Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by mark thompson

Mohamed @moesquare.bsky.social · 8h

So I really do apologize for seemingly having to do this each month, but I still have about $800 in school fees related to my masters which need to be paid off by the end of the month to ensure I graduate in late Nov. I'd be beyond grateful for any help possible on this!
ko-fi.com/moesquare

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ko-fi.com

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 9h

Every now and then I get caught out by how you can, just, cook something delicious. It really is like magic

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 14h

But the 3-minute headline story should be something like 'what makes a proper chippie in 2025' once per week

mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 14h

I think my ideal daily news podcast would be:
• rattle through the 'front-page' headlines
• 3-minutes on a headline story that's genuinely momentous/not covered recently
• rattle through big 'back page' sports news
• 2-minutes on a sport/TV/celeb goss story
• 'man from Bury can talk to ducks'

pacanukeha❌ (seasonally appropriate remix) @pacanukeha.bsky.social · 15h

if you're not looking for big headline, what are you looking for? local? genre? viewpoint?

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Reposted by mark thompson

Ben Wylie @plottheball.com · 16h

Covered in this week’s edition of Plot the Ball:

⚽️ Barça Femení
⛳️ Nelly Korda
🏏 Australia
🏈 Travis Hunter
🏉 Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu

Read and subscribe at the link below!

www.plottheball.com/p/despite-th...

⚽️ Despite the club’s financial issues, head coach Pere Romeu has Barça Femení back on track

My Week in Sport(s) ⚽️ ⛳️ 🏏 🏈 🏉

www.plottheball.com

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 16h

Has just struck me that if ChatGPT is offering an ecosystem around app access, then maybe there's more of a benefit to having an app as a media org?

mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 1d

I suspect I
• underestimated technical challenges of building good media apps
• overestimated how much people use, and subscribe from, mobile apps

among other shortcomings

mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 16h

Does anyone have any recommendations for a daily news podcast (preferably UK) that isn't entirely about the Big Headline news/worst things in the world of the day?

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Reposted by mark thompson

Megan Feringa @meganferinga.bsky.social · 18h

“You don’t have a period but that’s fine. You’re an athlete.” A caveat accompanying countless medical results, despite inevitable danger, lines being drawn between sacrifices periods + sporting success. A piece for my sister + those challenging the system. www.nytimes.com/athletic/658...

In women’s sports, athletes losing their periods was long considered normal. Not anymore

A byproduct of wider issues, periods continue to be missed, ignored or misunderstood in elite sports

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by mark thompson

Scott Willis @scott.cannonstats.com · 21h

Data Scientist (Consultant) - Arsenal Football Club careers.arsenal.com/jobs/6550595...

Data Scientist (Consultant) - Arsenal Football Club

Exciting opportunity to play a key role in elevating the Women’s game through cutting-edge analytics.

careers.arsenal.com

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 1d

It's only 7 minutes. It's a good listen, in large part because it's clearly a well-produced interview segment where the interviewer hits all the beats they need so that the audience gets a full picture, and the interviewee can articulate it all

mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 1d

Full interview (which, I think?, is a short segment of an NPR programme) is here: www.npr.org/2023/05/19/1...

Part of the context is the writers strike; and part is that in this short interview, Shapiro has to hit multiple beats about the points of contention of that strike

TV writer David Simon weighs in on the Writers Guild of America strike

David Simon talks about how being a TV writer has changed over the years — and so have writer's wages.

www.npr.org

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 1d

A moment later, the (short) interview concludes as follows:

SIMON: I mean, if a writer wants to play around with AI as the writer and see if it helps him, I mean, I regard it as no different than him having a thesaurus or a dictionary on his desk or a book of quotable quotes. Play around with it. If it starts to lead the way in the sense that a studio exec comes to you and says, AI gave us this story that we want, that's not why I got into storytelling. And it's not where I'll stay if that's what storytelling is.

SHAPIRO: You've been through past writer's strikes. Were there lessons those experiences taught you that you think are relevant today?

SIMON: Oh, yeah. The one that is fundamental today is they are now telling us, we don't know what AI is. We don't know how good it's going to be. Let's not litigate what AI can do, what it can't do.

SHAPIRO: You think they're hiding their cards.

SIMON: Of course. They did the same thing in 2007 when it was streaming. And so yeah, this is - we're having the same exact fight as in 2007. Technology is different, but the fight has to be the same. It's going to be a long fight. I think this is going to go on a while. This is the fight. This is now. This has to happen now.

SHAPIRO: David Simon is a TV writer and showrunner known for "The Wire," "Homicide," "Treme" and more. He's also a member of the Writers Guild of America's Negotiating Committee. Thank you so much for coming into the studio.

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 1d

Not that it fundamentally matters, but we know that this exchange is over 2 years old, when language models being capable was still incredibly new to people, right?

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 1d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 1d

I'm kinda old-school and think the landing screen experience should be mostly human-editorially driven, although you'd have some AI/ML stuff within that

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 1d

The Manchester Evening News app on my phone has ads that disappear when I scroll to them (afaik that's not a thing that my phone is doing on my behalf but if it is then wth trackers are in those ads) and the default feed is mostly "here are all the crimes in Greater Manchester"

mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 1d

I suspect I
• underestimated technical challenges of building good media apps
• overestimated how much people use, and subscribe from, mobile apps

among other shortcomings

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 1d

I suspect I
• underestimated technical challenges of building good media apps
• overestimated how much people use, and subscribe from, mobile apps

among other shortcomings

1 1

mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 1d

And then vertical, 30-60 second video emerging as a dominant media format means that consumers have a fresh stream to consume when bored/when desiring news. And it distracts from platform development which could've potentially been spent on things better for media economy

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 1d

Therefore media is still quite reliant on social media platforms not just for initial discovery but even for regular readers/viewers to read/watch. And platforms are gonna prioritise themselves making money over outlets making [enough] money [that they may one day move]

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 1d

I assumed more small and medium-size outlets would have their own apps (the social media-to-app flow on mobile has been mostly-fine for years, user login seems easier than mobile browsers, easier control or everything, push notifications). That hasn't happened

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 1d

I've always been quite optimistic about media sustainability, and not that anyone cares but a scorecard:
• think I was right that digital subs would work, just tech needed to get there (better apps, Substackification, better paywall flexibility)
• but wrong about the speed
• and socmed disruption

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 2d

This is a 'listening to old Radio 1 Live Lounge' post

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 2d

Feel like, as a society, we need to give a big boost back to 'really good live/stripped-back covers of songs'

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Reposted by mark thompson

Alexander Abnos @anabnos.com · 2d

Hello! The Guardian is expanding our American soccer coverage. In the US, we're hiring:
• Reporters
• Asst. editor
• Audience editor
• Social video producer
• Sports biz reporter
These are all full-time, permanent, union positions.
www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-of...

The Guardian announces plans to expand its global soccer coverage ahead of 2026 men’s World Cup in North America

Combination of seven new roles, including six in the US, spanning sports and business coverage, visuals, video and more

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by mark thompson

Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 2d

the most delightful version of logging on to see what news you've missed

Dr Ramsdell, whose phone had been on airplane mode when the Nobel committee tried to call him, told the BBC's Newshour Programme that his first response when his wife said, "You've won the Nobel prize" was: "I did not."

To which Ms O'Neill replied that she had 200 text messages that suggested he had.

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mark thompson @markposts.bsky.social · 3d

Just asked Claude Code to check an error and it looked up something and went, and I quote, "HOLY CRAP!"

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