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Damon Kiesow

@damon.kiesow.net

4.9K followers 3.5K following 4.1K posts

Knight Chair in Journalism at Mizzou. Authored first textbook for News Product Management. Previously: Director of Product at McClatchy. Big @newsproduct.org fan.

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · Nov 12

Who am I following here?

People who create, develop and protect knowledge.
Who study history and democracy.
Who take a critical eye to technology.
Who monitor public health, labor, supply chains.

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 1h

Footnote: news creators/influencers are trusted sources. Change is not waiting around for us to call.

Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 1h

TBH for the first half I assumed this was an NYT post.

Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 1h

With due respect to all of my friends who are grads - who cares?

Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 3h

Nothing more Harvard than for these professors to think the solution is “inform the New York Times” rather than “give the students lower grades.”

NYT push alert reading: Harvard's Campus Culture
Students who skip class and fail to do the reading still get high grades, a group of professors say. Now, they are trying to change the culture.

Reposted by Damon Kiesow

Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 1h

Also: if you work for ICE, even if you’re not one of the ones arresting citizens or tackling 15-year-olds or zip-tying kids together and segregating them by race, you’re part of the mechanism making it happen, and you should suffer long-term social and post-regime-change consequences.

Ari Cohn @aricohn.com · 2h

Some weirdo on Twitter has been absolutely melting down for like 36 straight hours because I posted:

When this is over, do not forget what ICE did, and what ICE is. And do not make room for them in society. Make sure they know that they are, and will continue to be, reviled and beneath contempt.

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 2h

And follow my logic here: People are not magically going to decide to spend their spare time on media literacy. But they do hate having their time wasted and AI Slop promises to waste a LOT of our time in the near future. We need to promise the opposite: efficient, easy to use and true.

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 2h

Got ya covered:

We bring some core beliefs to bear:
• News is a public good and must be sustained in some practical form.
• News product management is journalism and upholds its highest standards.
• The goal of news is to help communities understand themselves.
• News organizations must look like their communities.
• News products are built with and for readers.
• News product is data-informed, not data-driven.
• Anyone in a news organization can be a news product thinker.

Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 2h

The tidal wave of AI slop adds to the evidence that scale is dead for most newsrooms and spending time on anything that is not 100% local, quality, trust and engagement is delusional.

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 2h

That looks like the obvious things: good work, transparency, accountability but also: websites that don't suck, headlines that are not clickbait, social promotion that is not ragebait, ads on the page that are not garbage...

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 2h

If as a journalist you don't know which photos or videos to trust on social media any more you might ask why the news media is not positioning itself to prosper from the pending consumer rush back to trusted sources.

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 3h

They will make very nice indoor golf or skate parks.

Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 4h

This may come as a shock, but society does not always have to adopt or keep every innovation that Is developed. Like: chemical weapons, human cloning, DDT, CFCs etc. That’s how it works.

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 6h

Was the goal to beat Alabama or keep it close enough to get a Bowl Game.

Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 7h

Hey, what's the correlation between having an undefeated team in the SEC and the maintenance of academic freedoms for faculty? Just wondering what the stakes of this last 8 minutes.

Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 1d

But Obama once wore a tan suit. Now that was a scandal.

Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 1d

Just opened up TikTok and I think is is all Sora-generated fiction now? That ought to end well.

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 1d

Yes - it definitely sends the message that "nothing out of the ordinary to see here." That is if we believe at all in media efects.

Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 1d

I see a lot of "Here's what you need to know about X" headlines, when "X" is somthing objectively illegal and unprecedented. That is actually journalistic malfesance.

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 1d

MIT refuses suicide pill, other schools weighing options.

Reuters @reuters.com · 1d

MIT refuses to accept White House terms for funding, other schools still mulling reut.rs/471tkNZ

MIT refuses to accept White House terms for funding, other schools still mulling

Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth on Friday said she "cannot support" a memo that the White House sent to nine elite U.S. universities last week detailing policies they should follow to get preferential consideration for federal funding.

reut.rs

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 1d

Adding this to the list of things that absolutely never happened.

Carrie Brown @brizzyc.bsky.social · 1d

Jfc

CJ Ciaramella @cjciaramella.bsky.social · 1d

UPDATE: In emailed statement to me / @reason.com, DHS alleges that WGN-TV producer Debbie Brockman "threw objects at Border Patrol’s car and she was placed under arrest for assault on a federal law enforcement officer."

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 1d

For instance - deadly force aganst someone breaking through a window to bypass a barricaded door and gain access to the Speaker's Lobby?

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 1d

EXCLUSIVE — DHS Acting General Counsel sent out a memo Wednesday to all Federal Protective Service staff (the sub-agency that guards federal buildings) letting officers know they could take any action necessary "in the vicinity" federal property to protect themselves.

The Handbasket reports:

DHS top lawyer says 'no legal barrier' to actions officers can take to defend federal property

In a memo obtained exclusively by The Handbasket, Federal Protective Service (FPS) officers were given free rein.

www.thehandbasket.co

Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 1d

Treating professional journalists like second graders provides a key insight into the future.

Oliver Darcy @oliverdarcy.bsky.social · 1d

News: Bari Weiss just sent a memo to staffers at CBS News asking them to produce a memo explaining "how you spend your working hours—and ideally, what you've made (or are making) that you're most proud of."

One CBS News staffer puts it like this to me: "We just got Elon Musked."

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 2d

He did not say this but I interpreted it: There is a lot of busy work in most offices that people write and no one reads. So is the future - this meeting could have been an email could have been an AI-written email.

Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 2d

Paraphrasing @lavallee.bsky.social who argues we need to experiment more aggressively with AI: No mistake from an experiment so far has been as bad, for example, as the human decision to withhold an endorsement and loose 250,000 subscriber.

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Reposted by Damon Kiesow

Missouri School of Journalism @mujschool.bsky.social · 2d

@damon.kiesow.net, Knight Chair in Journalism Innovation, speaks to The Midwest Newsroom about the economics of print, eliminating Monday print editions, corporate takeovers and "leaning into sports coverage." #MissouriMethod #MizzouMade www.iowapublicradio.org/ipr-news/202...

The Iowa-based owner of 75 hometown newspapers is in pain. That hurts communities

Staff cuts, the closure of regional printing presses and cuts to printed editions characterize Lee Enterprises as it tries to expand its digital subscriber base while keeping existing print customers ...

www.iowapublicradio.org

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Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 4d

Rumor has it she disappeared... on an island...