Media

1. Dems’ media strategy
2. The Times goes AI
3. Free AP
4. Post-podcast
5. Intercept settlement
6. It’s all personal
7. Reddit vs. LA Times
8. Victory lap

Welcome to Semafor Media, where humans still write all our headlines and social copy.

I spent the weekend reading the dueling juicy Murdoch family sagas in The New York Times and The Atlantic — nearly 28,000 words, combined, about the turmoil and divide within what has for decades been media’s most influential and interesting family.

As the two stories point out, Fox’s corporate future is in real doubt as Rupert Murdoch ages into his mid 90s and as his children seem poised to potentially take his media empire in a very different direction upon his death. But somewhat ironically, Fox remains one of the best-positioned older media companies for the new digital landscape.

Last week was a sunny one at Fox. The network’s broadcast of the Super Bowl set viewership records and netted the company a record $800 million in advertising revenue. It also served as a coming out party for Tubi, Fox Corp.’s free streaming service, which continues to post impressive viewership numbers and helped make this Super Bowl the most-streamed in history. Increasingly, Tubi appears to be one of Fox’s key pillars for future growth: The company last week also bought the podcast maker Red Seat Ventures, bringing the brand producing Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson back into the Fox fold. Crucially, Fox parked it under Tubi, a decision intended to signal that its creator and podcast business aren’t necessarily tied to the fortunes of its cable network.

With the Red Seat acquisition giving the company a foothold in the next generation of conservative media, Fox News’ viewership numbers bucking cord-cutting trends, and NFL broadcast rights, things seem almost steady at Fox, public family drama notwithstanding. You can almost see why Rupert wants to keep things the way they are.

Also today: Democrats try to win back the internet, The New York Times is all-in on AI, and drama in the r/LosAngeles subreddit. (Scoop count: 6)

Inside Democrats’ new media strategy confab

Last week, Democratic operatives and left-leaning activists gathered at the Wharf in Washington, DC, at the offices of Laurene Powell Jobs’ investment company, Emerson Collective, to talk through why the left’s well-funded digital media operation failed in 2024.

The conference featured hourlong seminars on how to improve short- and long-form video, which included briefings from Courier Newsroom’s Tara McGowan and executives at Crooked Media, and how to better collaborate with influencers to push progressive messages out. It was also a chance for representatives of some of the party’s biggest donors, including Michael Del Nin, Soros Fund Management’s leading investor, to connect with sympathetic creators and media organizations as they seek to regain the digital ground they’ve lost to the right.

New York Times rolls out AI tools

The New York Times is greenlighting the use of AI for its product and editorial staff, saying workers could eventually use the new tech to write social copy, SEO headlines, and some code.

On Friday, Times leadership emailed the newsroom to announce that it was opening up an internal AI tool called Echo to staff, along with a suite of different tools.

“Generative AI can assist our journalists in uncovering the truth and helping more people understand the world. Machine learning already helps us report stories we couldn’t otherwise, and generative AI has the potential to bolster our journalistic capabilities even more,” the company told staff.

For example, in a mandatory training video shared with staff, the Times suggested using AI to come up with questions to ask the CEO of a startup during an interview. Times guidelines also said staffers could use AI to develop news quizzes, social copy, quote cards, and FAQs. Still, the paper warned reporters not to use the new tools when dealing with confidential or sensitive information, and noted that if used improperly, they could waive the Times’ right to protect sources and notes.

Free AP

We at Semafor try to let our reporting speak for itself, but do associate ourselves with the outlets and organizations taking The Associated Press’ side in the fight over White House access and speech. There’s been a lot written on this, but we thought it would be useful to articulate the principle from our point of view: The subjects of news coverage shouldn’t get to dictate what it says — though we always seek to reflect their perspective.

What comes after ‘podcasts’

Last week’s big media deal was Fox’s acquisition of Red Seat Ventures, the company that produces and markets the shows of the people who used to be Fox’s biggest stars. Red Seat CEO Chris Balfe gave us an exclusive and fascinating interview on Mixed Signals on the new-model media company.

One central theme is “control, which is to say in the old-school network model, the programming is all determined by the executive and therefore that executive has accountability for all the programming and uses — and abuses that responsibility, in some cases — to say, here’s how we’re covering this, here’s the way we’re viewing it,” Balfe said. “I don’t provide editorial commentary or insights to my folks, and I always say that the moment that I called Megyn or Tucker and said, ‘Hey, I don’t think you should say this,’ is the last day they’re a client of ours.”

Also, don’t get used to the word “podcast”: “It’s hard to call these shows podcasts when so much of the consumption is happening in video,” Balfe said.

Listen to the latest episode of Mixed Signals now.

The Intercept settles with writer

The Intercept has agreed to pay out a small settlement to a writer who accused the outlet of not giving him credit for his reporting. In January 2024, journalist Arun Gupta approached the Intercept with a story calling out what he identified as unsupported claims or inaccuracies in a New York Times exposé about sexual violence during the October 7 attacks. Gupta said he was commissioned to write the story by then-staffer Ryan Grim. But after submitting a several-thousand-word draft and waiting several weeks, he was told the story was scrapped.

Then, Gupta said, he was shocked to see in February an Intercept story that focused on the Times article, featuring some of the same material he’d compiled. The Intercept piece called into question claims by an Israeli paramedic, citing the same Indian television sources, in a similar way to one of the elements of Gupta’s draft. He brought a complaint to the National Writers Union, which said in a letter that the evidence was “unambiguous and clear” that The Intercept leaned on Gupta’s work. That helped secure him a small settlement, and he was subsequently credited as a researcher for the Intercept story. In a statement, Gupta said that the Intercept’s former staff should be “held to account for their unethical actions,” arguing that the outlet had stolen his work.

For their part, the Intercept paid Gupta a kill fee for the original story, and people familiar with the situation noted that Gupta’s story was largely comprised of aggregation from other sources, while the primary thrust of the Intercept’s story on Screams Without Words was original reporting not included in Gupta’s original draft.

The coming era of media personalization

The CEO of the ad giant WPP, Mark Read, spoke to our colleague Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson this week, and hinted at what may well be the core of the AI shift in media: personalization. ​​“As things become cheaper, people will consume a lot more of it, content being a key example,” he said, citing the Jevons paradox, a Victorian economist’s theory that has become popular among AI optimists. “If we can personalize marketing and make it much more relevant to consumers, I think clients will want to have a much greater degree of personalization.” He also used WPP’s AI platform to whip up some marketing for Semafor’s (imagined) CMO newsletter, just for example.

An ‘unreliable source’

Moderators of the Los Angeles subreddit are prohibiting the sharing of links from the Los Angeles Times. In recent days, people attempting to share LA Times links in the subreddit have had their links automatically removed and are served a message informing them that they are attempting to share information from “an unreliable source of information.” While the page’s moderators have not explained the move, it comes amid an attempt by the owner to reposition the paper’s opinion section rightward. The subreddit has shared links to reporting in The Wrap and other outlets on owner Patrick Soon-Shiong’s courtship of conservative stars.

Read Semafor Media!

You heard it here first. We reported last year that Fox Corp. was kicking the tires on podcast companies — what eventually became the Red Seat deal. BuzzFeed also announced in Axios that it was launching a new app, BF Island, aimed at emphasizing human creativity versus AI-driven algorithms — a project that Semafor reported in this newsletter in early February. The News Media Alliance, a collection of media organizations, announced it was suing the AI company Cohere for allegedly stealing its members’ journalism, a lawsuit we previewed in the newsletter earlier this year. New York Magazine dove deeper into a story we first reported last year about Daily co-host Sabrina Tavernise leaving the show. And Status advanced the ball on the LA Times recruiting conservative commentators. Our point in this victory lap: Thank you for reading! We’ll keep letting you know what’s coming before anyone else.

Katie Drummond is Wired’s global editorial director.

⁌ TV

All-access: After the White House banned the AP from major presidential events last week, the press pool became a bit friendlier to the president. During an Oval Office meeting that the AP was prohibited from attending, President Donald Trump instead fielded a question from Brian Glenn, the White House correspondent for Real America’s Voice, a pro-Trump video outlet.

The moment stuck out to some members of the White House press corps. Press access to the Oval Office is extremely limited, and only select media outlets are afforded the opportunity to attend, given space restrictions. The Trump White House has invited some non-pool reporters to small events, a practice that occasionally took place during the Biden administration but has increased in recent weeks. Glenn has become a darling of the conservative right for his friendliness to the president and his personal life; he’s dating Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and refers to himself as one half of “MAGA America’s favorite couple.”

☊ Audio

Streaming: As podcasts become increasingly like television, Netflix is exploring whether it wants to get into video podcasts. It’s an understandable move for the streamer, which often buys comedy specials from comedians whose day jobs are largely producing content for other platforms.

Big data: Spotify is releasing its video content creators’ revenue data in an effort to convince podcasters to start sharing video on the platform.

⁋ Publishing

Help wanted: Puck is looking for a reporter to cover hedge funds and private equity — and “go on CNBC,” per an email circulating at a talent agency shared with Semafor. Salary: $200,000. Not bad!

No RTO: In a note to remaining staff on Friday shared with Semafor, G/O CEO Jim Spanfeller said the digital media company had decided to shutter its offices and become fully remote.

✰ Hollywood

No Cap: The behind-the-scenes drama during the production of Marvel’s attempted quasi-reboot of the Captain America franchise was bad enough that it leaked before the movie came out. The reviews confirm what many on the film’s set felt: It’s a really bad movie.

⁛ News

Demoniified: The business news platform Moniify, launched last November by Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris for the “next generation of entrepreneurs,” is already making deep cuts. “Devastated to hear of the recent mass layoffs at MONIIFY shortly after launch,” wrote Yaser Bishr, a former Al Jazeera executive who advised on the project. CEO Michael Peters, who previously led Euronews, didn’t respond to an inquiry.

⁜ Tech

US AI: The Pentagon awarded a contract last week for the use of AI “to better assess news media originating in countries that are potential foreign adversaries ... enabling faster and more informed assessments of media data vital to national security.” BigBear.AI, a defense-focused AI company, said that it is working with the Department of Defense to analyze foreign news environments and flag potential negative trends.

Ad spend: Apple is joining the media and tech companies who’ve brought their advertising back to X. The company paused advertising in 2023 after owner Elon Musk endorsed antisemitic theories and comments.

People are increasingly falling for their favorite chatbots, Semafor’s Rachyl Jones writes. Chatbot site Janitor AI told Semafor that users have started 2.1 million conversations with its Valentine’s Day bots since they went live on Tuesday. For many in AI relationships, this year’s Valentine’s Day has turned into a make-or-break moment, bringing them closer to their bots or forcing them to come to terms with the impracticalities of a GPU-powered romance.