In this issue: Tech PR Planning / Apple Takes a Humble Approach to Launching Its Newest Device / RIP Sports Illustrated? / Ron DeSantis vs. Conservative Media / How Platforms Killed Pitchfork / These Words Make it Obvious That Your Text is Written By AI / Substack’s Nazi Problem Exposes a Business-Model Problem / X Is Rolling Out Audio And Video Calls To Android / 5 AI Tools for Journalists That Are Actually Useful / YouTube Is Restructuring Creator Management Teams / A Productivity Master’s Guide to Writing / How Do You Connect With Audiences On A Deeper, Truer Level? / Good Evening My Fellow Screenmaxers / You'll Never Guess The Most Popular Internet Country Code.
Welcome to Context Collapse, the world’s best comms newsletter. I’m Neal Ungerleider. I run Ungerleider Works and used to work as a reporter for Fast Company, write op-eds for the LA Times, and work as a senior copywriter for R/GA. This newsletter helps readers navigate the weird new world of media and gleefully ignores all the conventional wisdom about journalism, public relations, marketing, and advertising.
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Damn it’s cold outside. It’s a tropical 11° Farenheit here in my Chicago home office. Much warmer than the -10° it was a few days ago where the temperature inside the house dipped down to 50°. Brr.
But the heat inside is warm and non-freezing again and there’s a lot to cover in this weekender.
I’m now offering fractional marketing communications services through my company Ungerleider Works, Hire us to help you with your marketing and PR services for 8, 16, 24 or 40 hours a month. Enjoy the benefits of a fully-trained, fully-vetted team with Fortune 500 experience ready to work on projects. Reply to this newsletter to get details, pricing and more.
Now on to the links.
RIP Sports Illustrated?:
Apple Takes A Humble Approach to Launching Its Newest Device:
When Apple released the Apple Watch in 2015, it was business as usual for a company whose iPhone updates had become cultural touchstones. Before the watch went on sale, Apple gave early versions of it to celebrities like Beyoncé, featured it in fashion publications like Vogue and streamed a splashy event on the internet trumpeting its features.
But as Apple prepares to sell its next generation of wearable computing, the Vision Pro augmented reality device, it is marching far more quietly into the consumer marketplace.
Ron DeSantis Vs. Conservative Media:
“Three days before the Iowa caucuses, Ron DeSantis, has picked a new foe — the “Praetorian Guard of the conservative media.” It was so thirsty for a Donald Trump win, he said, that it barely bothered to scrutinize him.
“They don’t hold him accountable because they’re worried about losing viewers, and they don’t want to have the ratings go down,” DeSantis told reporters on Friday, after thanking volunteers in a suburban campaign office. “That’s just that’s just the reality. That’s just the truth and I’m not complaining about it.”
The topic had been on his mind. On Thursday night, in another Des Moines suburb, DeSantis told his audience that “there’s as much fake news on the right as there is on the corporate press.” Republicans who’d seen conservative media as “the good guys,” he said, were viewing things too simplistically.”
How Platforms Killed Pitchfork:
On Wednesday, Semafor’s Maxwell Tani shared an internal memo from Condè Nast, which had acquired the formerly independent publication in 2015. Pitchfork is being merged into GQ, chief content officer Anna Wintour announced; as part of the move, Pitchfork editor in chief Puja Patel is leaving the company. No further staff reductions were announced, though they seem inevitable.
"This decision was made after a careful evaluation of Pitchfork's performance and what we believe is the best path forward for the brand so that our coverage of music can continue to thrive within the company," Wintour wrote.
For a certain kind of millennial, the news hit like a death in the family.
These Words Make It Obvious That Your Text Is Written By AI:
We writers can’t avoid AI, and we shouldn’t — we need to adapt and utilize any tools that the industry gives us and keep raising the standards of our craft. A big part of that is utilizing the efficiency and speed of AI, without compromising on your article’s humanity.
So if you want to use AI to write your articles, make sure to edit out these words.
Substack’s Nazi Problem Exposes A Business-Model Problem:
For Substack, the social media-fication of its service is a way to try to create a business that feels more like the kind of internet company that gets truly huge. It’d like to become a destination in and of itself.
When companies take money from venture capitalists, they implicitly agree to pursue this swing-for-the-fences business model. In Substack’s case, this decision sowed the seeds of the current controversy.
X Is Rolling Out Audio And Video Calls To Android:
Elon Musk’s own social network X is rolling out the ability to make audio and video calls directly from the app to its Android client.
One of the X engineers working on the project posted about the feature release and said it will be available to Android users after an app update.
5 AI Tools for Journalists That Are Actually Useful:
After scouring the GPT Store for tools that are directly applicable to the research, editing, and many other tasks that go into producing good articles, we've selected five that we think are worth considering adding to your workflow. For smaller editorial teams and independent creators in particular, these are helpful in speeding up a good chunk of the "chrome" around article writing — the ancillary but important parts of the process that are often afterthoughts.
YouTube Is Restructuring Creator Management Teams:
YouTube‘s partnerships side is undergoing its first corporate restructuring in a decade–one that’ll see changes to the creator management and operations teams, and will result in around 100 people’s roles being eliminated.
A Productivity Master’s Guide To Writing:
From making his first dollar online at 12 years-old to raking in $4,000,000 a year, Ali Abdaal is not your average online creator. And his advice on how to “make it” online is not so average, either.
How Do You Connect With Audiences On A Deeper, Truer Level?
How do you connect with audiences on a deeper, truer level? Viv talks to award-winning journalist and author, Angela Saini, about combatting pseudo-science and reaching people by peeling back the layers of thinking. Her celebrated books include: Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong, Superior: The Return of Race Science and her latest The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule.
Angela tells Viv how her grounding in news journalism in her 20s helped hone her skills to write succinctly, to deadline and to time in a way that helps her in every aspect of her work now – from writing to public speaking.
Good Evening My Fellow Screenmaxers:
You'll Never Guess The Most Popular Internet Country Code: