On the Media

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina is up on stage as the last event of the day. He cites being anti crypto, anti prediction markets and anti gambling as why Democrats are losing young men. Messina is on the board of Blockchain .com and lobbied for the American Gaming Association

CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples’ Movements An internal DHS document obtained by 404 Media shows for the first time CBP used location data sourced from the online advertising industry to track phone locations. ICE has bought access to similar t...

New from 404 Media: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples' movements, according to an internal DHS document. Shows for the first time DHS tracked phones via process for putting ads in ordinary apps—video games, fitness apps, many more www.404media.co/cbp-tapped-i...

This interview is essential helpful for understanding the stakes and potential outcomes of the accelerating oligarchic capture of US media. My first experience as a grad student was visiting the CEU (RIP) in Budapest in 2010 and everyone knew even then that media capture was central to Orban plan.

New York Times runs in-house ad asking listeners to “support any news organization dedicated to original reporting” The New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger has voiced a new ad encouraging listeners to support any news organization dedicated to original reporting — even if it's not the Times. It's Sulzberger's...

"Not asking you to click on any link, just subscribe to a real news organization with real journalists doing firsthand, fact-based reporting."

A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, urging people to support "original reporting" wherever they find it.

www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/new-...

Strongly suggest listening to this week's #OnTheMedia. Three very important stories from the breath of this moment in history. This story about #BrentRenaud is deeply moving. I want to watch the full documentary. We've got to stare what's happening in the face so we can respond like humans.

On the Media The Peabody Award-winning On the Media podcast is your guide to examining how the media sausage is made. Hosts Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger examine threats to free speech and government transparency, cast a skeptical eye on media coverage of the week’s big stories and unravel hidden political narratives in everything we read, watch and hear.

It’s been four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Filmmaker Craig Renaud reflects on his Oscar-nominated doc, “Armed Only with a Camera,” which describes the legacy of his brother, the first American journalist killed by Russian forces in Ukraine: lnk.to/onthemedia/b...

Hey, cool. @lastweektonight.com just did a segment using reporting I did w/ @farooqumar.bsky.social

Oliver was talking about body cams--and how law enforcement agencies have often undermined their potential

The same body-cams Dems are centering that ICE reforms on

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP4_...

Brandon Straka: I’m at the Pentagon this morning for a briefing with @SecWar @PeteHegseth on the Iran strikes. Session starts in 10 minutes.

Here's a Jan. 6 rioter posing with a press pass before Pete Hegseth's press conference, just to give you a sense of the type of "journalists" who were in the Pentagon briefing room this morning.

On the Media The Peabody Award-winning On the Media podcast is your guide to examining how the media sausage is made. Hosts Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger examine threats to free speech and government transparency, cast a skeptical eye on media coverage of the week’s big stories and unravel hidden political narratives in everything we read, watch and hear.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 2025 was the most violent year for journalists in three decades. Hear where, and why, reporters and media personnel are under threat lnk.to/onthemedia/b...

The money behind the new Iran War In private calls over the last several weeks, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged President Trump to attack Iran.

1. According to multiple reports both Saudi Arabia and the UAE lobbied Trump to attack Iran.

Both countries have increased their influence with Trump by investing billions in projects that personally enrich Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

This is basically my argument in my new @wired.com essay — we haven’t even finished dealing with the downstream consequences of the LAST upheaval in Iran: www.wired.com/story/5-big-...

It appears a hospital in Teheran has now been hit.

www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...

Polymarket defends its decision to allow betting on war as ‘invaluable’ Everything is gambling now, even human suffering.

Polymarket defends its decision to allow betting on war as ‘invaluable’

On the Media The Peabody Award-winning On the Media podcast is your guide to examining how the media sausage is made. Hosts Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger examine threats to free speech and government transparency, cast a skeptical eye on media coverage of the week’s big stories and unravel hidden political narratives in everything we read, watch and hear.

Filmmaker Craig Renaud on his Oscar-nominated short, “Armed Only with a Camera,” a tribute to his brother, the first American journalist killed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine: lnk.to/onthemedia/b...

