News Media News
Mike Kandel at 95:
A Journalist's Life, Unfiltered and Unforgettable
By Mel Laytner
The Silurians Press Club is no stranger to legendary journalists, but few can hold a room with the charm, wit, and sheer force of intellect that is Myron “Mike” Kandel.
At 95, the financial journalism pioneer walked up to the podium at the Silurians May 21 luncheon with the casual confidence of a man who been there, done that, and probably re-edited your lede on his way. He had stories. He had punchlines. He had a lifetime worth of hard-earned wisdom.
AND THE AWARDS GO TO…
Silurians 2025 Excellence in Journalism Awards Honor Local Reporting On Crime, Sex Trafficking, Migrants, Brain Surgery and More
- Sixteen categories covering print, broadcast and online news are honored.
- The New York Times, Newsday, and The Record (aka NorthJersey.com) win the bulk of Medallions and runner-up Merit awards.
- However, Bloomberg News, Pro Publica, and NBC's Iteam also garner top honors, as do smaller outlets
including NJ.com, THE CITY and STAT News.
By Michael S. Serrill
The scene, as shown by nearby building cameras, was as cinematic as it gets. The masked assassin approaches his victim from behind, pulls out what looks like a long pistol, spreads his legs to steady himself and shoots an unarmed man several times in the back.
The man—Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare—would die within minutes, while his killer, in a kind of tribute to New York’s impenetrable traffic, makes his getaway on a Citi Bike, ditched later in Central Park.
The early-morning sidewalk murder of a health insurance company’s top executive was the biggest crime story of 2024—certainly in New York and, perhaps, the nation. Minutes after the initial television news flash of the shooting on the sidewalk outside a midtown hotel, Bloomberg News began reporting on the assassination of Thompson with bulletins from the conference he had been scheduled to address. Quickly blanketing the story, Bloomberg stayed on top of the news while adding sidebars about the shooting’s impact on the business community and healthcare.
Bloomberg’s comprehensive coverage put a stake in its claim to the Thompson murder story by winning two first-place Medallions in the Silurians Press Club’s 80th Excellence in Journalism competition—one Medallion for Breaking News and another Medallion in the Radio/Audio category.
Opinion: From ‘Google Zero’ to AI theft: How artificial intelligence is gutting the news industry
"My only hope is someone 20 years from now dusts off this column to mock how wrong I was about the death of journalism at the hands of AI.”
Let’s get to the point: Three newsrooms on generating AI summaries for news
“Summaries aren’t a replacement for journalism: they can’t exist without it.” The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Yahoo News on what they’ve learned rolling out AI-powered summaries.
Pros and Cons of Proposed "Oregon Journalism Protection Act" That Would Require Google to pay for AI Scraping of Content
With new AI summaries, there's little reason for viewers to click through to the news outlets websites, impacting revenue and viewership. But it's complicated and not all journalism outlets support the bill.
5 AI bots took our tough reading test. One was smartest — and it wasn’t ChatGPT.
We challenged AI helpers to decode legal contracts, simplify medical research, speed-read a novel and make sense of Trump speeches. Some of the AI analysis was impressive — and some was downright dumb.
Will Writing Survive A.I.? This Media Company Is Betting on It.
Every’s has become something of a Rorschach test for the news industry. It is a symbol of A.I.’s potential to empower journalists or unemploy them, depending on your point of view.
More than 2 years after ChatGPT, newsrooms struggle with AI’s shortcomings
"Though many major newsrooms have adopted AI guidelines since ChatGPT’s launch, the sheer size of some newsrooms’ staff, coupled with multiple external partnerships, complicates identifying where embarrassing AI blunders can occur.
