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Damon Kiesow

@kiesow.net
5.5K followers 3.8K following 6.7K posts

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

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Damon Kiesow
Carrie Brown @brizzyc.bsky.social · 2h
Very cool - shared services for media cooperatives - things like bookkeeping, HR, graphic design, business analysis, ad operations, legal support. defector.com/shared-servi... May we see more cooperatives bloom!
defector.com
Start.coop's Shared Media Services Project | Defector
The Challenge: Facing job loss and declining wages, more journalists are launching local, independent media organizations. They often get bogged down in building operational infrastructure, distractin...
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 4h
Buzzword bingo, from 2006: kiesow.net/the-new-new-...
kiesow.net
The (New) New Media Buzzwords of 2006
It was twenty years ago today... that a bunch of us sat in a meeting room of the Westin Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island to talk about what on the Internet newspapers needed to pay attention to. It ...
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 17h
So where are the USMNT on air? Basic cable, right? No, FS2 has Aruba v Anguilla Ah ha. Peacock has it. No, that is en Espanol. ESPN? No. Oh of course HBO Max. Obviously.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 18h
static.klipy.com
Believe It Or Not, Jail (Parks and Rec)
ALT: Believe It Or Not, Jail (Parks and Rec)
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 28/09/2026
How does one achieve such numbers and still persist in posting?
A celebrity news account with 17,300 posts and 194 followers.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 27/09/2026
Swarming is the right word here. Out-of-state companies imposing beta tests in the form of unrequested and unneeded services with costs on local communities that occur only at the scale required by digital profit seeking.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 26/09/2026
So you are telling me the stories we make up in our heads about strangers we see on TV or social media are not a reliable and objective validation of my click-for-hire worldview? themomoftheyear.substack.com/p/im-the-mom...
themomoftheyear.substack.com
I’m the Mom in That Viral Giants Clip. Let Me Tell You About My Husband.
You saw me carrying our baby and food. There was more happening in our family that night.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 25/09/2026
Holy fabricated footnotes, Batman! How much of this garbage does it take to actually destroy the average person's digital footprint?
from https://hub.stellantis.com/article/the-hidden-math-behind-the-0-viral-social-media-code

The most striking estimate comes from former Facebook data scientist Damon Kiesow, who in a 2019 interview with The Atlantic suggested that the platform’s algorithm penalizes "slow burns"—content that gains traction over days or weeks—in favor of "instant gratification loops." This aligns with the broader trend of platforms rewarding content that exploits FOMO (fear of missing out), even if that content is shallow or ephemeral.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 25/09/2026
EPL champions since 2018: Liverpool Liverpool Man United Liverpool Arsenal Arsenal Liverpool Arsenal
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 25/09/2026
*Screen fades in to an OpenAI logo* Man smoking a cigarette, riding a Harley, wearing a cowboy hat rides into scene. “Our models are so advanced that standard human controls can barely contain it. You think you are man enough?”
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 24/09/2026
If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a noise? If a newsroom publishes a daily report no one reads it, does it make a news desert?
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 24/09/2026
Insert Yosemite Park joke about “the overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bear and dumbest tourist.”
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 24/09/2026
This is direct path to businesses blocking incoming calls and requiring an online appointment and security deposit for a call back.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 24/09/2026
Are we being Punk’d here? Did Ashton Kutcher write this? www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
Can an AI feel pain? It can at least act like it does
Study reignites debate over what, if anything, machines can feel
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 24/09/2026
This is a news story not a history piece but worth noting both the canal and railroad boom led to massive fraud and stock market crashes. Famously so.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 23/09/2026
Can you imagine actually believing this and still going back in the office the next morning?
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 23/09/2026
Literally they have recreated the mechanical Turk www.404media.co/meta-tests-m...
404media.co
Meta Tests Muse AI Agent Calls That Are Actually Made By Humans in a Call Center
"This has potential for so much negative PR. It could portray us as ‘their AI is not good enough so they still need humans’ kind of coverage for this launch."