On the Media The Peabody Award-winning On the Media podcast is your guide to examining how the media sausage is made. Hosts Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger examine threats to free speech and government transparency, cast a skeptical eye on media coverage of the week’s big stories and unravel hidden political narratives in everything we read, watch and hear.

“Media capture,” is a phrase scholars have been using to describe the phenomena of public interests losing possession of the press to political and corporate players. @victorpickard.bsky.social on why the American system was set up to be snatched away from the start lnk.to/onthemedia/b...

The Man With a Plan to Reshape Broadcast TV | On the Media | WNYC Studios Late night host Stephen Colbert has accused CBS of spiking an interview for fear of backlash from the Federal Communications Commission. On this week’s On the Media, hear about the MA...

Listen to the full conversation here: www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...

Donald Trump’s FCC has been coming after the broadcast networks for their so-called political biases. @brookegladstone.bsky.social spoke with the conservative lawyer behind it all.

You Burned the City Just before the US entered World War II, CBS held a dinner for Edward R. Murrow. It's more important than ever to read the words spoken that night: a testimony to the power of witnessing.

"You burned the city of London in our houses and we felt the flames that burned it. You laid the dead of London at our doors and we knew the dead were our dead — were all men’s dead — were mankind’s dead — and ours." Archibald MacLeish, Dec. 2, 1941. continuous-wave.beehiiv.com/p/you-burned...

Hell Gate We are a subscriber-funded, worker-owned news outlet about New York City, named for the city's sturdiest (and handsomest) bridge over its most treacherous currents.

Just about 24 hours are left in our Hell Gate "Welcome to Fear City" T-shirt sale! Grab an annual Believer subscription for 25% off the usual price, get a slick tee. Don't wait! hellgatenyc.com/hell-gate-t-...

X Is Drowning in Disinformation Following US and Israel’s Attack on Iran WIRED has reviewed hundreds of posts on X that promote misleading claims about the locations and scale of the attack.

NEW: X Is *drowning* in disinformation following US and Israel’s attack on Iran. WIRED has reviewed hundreds of posts on X that promote misleading claims about the locations and scale of the attack.

read @davidgilbert.bsky.social:

Why Apple’s move to video could endanger podcasting's greatest power - Anil Dash A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

Apple is adding video support to its podcasting apps — that’s great. But the way it’s doing so might jeopardize the openness that’s kept podcasting from getting enshittified like every other form of media. It’s not too late for them to fix this. anildash.com/2026/02/28/a...

On the Media The Peabody Award-winning On the Media podcast is your guide to examining how the media sausage is made. Hosts Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger examine threats to free speech and government transparency, cast a skeptical eye on media coverage of the week’s big stories and unravel hidden political narratives in everything we read, watch and hear.

“The headline finding is this was another record year for journalist killings after the record that we saw in 2024. 129 killed worldwide which is more than any year since CPJ began collecting data back in 1992.” - CPJ CEO @jodieginsberg.bsky.social lnk.to/onthemedia/b...

On the Media The Peabody Award-winning On the Media podcast is your guide to examining how the media sausage is made. Hosts Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger examine threats to free speech and government transparency, cast a skeptical eye on media coverage of the week’s big stories and unravel hidden political narratives in everything we read, watch and hear.

“I think by now it's time to put to rest this notion of a benevolent billionaire. We should not invest so much power into one individual over our media system and over our democratic society.” - @victorpickard.bsky.social lnk.to/onthemedia/b...

Interesting detail - Fox & Friends is hosted by the regular weekday hosts this morning not the weekend cast. How would Fox News have enough time to ask the regular cast to come in? The show starts at 6AM but they are usually there hours earlier.

A new report found 129 journalists were killed in 2025, the deadliest year since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting these data in 1992. Israel was responsible for 2/3. I spoke with CPJ's CEO Jodie Ginsberg on the latest @onthemedia.bsky.social: www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...

You need to listen to this.

📻 Tune into this week’s show, featuring: @victorpickard.bsky.social, Miriam Berger, @jodieginsberg.bsky.social, & Craig Renaud: lnk.to/onthemedia/b...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directs the DOD to designate Anthropic as a supply chain risk, barring military contractors from doing business with the company (@secwar)

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