Fighting for journalism and profitable news media What WSJ's Trump win means for BBC lawsuit | Politico merger boosts Iran war coverageAnd Tollbit co-founders say publishers can soon make more money from bots than human website visitorsGood morning from the team at Press Gazette on Tuesday, 14 April. 🙏Thank heavens for the US First Amendment. And his ruling throwing out Trump’s “baseless” claim makes it a near certainty that his $10bn lawsuit against the BBC will likely get the same treatment. This is a big relief to BBC licence fee payers and to journalists everywhere that the United States remains the home of free speech. Gayles said Trump’s claim comes nowhere near the standard needed to show actual malice on behalf of the publisher, as required in US law. The Journal would need to have shown reckless disregard for the truth to fall foul of US law when in fact it responsibly reported on a matter of clear public interest. The judge set out how the Journal had given Trump right of reply and included his denials, leaving it up to readers to make their mind up about whether the story was true or not. 🤖 We’ve spoken to the founders of Tollbit – a company which aims to control and monetise AI access to publisher websites. The somewhat concerning news is that they see bot traffic trending towards overtaking human website traffic in the near future. The more encouraging message is that they think publishers will soon be making more money from bots than they are directly from human website visitors. Nowadays you will be hard-pressed to find a national newsbrand with even one dedicated environment reporter. Politico now has 73 editorial staff covering the linked energy and environment beat worldwide following the merger of Politico Pro Energy with E&E News (a specialist brand acquired by Politico in 2020). Going deep in this area has allowed Politico to build a strong base of paying B2B subscribers while also boosting its free-to-air website and podcast audience. |