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USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data

• bpodgursky 2mo ago
  [flagged]
  • thinkindie 2mo ago
    they were the one coming up with forward deployed engineers, weren't they? The least I would expect from this model is that I own the whole infra.
    • glaslong 2mo ago
      I've still never quite understood the difference between an FDE and a contractor SWE the client hires through their parent consultancy, other than that with the contractor it would be clearer the hiring company owns all the work, data and infra produced.
      • glaslong 2mo ago
        Pessimistically I might think that the client demands data privacy and ownership on paper, but also doesn't want the liability of actually owning and maintaining or even touching their own vast stores directly. While the firm would love to learn from the data to better their systems... and more. So there's just a nice wink and a nod about what's not happening. But that is an uncharitable conspiratorial lens. I'm sure it's fine.
      • etc-hosts 2mo ago
        FDE sounds like they are allowed to open carry
        • glaslong 2mo ago
          Does sound like a nice perk. Having done the SWE consulting thing for a stint, you do start to dream of having lethal force as a backup for the more unpleasant clients.
  • kevin_thibedeau 2mo ago
    If the storage is on US soil their contractual privacy declaration is meaningless. They can either be forced to hand over data or they can be backdoored to take it without their knowledge. They are becoming the Cloudflare of digital life patterns and that is a tempting target for the powers who want that data.
  • threecheese 2mo ago
    You’ve enquoted “Palantir taking your data” as if it’s not factual, but the only one with data privacy guarantees here is USA Today. You can’t “convert the sheer scale of our audience into known, orchestrated first-party relationships” without compromising your privacy.
• hannesfur 2mo ago
  With that going on, it's hard to imagine there once was a time where the news paper publishers hat little to no signal on what actually sold news papers. Given that papers were only sold as a bundle of articles and most sold through subscribers, they pretty much had to guess. So they had a rough direction they knew their readers expected and they had some sparse feedback from the "letters to the editor" but you had to be really angry to follow through on writing a physical letter, getting a stamp and walk to the post box just to complain. I would argue, that helped journalism because journalists probably assumed that their readers would hold them to the same standards they hold the writers of the other papers too.
  • bluGill 2mo ago
    What happened is there used to be local newspapers with local reporters who at least knew something about the local community. Even if you hated the bias you could at least learn something useful about your community. USA Today as a "my country Today" edition - but they don't have local reporters who understand my community and uncover the important stories. 3/4s of the "local" paper is fluff pieces that go into every local paper". If something nationally important to me happens I'll find out about it, but nobody is telling me what my town council is doing (the published minutes are "debated a proposal for X and voted on it, it passed" - I have an opinion on this and want to inform my next vote based on this issue, but I don't know who did what (importantly there might be a consideration I'm not aware of that would make me change my mind - which is why I don't want to lookup their vote even if I could)
    • cdrnsf 2mo ago
      They bought the newspaper I worked at in/after college. They downsized significantly, but many folks I worked with over a decade ago now are still there.
• seydor 2mo ago
  That's like eating dinner with a chainsaw
• eth0up 2mo ago
  Let's also remember: https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/15/can-ai-judge-journalism-a-thiel-backed-startup-says-yes-even-if-it-risks-chilling-whistleblowers/ https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/15/can-ai-judge-journalism-a-... Objection (objection.ai), which proposes to apply AI to “adjudicate the truth of journalism.” Pay $2,000 to contest allegations in a published story or various social media sources.
  • Catloafdev 2mo ago
    How is this relevant?
    • eth0up 2mo ago
      It's a Thiel product, and the subject here is Palantir and media. Ideological adjacencies in media affairs seems relevant to me at such high levels of influence and power integrations. But I must ask: in the anti eth0 club, or is this a genuine question? If that is not a fair question, maybe show me evidence supporting a falsifiable general rule showing that all, or the majority of comments in HN threads contain strictly directly related comments -- or at least something showing most HN threads show non-directly related comments being challenged consistently, perhaps by yourself. This would help. On a deeper level... As a rogue journalist, I research many things. In this case, I have been researching both Palantir and Thiel, particularly products and things funded by Theil, particularly certain YouTube influencer channels. My research shows certain contradictions of proclaimed values that very much interest me, such as Thiel Capital support of American Alchemy, which heavily promotes "neuro divergence" and an entire category of ideas that his partner, Alex Karp severely criticizes. Karp has made openly contemptuous claims on "neuro divergence" and drugs, while Thiel Capital is affiliated with American Alchemy, which is not modestly adamant on the subject, but hyper adamant, and promotes what some might call "conspiracy" related material. However, when you have such individuals deeply connected with the Pentagon, and Law Enforcement, with verifiable influence, profiling abilities, and much more, this is something I take very seriously. As a 'journalist', I tend to see connections. I am sure you resent this, but despite an often rough approach, they have yet to fail in final synthesis. So that is what I am actually thinking, when I leave such posts.
• kittikitti 2mo ago
  Personally, I ditched almost all western media outlets altogether because of their zionist and fascist tendencies. The propaganda was much too obvious. I don't think a Palantir partnership is going to change my mind. Hacker News occasionally indexed Palestinian voices but this was a breath of fresh air compared to outlets like USA Today. I'm actually constantly conflicted about the sources I consume and still seek alternatives. If they want me to view more of their content, including more authoritarian surveillance technology is not the right move.
  • kergonath 2mo ago
    > Personally, I ditched almost all western media outlets altogether because of their zionist and fascist tendencies. That is not helpful, and a very good way of falling down rabbit holes just because you find a source that agrees with you on one subject. That’s how you get manipulated and radicalised. It’s much better to have a variety of sources, even if you occasionally disagree. It keeps you grounded and reminds you that other people have other opinions. I cannot stress this enough: do not get polarised because of a single issue. That is how rational discourse dies.
    • bluGill 2mo ago
      As I said elsewhere, I can't even find a single source.... For important world news there are a lot of options. However the most important news is my local community. Who covers my local school district - nobody. (This isn't true, they do send a sports reporter to the school games - but not to the school board meetings even though they matter more)
    • bygosh 2mo ago
      When that single issue is a genocide, the calculus changes. Would you feel the same about a news source that argues the Hutus were acting in self defense?
      • xyzelement 2mo ago
        Part of the issue is the label genocide is applied so liberally as to lose meaning. We're seeing similar devaluation of previously potent labels like "fashist" It then becomes easy to say "I don't engage with fashists / genocide supporters / whatever" as an obvious justification for staying in ones bubble when in reality that label is so overused for people/events that say 10 years ago would have obviously not been labeled this way. That is to say: when everyone is fascist/ genocider you have an excuse to not debate with anyone but that's not good for you.
• waltbosz 2mo ago
  I dislike USA Today. It feels like lowest common denominator fluffy news. Also, I remember staying at a hotel once where they delivered one to every guest room.
  • SoftTalker 2mo ago
    USA Today is news written for 5th graders. It has always been a waste of time and paper for anyone who really wants to know what's going on.
    • micromacrofoot 2mo ago
      The people who can only read at a 5th grade level are precisely the people who need to be more informed about what's going on
      • cindyllm 2mo ago
        [dead]
      • SoftTalker 2mo ago
        Why? They mostly don't do anything very impactful. Voting and other civic engagement is very low amongst the illiterate.
        • micromacrofoot 2mo ago
          not talking about illiteracy, ~50% of americans read at a 6th grade level or below... that's certainly enough to make an impact, the 2024 election was decided by ~250k votes across 3 states... Michigan specifically has a reading level below national average
          • SoftTalker 2mo ago
            And the percent of eligible citizens who vote is often not much more than 50% in presidential election years (higher recently but not for good reasons). It's even lower in mid-term years. If you're not an engaged, informed person and your worldview is based on USA Today headlines I'd rather you didn't vote.
• mint5 2mo ago
  Even with moral issues aside, Palantir is absurdly expensive and seems to be focused on selling buzzwords over actual value and tech. It’s like crack for non-technical big wigs.
  • pessimizer 2mo ago
    They'll get a discount for publishing good things and suppressing bad things about Palantir. edit: prepare for a lot of interesting op-eds from the nation's first newspaper printed in full color and targeted exclusively at morons. The most well-printed comics section in the industry.
• BitWiseVibe 2mo ago
  Imagine paying a billion dollars for some contract software devs to add tracking cookies to your websites.
  • etc-hosts 2mo ago
    What does a newspaper need "actionable intelligence" for?
    • SoftTalker 2mo ago
      To quote the CEO, "that allows us to engage users more effectively and monetize those relationships faster and at much greater value." So they view their readers as something to be monetized. Not to be educated, not to be intellectually stimulated, not to have their questions answered, not to have their curiosity satisfied, not to provide them with anything a newspaper traditionally did. Nope, they are just a source of money. Get them to click, serve them an ad, sell their tracking data.
      • etc-hosts 2mo ago
        I immediately thought they might be trying to de-anonymize article Commenters. Maybe I'm being too paranoid.
        • SoftTalker 2mo ago
          Oh, I'm sure they are doing that too. Something else they think they can monetize (never mind that most of them are probably bots).
  • sfblah 2mo ago
    There are a bunch of "emperor's new clothes" companies in the economy today. Palantir certainly seems like one of them.
• ChrisArchitect 2mo ago
  Title could be closer to: USA Today Co. partners with Palantir to analyze audience data
• MikeNotThePope 2mo ago
  "After 12 months of data analysis, we have arrived at the conclusion that our average customer was born before 1957 and thinks the country to going to hell in a hand basket."
• barumrho 2mo ago
  Setting aside politics and personalities, are Palantir's products any good? At least on the surface, their products seem to have many competitors, so is the product quality actually driving their growth?
  • danavar 2mo ago
    some of their value comes in as they're an outside party with carte-blanche to organize your data....do you have 10 internal teams that can't agree on a schema or organize themselves well due to political reasons? hire palantir
  • cowpig 2mo ago
    Their contracts give them a preposterous amount of control over their customers. All of the "Sovereignty" messaging is kind of ironic because it basically boils down to "don't trust them, trust us" Besides that they're basically the most expensive, white-glove, enterprise-y version of what they do
  • partiallypro 2mo ago
    At least in the military aspect, I have heard nothing but great things about them from service member friends/family. I personally find the panic over Palantir, Data Centers, etc to be largely mass hysteria vs anything else. It has become an omni-cause like Israel (I mean part of the backlash against Palantir is that the CEO is Jewish, just read any internet comment thread on the topic.)
    • polipputter 2mo ago
      >I mean part of the backlash against Palantir is that the CEO is Jewish Dont be disingenuous, you know damn well the backlash isn't because he is jewish. Its because of the business relationship with the Israeli government and how Palintirs tech has been used as a tool in Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people. >just read any internet comment thread on the topic You're the first comment in this thread or any ive seen, mentioning the CEOs religion. >I have heard nothing but great things about them from service member friends/family Really? And what is it that these friends and family members are saying great things about Palintir? This reads like some grade A marketing bot bullshit
• anigbrowl 2mo ago
  In Soviet Union, newspaper read you My, how times have changed.
• webdoodle 2mo ago
  This is the continuation of Operation Mockingbird. After it was exposed in the 70's by the Pike and Church Committee's, they reorganized privately using Allen & Co's Billaionaire's SummerCamp to consolidate the media (and now Social Media) industries for maximum control of the narrative. Each year they meet to further consolidate the media industry. https://webdoodle.substack.com https://webdoodle.substack.com I've been protesting there for 7 years now, and this was the first year the Democratic Socialists of America showed up. It was a major improvement. Next year the rest of you need to show up.
