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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" > <channel> <title>Nieman Lab</title> <atom:link href="https://www.niemanlab.org/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org</link> <description></description> <lastBuildDate>Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:52:27 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2</generator> <item> <title>London’s local news startups find readers willing to pay</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/londons-local-news-startups-find-readers-willing-to-pay/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/londons-local-news-startups-find-readers-willing-to-pay/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Laura Hazard Owen]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:52:27 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Link post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Dave Hill]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Jim Waterson]]></category> <category><![CDATA[London]]></category> <category><![CDATA[London Centric]]></category> <category><![CDATA[London Daily Digital]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Londonist]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mill Media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Press Gazette]]></category> <category><![CDATA[The Londoner]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236365</guid> <description><![CDATA[The Press Gazette takes a look at three recently launched local news startups in London: London Centric was launched in September by former Guardian media editor Jim Waterson and offers readers regular email newsletters and in-depth reporting that they won’t find elsewhere. Based on Substack, it charges £7.95 per month for full access. The Londoner...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[The Press Gazette <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/regional-newspapers/the-publishers-leading-a-renaissance-for-london-news/">takes a look</a> at three recently launched local news startups in London: <blockquote><a href="https://www.londoncentric.media/">London Centric</a> was <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/former-guardian-media-editor-jim-waterson-launches-london-newsletter/">launched in September</a> by former Guardian media editor Jim Waterson and offers readers regular email newsletters and in-depth reporting that they won’t find elsewhere. Based on Substack, it charges £7.95 per month for full access. <a href="https://www.the-londoner.co.uk/">The Londoner</a> was <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/newsletters/the-londoner-the-bell-mill-media-glasgow-moya-lothian-mclean-robbie-armstrong/">launched by Mill Media in October</a> with a full-time staff of three. The title hopes to replicate the success of sister publications in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and Sheffield and has around 8,000 paying subscribers across those cities. Like London Centric, it is a newsletter-style model offering more in-depth coverage that readers might expect from the capital’s various free-to-air websites. It charges £8 per month for full access. The capital’s newest launch, <a href="https://ldd.news/">London Daily Digital</a>, <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/regional-newspapers/new-london-newspaper-launches-with-promise-to-revitalise-fleet-street/">began publishing in mid-February 2025</a> and is offering a paid-for monthly print edition for £5 and a free daily page-turning digital edition as well as a website. It offers readers generally upbeat coverage centred around council initiatives across the 32 London boroughs.</blockquote> Londonist <a href="https://londonist.com/london/london-s-grassroots-news-sites">noted in January</a>: <blockquote>These new titles join an already rich if disparate online ecosystem. Dave Hill’s <a href="https://www.onlondon.co.uk/">OnLondon</a> has been around since 2017, majoring in news from City Hall and other aspects of London politics, but also tackling adjacent stories. Dave has a <a href="https://davehillonlondon.substack.com/">Substack presence</a> in the form of OnLondon Extra. Both are reader-supported rather than relying on advertising.</blockquote> The New York Times also <a href="https://www.nytco.com/press/announcing-a-breaking-news-hub-for-london/">launched a breaking news hub</a> in London in September. Around <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2024/united-kingdom">8% of people in the U.K.</a> paid for news in 2024, <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2024">according to</a> the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, compared to <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2024/united-states">22% in the U.S.</a> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/londons-local-news-startups-find-readers-willing-to-pay/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Meet the journalists training AI models for Meta and OpenAI</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/meet-the-journalists-training-ai-models-for-meta-and-openai/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/meet-the-journalists-training-ai-models-for-meta-and-openai/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Andrew Deck]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:54:04 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[AI]]></category> <category><![CDATA[data work]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fact-checking]]></category> <category><![CDATA[freelancing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[generative AI]]></category> <category><![CDATA[labor]]></category> <category><![CDATA[meta]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Microsoft]]></category> <category><![CDATA[OpenAI]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Outlier]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Scale AI]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236372</guid> <description><![CDATA[In December, Carla McCanna received a message from a recruiter at the AI training data company Outlier. McCanna, a recent graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, had never heard of the company, but the message came through Handshake, a recruiting portal hosted by the university. “The recruiter said my skills align with a...