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 22/09/2026
At this point arguing about micropayments for news is like arguing for flying unicorns. Sure, a few people might want them, but the laws of physics and nature and economics don’t care what you want.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 22/09/2026
AI promises to do for the Web what autodial and mail merge did for phone calls and phone calls: make it socially permissible to avoid and ignore.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 22/09/2026
There was a “golden age of profits” not a “golden age of journalism. “You glorify the past when the future dries up.” - Bono
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 22/09/2026
What a disaster: san.com/cc/inside-a-...
san.com
Inside a newspaper chain’s transformation from local news to AI-generated ‘content’
McClatchy Media didn’t wait a week after firing journalists before announcing hires for its new AI-powered “Content Innovation Lab.”
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 22/09/2026
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hahaha ha ha ha ha hahahahahaha a a a
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Reposted by Damon Kiesow
Tony Elkins @tonyelkins.com · 21/09/2026
Who needs real Indigenous voices when you can just have AI create them? This is truly, truly, fucked. I don't have a better way to say it. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
‘Very harmful’: website uses AI to generate northern Indigenous news ‘correspondents’ | CBC News
The website WE NEWS has three northern Indigenous 'AI correspondents.' Their profiles say they are 'a member of Yukon First Nation,' 'of Dene heritage,' and 'an Inuk raised in the North.' Experts in t...
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 21/09/2026
If you are explaining, you are losing.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 21/09/2026
Just legacy media standing on the conveyor belt in the abbattoir of quality, trust, and relevancy, and turning up the speed.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 21/09/2026
90 minutes later…
A Mac update progress bar with a minute remaining
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 20/09/2026
When people say government should run like a business, this is what they actually mean:
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 20/09/2026
POV: me interviewing an AI agent.
A single red 20-sided dice.
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Reposted by Damon Kiesow
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Look, Homer!
There's that bird you like to argue with.
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Reposted by Damon Kiesow
RJI Innovation Team @innovationrji.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
A collaborative approach to the technology, support and resources journalists need to hold power accountable. rjionline.org/news/buildin...
rjionline.org
Building values-driven infrastructure as a newsroom model
A collaborative approach to the technology, support and resources journalists need to hold power accountable.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 19/09/2026
If you are going to insist on 2FA by email, good luck because I am usually going to lose interest before that code actually hits the inbox.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 19/09/2026
Why are people “interviewing” an animated “actor”?
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Reposted by Damon Kiesow
stevewolgast.bsky.social @stevewolgast.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I invented a robot that can rob a bank …
Screenshot from Threads with the post: 
I invented a robot that can rob a bank. Of course, it robs theae banks on its own, so I can’t be held legally responsible when it robs a bank. I mean, all I did was invent it; it’s not my fault if it works exactly as intended. Also, I get to keep all the money from the banks it robs. Sorry if any of that money was yours, but now that I’ve invented the Bank Robbing Robot, the Bank Robbing Robot is inevitable.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 19/09/2026
“AI” did not do anything. Humans who improperly used a tool or properly used the wrong tool and now want to pass the blame did it.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 19/09/2026
I’m sorry. Is this a thing everyone was already aware of? youtu.be/6VLAGhOetAk?...
youtu.be
"Shattered" (The Rolling Stones Cover) - Eddie Vedder & Jeanne Tripplehorn
YouTube video by Eddie Vedder
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Reposted by Damon Kiesow
Eric Deggans @edeggans.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
An American president banning news outlets from the White House because he doesn't like their coverage. The Founding Fathers, who enshrined freedom of the press in the very First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, must be rolling over. loom.ly/pAnQw6c
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 19/09/2026
What’s funny is I have no idea how/why Bluesky has discovered sankey diagrams.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 18/09/2026
The Austin, Texas experience: Rode in three Teslas (but no Waymos.) Every meal was tortilla-based. Every meal. Guy in a parked car on Guadalupe at 7:40 a.m. asked me to open a jar of Tostitos mild chunky salsa.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 17/09/2026
The mistake is marketing these as general intelligence machines. They are tools with the narrow utility of word prediction which befuddles our brains because we consider language a sign of intelligence.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 17/09/2026
New from the @localnewsimpact.bsky.social SCOPE IT: Understanding How to Measure Journalism Employment. Read the full report: www.localnewsimpact.org/2026/08/23/s... Co-author Jennifer Henrichsen will lead a webinar September 29th at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT. Register: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 17/09/2026
Not picking on this story but, a problem readers have is that the last decade of news is a series of articles about house fires that never notice there is an arsonist in town. www.npr.org/2026/09/15/n...
