Sara Fischer | AXIOS | December 17, 2019

Facebook is spending six figures to fund a course on manipulated media and deepfakes for newsrooms, executives tell Axios. The course material has been developed by Reuters, and Facebook is funding its international expansion as a part of the Facebook Journalism Project.

Details: The free e-learning course, called “Identifying and Tackling Manipulated Media,” seeks to help journalists globally learn how to identify photos or videos that have been altered to present inaccurate information.

• It’s available online only, and takes about 45 minutes to complete.
• Reuters and Facebook will do events and panels in 2020 together around the course.

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Don Seiffert | Boston Business Journal | December 30, 2019

New England’s largest newspaper is entering the new year amid fierce battles with two of its labor unions, while the area’s largest radio newsroom is mired in a months-long struggle of its own to forge its first-ever union contract.

At the Boston Globe, this week marks one full year without a contract for the Boston Newspaper Guild, the union that represents 300 journalists and business employees. It’s the longest duration the union has gone without a contract in recent memory.

Meanwhile, at the Globe’s Taunton printing facility, negotiations are also underway with Teamsters Local 1, the Boston Mailers Union, over efforts to lay off 77 full-time and 44 part-time workers there. News of the layoffs first emerged in September, in connection with a decision to outsource mailroom work associated with Globe Direct, the direct-mail advertising service that reportedly makes tens of millions of dollars in revenue annually.

At WBUR, negotiations have been taking place since last May over a contract to cover about 120 newsroom employees. The nonprofit, NPR-affiliated radio station and website first voted last January to form a union affiliated with SAG-AFTRA, but it was several months before contract talks began with WBUR management and Boston University, which owns its radio license.
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Lori Valigra | Bangor Daily News | January 3, 2020

Masthead Maine will stop printing the Monday editions of four of its five daily newspapers starting March 2. Part of an effort to save staff jobs, the move reflects larger pressures facing journalism and the newspaper industry.

Starting in March, the Portland Press Herald, the Morning Sentinel in Waterville, the Kennebec Journal in Augusta and the Sun Journal in Lewiston will no longer produce their print editions on Monday. Only the Times Record in Brunswick will not be affected by the move, the company said Friday.
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The Berkshire Eagle | January 3, 2020

The concept of “fair report privilege” in regard to the press goes back to the early days of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. That the principle still holds today, as declared last week by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, is welcome news for the press and residents of the commonwealth.

The deciding case that went before the SJC, Butcher vs. University of Massachusetts, involved two news articles published by Mass Media, the student newspaper of UMass-Boston back in 2013. 

As the case wound its way through the courts over the six years since, all that remained was the lawsuit and the principle of fair report privilege. The SJC ruling does not give journalists carte blanche to print stories irresponsibly. Care must be taken to check facts and to offer corrections and apologies if necessary. But newspapers should not be held responsible for reporting what they can only take as accurate from a police blotter or in a statement from a public official. To do otherwise would be to stifle the free flow of information, and the SJC ruled wisely in assuring that a terrible precedent was not established by this case.
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Mariya Manzhos | Columbia Journalism Review. | January 3, 2020

In an op-ed published by the Columbia Journalism Review. Mariya Manzhos, a former reporter for Gannett in Massachusetts, makes the case for keeping local journalists in their jobs.

Since the GateHouse/Gannett merger closed in November, discussions of the merger have revolved around forthcoming layoffs, which will doubtless damage the quality of local news coverage. But the preservation of quality journalism also depends on Gannett keeping journalists in those jobs it doesn’t cut.

It takes time for journalists to develop connections to their communities. 
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Dave Collins | Associated Press | December 26, 2019

The Connecticut court system will move required public notices in the new year to its website and out of newspapers, citing lower costs and the potential to reach a wider audience.

Media representatives, however, believe the move will result in fewer residents being informed of important legal matters and will be another blow to news companies already dealing with huge declines in revenues. A single public notice can cost a few hundred dollars to run in a newspaper.

It’s a concept that’s been debated by government officials across the country, but so far one that appears to have gained little traction amid opposition by newspapers.
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