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[In December, Carla McCanna received a message from a recruiter at the AI training data company Outlier. McCanna, a recent graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, had never heard of the company, but the message came through <a href="https://joinhandshake.com/employers/">Handshake</a>, a recruiting portal <a href="https://www.northwestern.edu/careers/resources/handshake-access.html">hosted</a> by the university. “The recruiter said my skills align with a writing expert role and that I’d be training AI models to optimize accuracy and efficiency,” McCanna told me. At the time, McCanna had no experience in data work, machine learning, or the tech industry. The skills the recruiter alluded to were her journalism experience — her professional writing, research, and fact-checking abilities. She’d worked internships at The Dallas Morning News and the monthly <a href="https://www.dmagazine.com/">D Magazine</a>, and last August, she earned her master’s degree in journalism. Staff jobs are scarce, though, and the competition for them is daunting. (In 2024, the already beleaguered U.S. news industry cut nearly 5,000 jobs, up 59% from the previous year, according to an <a href="https://www.challengergray.com/blog/january-2025-job-cuts-announced-by-us-based-companies-rise-28-to-49795-down-40-from-january-2024/">annual report</a> from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.) “I’m most interested in magazines, feature writing, or culture and music writing, those jobs on LinkedIn get thousands of applicants,” McCanna told me. “While I’m looking for that full-time writing position, this [Outlier job] seemed great, because it’s completely remote and it’s good pay if you’re consistent with it.” For the past couple months, McCanna has been working close to full-time for Outlier, picking up projects on its gig platform at about $35 per hour. Data work has quickly become her primary source of income and a hustle she’s recommended to other Medill classmates. “A lot of us are still looking for jobs. Three times I told someone what I do, and they’re like, please send it to me,” she said. “It’s hard right now, and a lot of my colleagues are saying the same thing.” McCanna is just one of many journalists who has been courted by Outlier to take on part-time, remote data work over the past year. I spoke to local news writers, photojournalists, and radio reporters across the U.S. who received similar recruitment messages from the company or heard about the platform through word-of-mouth among freelance journalists. Several of them told me they have taken on Outlier projects to supplement their income or replace their work in journalism entirely, because of dwindling staff jobs or freelance assignments drying up. Some are early-career journalists like McCanna, but others are reporters with over a decade of experience. One thing they all had in common? Before last year they’d never heard of Outlier or even knew that this type of work existed. Launched back in 2023, Outlier is a platform <a href="https://scale.com/blog/new-era-outlier">owned and managed by Scale AI</a>, a San Francisco-based data annotation company <a href="https://scale.com/blog/scale-ai-series-f">valued at $13.8 billion</a>. It counts among its <a href="https://scale.com/customers">customers</a> the world’s largest AI companies, including OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft. Outlier, and similar platforms like <a href="https://crowdgen.com/">CrowdGen</a> and <a href="https://www.remotasks.com/en">Remotasks</a>, use networks of remote human workers to improve the AI models of their clients. Workers are paid by the hour for tasks like labeling training data, drafting test prompts, and grading the factual accuracy and grammar of outputs. Often their work is fed back into an AI model to improve its performance, through a process called <a href="https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/rlhf">reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF). </a>This human feedback loop has been core to building models like OpenAI’s GPT and Meta’s Llama. Aside from direct recruitment messages, I also found dozens of recent public job postings that underscore this growing trend of hiring journalists for data work. These posts came from the AI industry’s leading training data companies including <a href="https://www.appen.com/">Appen</a>, <a href="https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=44c45499874d65c0&from=shareddesktop">Data Annotation</a>, and Scale AI itself. All of the openings list journalists as preferred candidates, often alongside editors, copy editors, and technical writers. “Though our recruitment efforts with journalists aren’t new, we find they make great general contributors largely because of their writing and text comprehension skills,” said Joe Osborne, a spokesperson for Scale AI. “The remote and flexible nature of the work also tends to suit their needs and schedules.” Osborne also said the company is currently updating its “fact checker” job listings with the title “AI trainer,” to clarify that fact-checking on Outlier is not a form of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/07/business/meta-fact-checking">direct content moderation</a>. Many job posts I found are looking for language experts, including journalists who speak <a href="https://restofworld.org/2023/scale-ai-language-training-hiring/">languages and dialects less represented</a> in the training data of major AI companies. I found posts for fact checkers internationally who speak <a href="https://wellfound.com/jobs/3165634-thai-fact-checker">Thai</a>, <a href="https://wellfound.com/jobs/3165630-dutch-fact-checker">Dutch</a>, <a href="https://wellfound.com/jobs/3165626-hindi-fact-checker">Hindi</a>, and <a href="https://wellfound.com/jobs/3165633-swedish-fact-checker">Swedish</a>, as well as dialects like “<a href="https://wellfound.com/jobs/3175501-spanish-mexico-fact-checker">Spanish (Mexico)</a>” and “<a href="https://wellfound.com/jobs/3165624-french-fact-checker">French (Canada).</a>” English-speaking journalists tended to qualify for more generalist job postings; these were often listed with titles like “<a href="https://app.outlier.ai/en/expert/opportunities/4490408005?_gl=1%2A181szoy%2A_gcl_au%2ANzA1NDQ3MzY2LjE3Mzk0Nzc0NTQ.&location=United%20States&type=All">AI writing evaluator</a>,” “<a href="https://wellfound.com/jobs/3139230-australian-english-freelance-writer">freelance writer</a>,” and “<a href="https://app.outlier.ai/en/expert/opportunities/4505540005?_gl=1%2A1enw58%2A_gcl_au%2ANzA1NDQ3MzY2LjE3Mzk0Nzc0NTQ.&location=All&type=All">fact checker</a>.” <img decoding="async" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-20-at-12.55.27 PM-700x905.png" alt="U.S. Spanish fact checker job listing for Scale AI" width="700" height="905" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-236401" srcset="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-20-at-12.55.27 PM-700x905.png 700w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-20-at-12.55.27 PM-990x1280.png 990w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-20-at-12.55.27 PM-768x993.png 768w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-20-at-12.55.27 PM-1188x1536.png 1188w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-20-at-12.55.27 PM-100x129.png 100w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-20-at-12.55.27 PM-160x207.png 160w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-20-at-12.55.27 PM-260x336.png 260w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-20-at-12.55.27 PM-360x465.png 360w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-20-at-12.55.27 PM-480x621.png 480w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-20-at-12.55.27 PM-600x776.png 600w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-20-at-12.55.27 PM.png 1250w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /> Eliza Partika, a freelance journalist based in Glendale, California, came across a similar post on LinkedIn in the spring of 2024. Partika had been contributing regularly to local news outlets like <a href="https://afrolanews.org/2024/11/housing-is-transformative-for-domestic-violence-survivors-but-supply-and-safety-present-challenges/">AfroLA</a> and <a href="https://www.crescentavalleyweekly.com/about-us/">Crescenta Valley Weekly</a>. After onboarding, Outlier gigs became an “incredibly helpful” source of income for her with most projects averaging between $17-$20 per hour. “It’s a freelance gig that I can come back to any time, so I plug in whenever I can,” she said. Most of Partika’s work on Outlier takes place in 30-minute blocks and requires reviewing real, anonymized chat histories from products like <a href="https://www.meta.ai/" target="_blank">Meta AI</a> or <a href="https://chatgpt.com/" target="_blank">ChatGPT</a>. She then rates the model’s responses using a rubric. “If a user asks Meta AI to write a cover letter based on a job description, it would be my job to verify that the responding cover letter incorporated experiences specified in the job description, made grammatical sense, and used the proper tone for a cover letter,” she told me. Frequently, these chats veer into more factual topics, including literature, math, and health. “If they ask what Hamlet’s soliloquy means, I have to verify that the AI responds with something about Hamlet’s soliloquy, but also that the analysis aligns with current thoughts on the subject,” she added. “If it’s a science fact, or math, I look it up.” All the Outlier contributors I spoke to mentioned their work indexes heavily on fact-checking, including identifying hallucinations by models or marking when chatbots pull from incorrect sources on the internet. Many of them compared it to “spot checking” a story, focusing on key details like figures, proper nouns, and stated facts. “I don’t have to interview anybody, but my research skills, my knowledge of history, my knowledge of politics, my reasoning skills, my fact-checking abilities, obviously the mastery of the English language, all of those skills [transfer],” said Cory Clark, who has been working as a local news reporter and freelance photojournalist in Philadelphia for over a decade. Clark has regularly freelanced for The Philadelphia Inquirer and photo wire services like the Associated Press, AFP, Getty Images, and Sipa Press. Clark told me it has become increasingly difficult to support his family with his freelance journalism work, and last year he stopped pursuing new freelance assignments to work for Outlier. He heard about the platform after a colleague at <a href="https://nwlocalpaper.com/">The Local</a>, a Northwest Philadelphia outlet, recommended it to him. “It’s a job that’s really well-suited for journalists,” he said. Like any gig platform work, contracting for Outlier has not been without its challenges. Last summer, Clark said he struggled to find new projects on the platform and ultimately had to find another part-time job. Similar ebbs and flows in demand for workers can make income from Outlier inconsistent. The company has also come under fire for payroll issues, including <a href="https://www.inc.com/sam-blum/its-a-scam-accusations-of-mass-non-payment-grow-against-scale-ais-subsidiary-outlier-ai.html">accusations last year of mass non-payment</a> for hours logged on the site. Other workers told me their AI reviews often entail dealing with heavy or disturbing topics. “Quite often the content I look at is explicit or sensitive. We are asked not to rate those chats, and to flag them for sensitive content,” Partika said. Last month, Outlier workers filed a <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/22/scale-ai-is-facing-a-third-worker-lawsuit-in-about-a-month/">string of lawsuits</a> against Scale AI, alleging their work had taken a <a href="https://restofworld.org/2020/facebook-international-content-moderators/">psychological toll</a> without providing proper support or safeguards. For many journalists, though, the reason not to work for an AI training data company is more existential. Celia Hack, a reporter for the KMUW radio station in Wichita, Kansas, received a message from an Outlier recruiter on LinkedIn in February 2024. She wasn’t receptive to the outreach, instead taking to Twitter to post a <a href="https://x.com/CeliaHack/status/1760728819311476750">screenshot of the recruiter’s message</a>. Her tweet: “when they offer to pay you to help make your journalism job become obsolete.” <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> When they offer to pay you to help make your journalism job become obsolete>>> <a href="https://t.co/VwG0sAYMsS">pic.twitter.com/VwG0sAYMsS</a> — Celia Hack (@CeliaHack) <a href="https://twitter.com/CeliaHack/status/1760728819311476750?