BuzzMachine

I recently wrote an extensive analysis and criticism of a proposed California link tax, offering many alternatives. A state senator just proposed his own alternative — and it is even worse....

https://buzzmachine.com/2024/05/02/news-bills-from-bad-to-worse/

It gives me no satisfaction to say this — indeed it fills me with trepidation for the nation — but The Times is broken.  I know some of you are thinking, “You only now realize this...

https://buzzmachine.com/2024/04/26/the-times-is-broken/

In my paper on the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), I examine the history of newspapers’ hostile reception of new technologies and competitors, reaching back a century to the dawn...

https://buzzmachine.com/2024/04/15/newspapers-can-be-jerks/

There is so much to parse in this Times column inspired by a paper examining alleged political leanings of large language models. First, the myth of a “center” is imposed on the machine as it...

https://buzzmachine.com/2024/03/28/ai-in-reflection/

Regarding the supposed furor over #WokeGemini… If we saw generative AI as a creative tool, then I’d say imagining the founding of America with women & Black people at the table and the Cathol...

https://buzzmachine.com/2024/02/24/reflections-in-the-woke-mirror/

I am coming to a conclusion I have avoided for my last three decades working on the internet and news: It may finally be time to give up on old journalism and its legacy industry.  I say this wi...

https://buzzmachine.com/2024/01/24/is-it-time-to-give-up-on-old-news/

I wrote an op-ed for NJ.com and the Star-Ledger in New Jersey proposing that the soon-empty Bell Labs should become a Museum and School of the Internet. Here, for those outside the Garden State, ...

https://buzzmachine.com/2024/01/18/make-bell-labs-an-internet-museum/

Well, that was surreal. I testified in a hearing about AI and the future of journalism held by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. Here is my written testimony ...

https://buzzmachine.com/2024/01/11/in-the-echo-chamber/

Here are are my written remarks for a hearing on AI and the future of journalism for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, on January 10, 2024. I have been a jour...

https://buzzmachine.com/2024/01/09/journalism-and-ai/

I increasingly come to see that we are not in a crisis of information and disinformation or even of misguided beliefs, but instead of belonging. I wonder how to reimagine journalism to address th...

https://buzzmachine.com/2024/01/03/a-journalism-of-belief-and-belonging/

I began writing this as a report from a useful conference on AI that I just attended, where experts and representatives of concerned sectors of society had serious discussion about the risks, ben...

https://buzzmachine.com/2023/11/19/artificial-general-bullshit/

I’m honored that Germany’s Stern asked me to write about AI and journalism for a 75th anniversary edition. Here’s a version prior to final editing and trimming for print and translation. An...

https://buzzmachine.com/2023/09/22/gibberish-from-the-machine/

The date sneaked up on me this year, attacking from behind. Every year on 9/11 I reflect, grateful that I survived the attack. This year, though, I find myself angry. Some of that might be my own...

https://buzzmachine.com/2023/09/11/a-generation-later-what-have-we-learned/

I have news: I am leaving CUNY’s Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the end of this term. Technically I’m retiring, though if you know me you know I will never retire. I’m looking at ...

https://buzzmachine.com/2023/09/06/moving-on/

The US Copyright Office just put out a call for comment on copyright and artificial intelligence. It is a thoughtful document based on listening sessions already held, with thirty-four question...

https://buzzmachine.com/2023/09/02/copyright-and-ai-and-journalism/