npr.org
NASA rushed engineers out of their labs. They say it risks future space missions
NASA employees say they've lost vital equipment and staff needed to make sophisticated spacecraft amid the agency's abrupt relocations over the past several months.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 17/09/2026
When a founder leaves a sustainable start-up newsroom after 5,6,7 years that ought to be celebrated. Unless we believe it takes a cult of personality and that “founder” is a life sentence.
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Reposted by Damon Kiesow
Missouri School of Journalism @mujschool.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Associate Professor Joy Jenkins has been named the new research director for the Reynolds Journalism Institute. #MissouriMethod #MizzouMade journalism.missouri.edu/2026/09/joy-...
journalism.missouri.edu
Joy Jenkins becomes Reynolds Journalism Institute’s research director, will launch transformative research effort
By Austin Fitzgerald The Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) at the Missouri School of Journalism has named Associate Professor Joy Jenkins as its research director, intensifying RJI’s pursuit of…
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 17/09/2026
Elizabeth Green #ISOJ26 argues essentially that the time and friction involved in start-up newsrooms finding their focus and developing diverse revenue support is better than large up-front cash infusions.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 17/09/2026
What I am learning from Creators is the best way to earn trust with audiences is to not be owned billionaire hedge fund bros.
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Reposted by Damon Kiesow
Tyler Dukes @mtdukes.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
How to talk about the local news crisis: We are all worse off. (by @kiesow.net ) kiesow.net/how-to-talk-...
kiesow.net
How to talk about the local news crisis: We are all worse off.
Last week, McClatchy rolled out the latest round of destructive cuts to its local reporting staff. The cuts themselves are barely newsworthy within the industry at this point, though the futility of '...
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 16/09/2026
An amazing speech by Lexington, KY city council member Emma Curtis on the damage done to the community by the recent cuts to the local paper: kiesow.net/how-to-talk-...
kiesow.net
How to talk about the local news crisis: We are all worse off.
Last week, McClatchy rolled out the latest round of destructive cuts to its local reporting staff. The cuts themselves are barley newsworthy within the industry at this point, though the futility of '...
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Reposted by Damon Kiesow
Missouri School of Journalism @mujschool.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
“His enthusiasm for visuals was infectious,” said Jennifer Mosbrucker, who works as a photo editor on The New York Times national desk. “He wanted you to fall in love with photography. Sitting in his classroom was like learning a language.” #MissouriMethod www.columbiamissourian.com/obituaries/m...
columbiamissourian.com
Brian Kratzer, photographer and professor whose students reached the highest levels of their craft, dies at 56
"He pushed you hard, wanted you to excel and always celebrated your successes," said a former student.
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 15/09/2026
Mamardashvili not beating the 'can't play from his feet' charges yet. #LFC
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Reposted by Damon Kiesow
Missouri School of Journalism @mujschool.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
“It’s a full-circle moment for me. I’m honored and humbled to be at one of the nation’s most innovative journalism labs, and I’m excited to lead the staff, the faculty and the next generation of broadcast journalists at KOMU.” #MissouriMethod #MizzouMade journalism.missouri.edu/2026/09/scot...
journalism.missouri.edu
Scott Diener, high-powered news leader, named general manager at Missouri School of Journalism’s KOMU-TV
By Austin Fitzgerald COLUMBIA, Mo. (Sept. 15, 2026) — Scott Diener, BJ ’87, a news manager and executive for more than three decades, has been named general manager of KOMU-TV. He will be only the…
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