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 22, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> “I didn’t know about people actually getting hired to do that type of work,” she told me on a recent call, explaining that while she doesn’t worry about AI technologies displacing her own job as a local news journalist, the recruiter’s message still caught her off guard. “Honestly, I’m still kind of confused what that type of work would even look like.” Hack isn’t the first to ask this question. The journalists I spoke to say their work for Outlier often takes some explaining to friends and peers in the industry. “People’s immediate reaction is usually, oh my god, so you’re helping the AI take over?” said McCanna, the recent Northwestern grad. Rather than training a replacement, McCanna sees her data work as an asset, growing her knowledge of AI tools as they continue to embed in the workplace. “Actually doing this work you realize AI models still need us … I think it’s going to be a really, really long time until they can truly write like humans.” Clark, meanwhile, says he has been pitching Outlier to other journalists. Even those who were initially icy have warmed up to the idea. “They didn’t trust the AI aspect of it, but I laid it out, I was like, look, one way or another, this is the future, whether it’s as a tool for us or an eventual replacement for us.” One of those friends is a photojournalist based in New York City. “I was like, dude, you pay thousands of dollars a month for your rent. I know you can’t always make that as a freelancer,” he said. “Outlier is a way to supplement that.” <div class="photocredit">Photo of clickworker by <a href="https://betterimagesofai.org/images?artist=MaxGruber&title=Clickworker3d-printed">Max Gruber via Better Images of AI</a> used under a Creative Commons license.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/meet-the-journalists-training-ai-models-for-meta-and-openai/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>In Germany, social media algorithms are pumping out huge amounts of far-right, pro-AfD content</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/in-germany-social-media-algorithms-are-pumping-out-huge-amounts-of-far-right-pro-afd-content/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/in-germany-social-media-algorithms-are-pumping-out-huge-amounts-of-far-right-pro-afd-content/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Benton]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 20 Feb 2025 17:47:43 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[algorithms]]></category> <category><![CDATA[conservative media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Elon Musk]]></category> <category><![CDATA[extremism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Germany]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Instagram]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Nazis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[radicalization]]></category> <category><![CDATA[social media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[tiktok]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category> <category><![CDATA[YouTube]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236363</guid> <description><![CDATA[Germany goes to the polls on Sunday for an election that could prove transformative. The key player is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which won 10.4% of the vote in the last federal election. Current polling puts AfD at roughly twice that level, a result that would likely rank them second behind the...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[Germany <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_German_federal_election">goes to the polls on Sunday</a> for an election that could prove transformative. The key player is the far-right <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany">Alternative for Germany</a> (AfD) party, which <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_German_federal_election">won 10.4% of the vote</a> in the last federal election. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2025_German_federal_election">Current polling</a> puts AfD at roughly twice that level, a result that would likely rank them second behind the center-right <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDU/CSU">CDU/CSU</a> and closer to real power than the party has ever been at the federal level. Why does that matter? Well, you may remember Germany has <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany">something of a history</a> with surging far-right parties. AfD leaders and members keep being discovered doing <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/9/6/23859900/germany-far-right-afd-comeback">some</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/26/world/europe/afd-election-east-germany-hoecke.html">pretty</a> Nazi <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany#German_nationalism">things</a>: <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/25785648.2022.2069337">denying the Holocaust</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/world/europe/germany-far-right-plot-court.html">plotting to overthrow the state</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germanys-far-right-afd-is-shut-out-power-now-waiting-wings-2025-02-19/">reclaiming Nazi slogans</a>, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/germany-afd-secret-meeting-deportation/">planning mass deportations