• JSR_FDED 2mo ago
  I lived in the US many years ago. USA Today was then already a bit of a joke - always a color pie chart on the front page, ludicrously generic news and sports, and on the last page 1 paragraph of news per state for an entire state (if something newsworthy happened according to the editor I guess). Let’s just say very much not a highbrow paper. I visited the US again last year and got the USA Today in my hotel. I thought I was being pranked. The writing, tone, complexity had all plummeted to the level of a child. That paper is basically for people who can’t figure out how to get their news from Yahoo. The Same people who get value from TV Guide. Let me guess what Palantir will tell them: your audience is dying and/or illiterate. Add cartoons. You’re welcome.
  • lkbm 2mo ago
    USA Today also owns a huge number of local papers -- possibly most. The main local papers in the three last places I've lived (Austin TX, South Bend IN, Asheville NC area) were all USA Today Co.-owned. (Used to be called Gannett.) It's not dying. Or, at least, it's doing better than anyone else.
    • rootusrootus 2mo ago
      I decided to spot check a few, including places like Portland and Seattle, and it seems like private ownership by a family for the last century is pretty common. And isn't the main paper in Austin the Austin American-Statesman? That's the Hearst family. Though looking a little deeper, they were owned by Gannett until last year.
      • NegativeLatency 2mo ago
        Yes for big cities, but there are very very few independent local papers in less populated areas, for example: https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/with-a-new-media-conglomerate-on-the-scene-oregons-news-landscape-is-shrinking-47980100/ https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/with-a-new-media-conglo... Also the Oregonian (big Portland paper) and the Seattle Times (big Seattle paper) are not locally owned anymore.
• micromacrofoot 2mo ago
  Search traffic is failing for everyone because of AI, you don't need a billion dollars to figure that out. Surprised we haven't yet seen paid advertisement interwoven into news article text in a way that feeds AI scrapers yet, wouldn't it be nice to drink a Coke right now? There's no law that says you have to disclose advertisement to chatbots, so you could mark it up in a way that only humans see the disclosure and poison the bot to remind everyone that not only are we at war with Iran, but Coca-Cola is still America's favorite soft drink.
  • shawnwall 2mo ago
    I believe we saw that this week - https://www.vincentschmalbach.com/time-serves-ai-bots-a-different-website/ https://www.vincentschmalbach.com/time-serves-ai-bots-a-diff...
• eitally 2mo ago
  My question is this: why is Palantir required for this kind of fairly basic data analysis? Couldn't they use much cheaper, probably open platforms for data science & analytics?
  • jkestner 2mo ago
    I don't see where it says who's paying whom. Maybe the deal is that Palantir gets more personal data to throw in a national profile database.
  • deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
• pmkary 2mo ago
  Being awful is easy when you start, but think about how much they have worked, how hard they have worked, how much an anti-anti-christ they must have proved themselves to be, what Indiana Jones traps they must have escaped to reach Palantir's CEO from the lobby, how many kids they probably have sacrificed to Satan, to get a contract from one of the most prominent and established war crime houses in history, to do what Google Analytics could do with copy-pasting three lines of code and signing in with your own Google account — just so they could burn their already-gone reputation and keep being one of the worst ways to waste human labor, office space, servers, and dead trees. This takes work, and I must admit I'm in total awe. This is going way beyond the competition to prove something, even if that something is the stupidest thing the laws of physics can handle.
• lorreyfum 2mo ago
  [dead]
• neilv 2mo ago
  Is Palantir getting access to any data it didn't already have about the newspaper chain's readers?
• imagetic 2mo ago
  Wow. Bad move.
• reindeer2 2mo ago
  [flagged]
• subltedistainle 2mo ago
  This will be fun. Currently dealing with Palantir trying to work their away into where I work. All I can say is I’m glad it’s going the way it is and thankful the CEO has gone public that he is “leading all AI” decisions Yeah it’s a complete disaster. They are trying to usurp all data; even employee personal data off devices via MDM that has no relevance to the project. They also asked for api keys to everything (in a regulated environment). And if you thought their forward deployed team knew anything about GRC, think again
• ygritte 2mo ago
  I'm curious to see what the crossing of a newspaper network and a mercenary kill optimizer will produce. Is Palantir getting a propaganda arm extension?