The Verge, where he has served as deputy editor. [Axios]
Reuters hired Deepa Seetharaman as a tech correspondent. [TBN]
Morning Brew hired Alex Carr as editorial director. [TBN]
Donald Trump speaks to ABC's Jonathan Karl at the White House. (Screen grab via SnapStream/CNN)
Trump’s Speech Threat: While Donald Trump has long claimed to be the defender of “free speech,” he’s now overtly moving to restrict it. On Tuesday, he threatened ABC’s Jonathan Karl after attorney general Pam Bondi suggested the Justice Department would “absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.” When Karl asked what he made of that, Trump replied…
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