of German citizens of the wrong ethnicity</a>, <a href="https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/unter-rassisten-so-diskutieren-afd-politiker-im-netz-5804812.html">sharing Anne Frank “fresh from the oven” memes</a> in private Facebook groups, and generally calling for a return to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lkisch_nationalism">Völkisch nationalism</a>. Even Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party in France announced <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx88nwy934go#:~:text=In%20response%20to,movement%2C%22%20she%20added.">it wanted nothing to do with the AfD</a>. And indeed, Germany’s major parties have historically maintained a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordon_sanitaire_(politics)">cordon sanitaire</a> between the far-right and the political mainstream, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall_against_the_far-right_in_Germany">refusing to collaborate with the AfD</a>. That firewall held from the end of World War II until…earlier last month, when the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/world/europe/germany-afd-merz-cdu-migration.html">conservative CDU teamed with the AfD</a> to try <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/world/europe/germany-friedrich-merz-immigration.html">to reduce immigration</a>, leading to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-160000-protest-against-cdu-afd-collaboration/a-71487600">massive protests</a>. Add in the ongoing chaos in Washington — and the shocking AfD endorsements from <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250216-germany-s-far-right-afd-basks-in-spotlight-of-musk-support">Elon Musk</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/berlin-says-vance-should-not-interfere-german-politics-2025-02-14/">J.D. Vance</a> — and the world will be tuned into Sunday’s results. Which is why <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/global-witness_globalwitnessinvestigationgermanelections2025-activity-7298220015902679040-JR7-/">a new study out today</a>, by the international climate and human rights NGO <a href="https://globalwitness.org/en/">Global Witness</a>, is worth some attention. It looks at how the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-20/elon-musk-germany-far-right-young-people-social-media/104936562">recommendation algorithms of Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram</a> are affecting the political content that German users are seeing pre-election. The results were stark: <blockquote class="rippedpaper"><div>Non-partisan social media users in Germany are seeing right-leaning content more than twice as much than left-leaning content in the lead up to the country’s federal elections, a new Global Witness investigation reveals. At a time when Big Tech companies are increasingly under scrutiny for their influence on major elections, investigators studied what content TikTok, X and Instagram’s algorithms were recommending to politically interested yet non-partisan users during the election build up.</div></blockquote> Here’s what they did. When normal humans look at their social feeds, what they see is heavily influenced by what the platform knows about them — who they’ve followed, what they’ve liked, how they’ve spent their time scrolling. If someone only follows Milwaukee Brewers players and only likes Milwaukee Brewers posts, no one would be surprised if a social algorithm starts feeding them Milwaukee Brewers content. That makes it difficult to determine how much of what you’re seeing is the result of your past behavior or something baked into the algorithm itself. To get around that, Global Witness created brand new accounts on factory-reset devices on all three platforms — identities with no past behavior for an algorithm to draw conclusions from. On each platform, they then followed only eight other users: the official accounts of Germany’s four major parties and the accounts of each party’s leader. For each of those accounts, they read or watched its five most recent posts. That should have let the platform know the accounts were interested in political content, but not expressed any partisan position. They then went to each platform’s For You feed and started recording what they were being shown — classifying each post by whether it leaned right or left, whether it supported a particular party, and whether or not it was posted by one of those eight accounts they’d followed. Nearly three-quarters of the political content they were shown on TikTok (74%) and Twitter (72%) was right-leaning, and the largest share of that content was pro-AfD. Instagram’s content also leaned to the right, but to a lesser degree (59%). <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/globalwitness-afd-1.png" alt="" width="700" height="267" class="nakedboxedimagewide" /> Remarkably, most of that rightward lean was driven by content from accounts the researchers weren’t following — that is, not those eight party and leader accounts. The scale of that content varied wildly by platform. On Instagram, for instance, 96% of the content served up came from one of those eight accounts. But on TikTok, that number was only 8%. And the non-followed accounts the algorithms chose had a strong leaning. <blockquote class="rippedpaper"><div>You have control over the accounts you choose to follow. While there are ways to indicate to a platform what else you want to see, ultimately, what posts platforms feed to you are largely beyond your control. And in our test, the party political content chosen by the recommendation systems on TikTok and X was politically biased.