Ben Werdmuller helps leaders at newsrooms, non-profits, and mission-driven organizations to navigate their biggest technology challenges.
I participated in this year’s NiemanLab Predictions for Journalism. My prediction is about AI flooding the web with spammy, bland content — and the techniques newsrooms will need to use to connect with their communities: Newsrooms that commit to AI-driven storytelling as a way to cut costs while increasing
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I've been thinking a lot about leveling engineers lately, and I like this system that Sarah Milstein implemented at Daily very much indeed. Sarah's just started a coaching practice for engineering leaders, which sounds wonderful to me. #Technology [Link]
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This hits the nail on the head: "No one chasing money in media ever chased Twitter. But anyone chasing power found themselves irresistibly drawn to the platform. And eventually, the platform started to actually deliver that power in ways that continue to reverberate around the world." I do
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It's reassuring to see Benedict Evans have a lot of the same business questions as everybody else about AI - What actually is this? What will it look like? Will OpenAI be a gatekeeper? Albeit no mention of the ethical issues that are also a hugely important part of
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Really good to hear about this meeting at Meta about joining the fediverse. It sounds like development is continuing apace; I really appreciate the transparency. I have to admit that I feel a pang of FOMO. This is such an important movement and moment in time for the web. #Technology
I was very taken by Robin Berjon’s description of technologists: Someone needs to navigate the digital world (for a business, a project, any institution) without blind deference to vertical experts, and without monkeying dumb Silicon Valley tropes or giving credence to breathless LinkedIn thoughtleadering. The full post is a
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An interesting breakdown not just for people interested in Mastodon - but for anyone who cares about safety on any community platform. These kinds of prompts turn out to be really useful, with measurable impacts, if they're done right. It's great that an open source project is
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"The United States has long lagged when it comes to pregnancy-related health. There is a unique danger to pregnancy for Black Americans, who face higher mortality and morbidity rates because of entrenched, systemic racism." An important series of articles examining what pregnancy looks like in modern-day
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No surprise that Black consumers favor local papers that are more reflective of their communities (vs national outlets, which still skew white and male). "Black news organizations — and also Black reporters at mainstream outlets — understand the local issues better and are less likely to engage in tired tropes and
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This is something, but it would be nice to see real ActivityPub support in a way that would allow Spoutible profiles to be first-class profiles on the fediverse. Still, the nice thing about building in support for Mastodon and BlueSky is that - unlike when I built support for Twitter
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"The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint Tuesday alleging Mozilla refused to hire Scarlett because of her past labor activism. The agency’s prosecutors called on Mozilla to offer Scarlett the position she applied for in 2021 or a similar role, and to otherwise make her whole for
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This data was widely cited and used to justify some frankly racist rhetoric. I particularly noticed it in the usual circles who complain about the decline of San Francisco supposedly due to progressive policies. It speaks to the power of data to tell stories, and to peoples' willingness to