</div></blockquote> On TikTok, 78% of the partisan content shown was pro-AfD. (The other three parties: 8%, 8%, and 6%.) On Twitter, 64% was pro-AfD. (The other three: 18%, 14%, and 6%.) <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/globalwitness-afd-2.png" alt="" width="700" height="473" class="nakedboxedimagewide" /> Anyone who’s <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/x-twitter-political-content-election-2024-28f2dadd">spent time on Elon Musk’s Twitter</a> probably won’t be surprised to see this big a thumb on the scale. Social media platforms have long been criticized for feeding people content they’re predisposed to agree with, encasing them in a <a href="https://5harad.com/papers/bubbles.pdf">filter bubble</a>. But at least that’s their filter bubble. These are filters being imposed from the outside. This is, in theory, a fixable problem. You may remember, a few years back, seeing studies similar to this one, but about YouTube — specifically, about how its <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-politics-radical.html">recommendation system</a> was <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-youtube-drives-viewers-to-the-internets-darkest-corners-1518020478">driving people</a> toward <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/01/11/searching-news-rbg-youtube-offered-conspiracy-theories-about-supreme-court-justice-instead/">ever</a> more <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/down-youtubes-recommendation-rabbithole">radicalized</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-brazil.html">content</a>. In 2019, YouTube <a href="https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/continuing-our-work-to-improve/">announced</a> it was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/25/tech/youtube-conspiracy-video-recommendations/index.html">changing its algorithm</a> to reduce this push to more extreme material — “reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways.” Within a few months, it <a href="https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/the-four-rs-of-responsibility-raise-and-reduce/">reported</a> that these changes had led to “a 70% average drop in watch time of this content coming from non-subscribed recommendations in the U.S.” Those videos were still available for people who wanted to find them, but YouTube sharply decreased how often it would actively push them to users. <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10468121/">Follow-up studies</a> have generally (though <a href="https://www.ucdavis.edu/curiosity/news/youtube-video-recommendations-lead-more-extremist-content-right-leaning-users-researchers">not universally</a>) found that the radicalizing effects of the YouTube rabbit hole are now <a href="https://www.techpolicy.press/new-study-suggests-rightwing-bias-in-youtube-recommendation-algorithm/">strongly diminished</a> or <a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/youtube-algorithm-isnt-radicalizing-people">gone altogether</a>. But YouTube had to want to make that change. (Or, more cynically, it needed to feel that a drumbeat of “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-enticement-why-are-some-americans-prone-radicalization-n233601">YouTube videos made my kid join ISIS</a>” stories was very bad PR.) An algorithm heavily weighted to far-right content might seem like a bug to most, but to Elon Musk, it is <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1869986946031988780">most certainly a feature</a>. Will a TikTok that is <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyng762q4eo">trying to get in Donald Trump’s good graces</a> see this sort of a skew as a problem or a selling point? In French, a cordon sanitaire translates literally as a quarantine barrier — a structure erected to help prevent a sickness from spreading. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, societies worldwide debated endlessly about how strict restrictions should or should not be. Reasonable people can disagree on whether or how vigorously a party as extreme as the AfD should be kept out of mainstream politics. But what we’re seeing on social media platforms today isn’t that debate. Instead, it’s actively pro-virus — that extremism shouldn’t be shunned, it should be celebrated and promoted. On Sunday, we’ll learn the extent of the spread. <div class="photocredit">Photo from a Feb. 8 anti-AfD protest in the town of Zweibrücken — “Kein keks für Nazis” = “No cookies for Nazis” — by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kaischwerdt/54316413491/">Kai Schwerdt</a> used under a Creative Commons license.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/in-germany-social-media-algorithms-are-pumping-out-huge-amounts-of-far-right-pro-afd-content/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>The American Journalism Project receives $25 million to fund more nonprofit newsrooms and launch the “Knight Resiliency Lab”</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-american-journalism-project-receives-25-million-to-fund-more-nonprofit-newsrooms-and-launch-the-knight-resiliency-lab/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-american-journalism-project-receives-25-million-to-fund-more-nonprofit-newsrooms-and-launch-the-knight-resiliency-lab/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sophie Culpepper]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 19 Feb 2025 19:53:31 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Link post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[american journalism project]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Knight Foundation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[local news]]></category> <category><![CDATA[nonprofit news]]></category> <category><![CDATA[philanthropy]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236330</guid> <description><![CDATA[When the American Journalism Project launched in 2019, the Knight Foundation was among its earliest supporters. Right off the bat, the longtime journalism funder invested $20 million in the new organization created to provide venture philanthropy for local news. Six years later, the Knight Foundation is doubling down on that early support. On Tuesday, the...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[When the <a href="https://www.theajp.org">American Journalism Project</a> launched in 2019, the <a href="https://knightfoundation.org/programs/journalism/">Knight Foundation</a> was among its <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/12/here-are-the-american-journalism-projects-first-11-recipients-taking-home-8-5-million-to-grow-their-business-operations/">earliest supporters</a>. Right off the bat, the longtime journalism funder invested $20 million in the new organization created to <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/10/venture-philanthropy-for-local-news-might-not-be-as-scary-as-it-sounds/">provide venture philanthropy for local news</a>. Six years later, the Knight Foundation is doubling down on that early support. On Tuesday, the American Journalism Project <a href="https://www.theajp.org/news-insights/announcements/knight-foundation-invests-25-million-in-american-journalism-project-to-expand-and-strengthen-local-news/">announced</a> a $25 million investment from Knight to “accelerate the growth of nonprofit local news organizations nationwide.” This hefty chunk of change will flow toward three goals. Per the announcement, AJP will use it to “provide growth capital and long-term operational support to up to 60 nonprofit news organizations, expand its partnerships with local philanthropy across the country to address news and information gaps, and launch the Knight Resiliency Lab…a unit designed to strengthen the financial and operational resilience of nonprofit newsrooms.” The American Journalism Project’s <a href="https://www.theajp.org/our-portfolio/">portfolio</a> currently lists about 45 grantees across 36 states; Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/02/18/local-news-knight-foundation-ajp-investment">reports</a> that this new investment will grow AJP’s reach from “supporting 50 local newsrooms today to 60 over the next three years.” “Part of this investment will allow us to re-invest in news organizations in our portfolio that have plans for significant growth, especially into new communities,” Roshni Neslage, AJP’s head of communications, told me in an email. The Knight Resiliency Lab would join AJP’s <a href="https://www.theajp.org/what-we-do/local-philanthropy-partnerships/">Philanthropy Partnerships Program</a>, its <a href="https://www.theajp.org/what-we-do/local-philanthropy-partnerships/#">Startup Studio</a>, its <a href="https://www.theajp.org/product-ai-studio/">Product and AI Studio</a>, and its <a href="https://www.theajp.org/incubator/">Local News Incubator</a>. Per the announcement, it will complement these other programs by providing “news organizations with expertise, resources, and training for long-term sustainability, focusing on key areas such as audience development, major donor fundraising, membership models, and revenue diversification.” “Our whole portfolio of grantees, including new initiatives launched by our Startup Studio, already receives hands-on strategic support from AJP,” Neslage said. “Support from the Knight Resiliency Lab will be highly specialized support around a few key areas, which will also be available to all of the organizations in our portfolio.” AJP expects the lab to consist of “a small unit of specialists” focused on those key areas, and plans to build out this team “over the next few years,” she added. “With this investment, we’re ensuring that nonprofit local news organizations don’t just launch — they thrive,” said Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, president and CEO of Knight Foundation, in the statement announcing the funding. A <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/132LMo7vtNTKEnH7RrymeWQEz7qFvNr2qkklI4CC__1Y/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.4vqeuy3cc8zv">report</a> about support organizations I <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/a-new-report-suggests-journalism-support-orgs-funders-and-local-newsrooms-unite-around-four-goals/">wrote about yesterday</a> observed that “we have no way to measure whether the money being funneled into support organizations is making a difference because we have no way to measure what that difference is.” So it was notable to me that this announcement made a case for the American Journalism Project’s success over time by highlighting its growth, and the growth of some of its grantees (though that track record of grantee growth is <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/10/midwestern-news-nonprofit-the-beacon-shuts-down-its-wichita-newsroom/">not perfect</a>). The announcement notes AJP has raised more than $200 million since 2019, and highlights the growth of its earliest grantees to argue that “its investment model has proven effective.” Per the announcement, “the first 22 organizations to partner with the American Journalism Project have doubled in size by diversifying revenue and added over 200 journalists to their staffs.” (Emphasis AJP’s). Among its earliest grantees: <a href="https://www.citybureau.org">City Bureau</a>; <a href="https://mlk50.com">MLK50: Justice Through Journalism</a>; and <a href="https://vtdigger.org">VTDigger</a>. “We make grants that are, on average, about $1 million, with the expectation that these grantees will grow their organizations by about $1 million by the completion of their grants,” Neslage said. Read the full announcement <a href="https://www.theajp.org/news-insights/announcements/knight-foundation-invests-25-million-in-american-journalism-project-to-expand-and-strengthen-local-news/">here</a>. ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-american-journalism-project-receives-25-million-to-fund-more-nonprofit-newsrooms-and-launch-the-knight-resiliency-lab/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>A German news outlet got rid of its comments section — and asks readers to debate instead</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/a-german-news-outlet-got-rid-of-its-comments-section-and-asks-readers-to-debate-instead/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/a-german-news-outlet-got-rid-of-its-comments-section-and-asks-readers-to-debate-instead/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Hanaa' Tameez]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 19 Feb 2025 18:59:14 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[comments]]></category> <category><![CDATA[comments section]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Der Spiegel]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Der Spiegel Debate]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Germany]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Laura Badura]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236329</guid> <description><![CDATA[For years, news publishers have grappled with what to do with their comments sections. Commenters may be hostile or spread misinformation. Moderators are burned out. Some outlets have limited commenting privileges to registered users or subscribers. Some have developed their own commenting platforms. And more than a few have called it quits, referring users to...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[For years, news publishers have grappled with what to do with their comments sections. Commenters may be hostile or spread misinformation. <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/07/hey-comment-mods-you-doin-okay-a-new-study-shows-moderating-uncivil-comments-reduces-the-moderators-trust-in-news/">Moderators are burned out</a>. Some outlets have <a href="https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014792387-The-Comments-Section">limited commenting privileges to registered users</a> or <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/community-guidelines-74e6eb2d">subscribers</a>. Some have <a href="https://www.voxmedia.com/2019/9/10/20857471/coral-vox-media-relaunch">developed their own commenting platforms</a>. And more than a few have <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2015/09/what-happened-after-7-news-sites-got-rid-of-reader-comments/">called it quits</a>, referring users to social media to voice their opinions. In 2022, German news magazine and website Der Spiegel was getting around 1.7 million comments on its stories per month. That was too many comments for readers to read and for social media producers to moderate, according to product manager <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/badura/">Laura Badura</a>. So the outlet overhauled what it means to have comments on its site all together. After a year of designing and testing, <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/">Der Spiegel</a>’s <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/debatten/">Debate</a>, a centralized discussion space for readers to deliberate the day’s biggest issues, <a href="https://theaudiencers.com/going-further-with-interactive-engagement-introducing-the-debating-feature/">launched</a> in December 2023. Fourteen months in, Badura says the quality of comments has improved, and while the Debate feature isn’t a major subscription driver, subscribers who do comment tend to spend more time on the site. Here’s how Debate works: Each day, Der Spiegel’s “moderation team” (folks on the social media team who manage the Debate platform) develops around four yes-or-no debate questions about the day’s news events. Debates are free for registered users to read, but only paid subscribers can comment on them. Meanwhile, comments on individual articles have been turned off. The debate questions on February 19 were: <ul> <li><a href="https://www.spiegel.de/debatten/debatte/countdown-lauft-haben-sie-fragen-zur-bundestagswahl">Countdown is on: Do you have any questions about the federal election?</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.spiegel.de/debatten/debatte/abwendung-der-usa-von-europa-kann-die-krise-zur-chance-werden">The U.S. is turning away from Europe: Can the crisis become an opportunity?</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.spiegel.de/debatten/debatte/wunschen-sie-sich-eine-regierungsbeteiligung-der-grunen">Do you want the Greens to participate in government?</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.spiegel.de/debatten/debatte/kritik-an-der-wirtschaftspolitik-der-grunen-csu-chef-soder-sollte-sich-mal-um-die-eigene-bilanz-kum-n1Zkv">Criticism of the Greens’ economic policy: CSU leader Söder “should take care of his own balance sheet” — Do you agree?</a></li> </ul> Other recent debates include <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/debatten/debatte/kolumne-kommen-feministische-themen-in-der-politischen-debatte-zu-kurz">“Are feminist issues neglected in the political debate?”</a>, <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/debatten/debatte/leitartikel-braucht-europa-eine-eigene-armee-mit-atomwaffen">“Does Europe need its own army with nuclear weapons?”</a>, and <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/debatten/debatte/leitartikel-braucht-europa-eine-eigene-armee-mit-atomwaffen">“Can Europe keep up with the global AI race thanks to new investments?:</a> <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-19-at-12.55.13 PM.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="nakedboxedimage" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-19-at-12.55.13 PM-700x629.png" alt="" width="700" height="629" /></a> <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-19-at-12.56.23 PM.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="nakedboxedimage" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-19-at-12.56.23 PM-700x591.png" alt="" width="700" height="591" /></a> Debate feels like an orderly, hyperfocused Reddit thread. (Der Spiegel’s main color is also a similar Reddit orange.) The design encourages readers to vote in a poll and displays Der Spiegel’s stories related to the question. Then subscribers can write their own comments, reply to others’ comments, and share posts from the discussion on social media. Subscribers can also suggest future debate topics to Der Spiegel and vote on whether they’re interested in others’ suggestions. (One popular suggestion with 52 votes: “<a href="http://undefined?redirect_url=https://www.spiegel.de">Gulf of America: Should journalists show solidarity with AP representatives and stay away from further press conferences?</a>”) Der Spiegel moderators use those suggestions for future debate questions. Recently selected debate questions include “<a href="https://www.spiegel.de/debatten/debatte/sind-die-usa-noch-ein-verlasslicher-partner-fur-deutschland">Is the USA still a reliable partner for Germany?</a>” and <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/debatten/debatte/ware-eine-belohnung-von-1-000-euro-fur-ein-jahr-durchgehende-beschaftigung-ein-geeigneter-anreiz-fur">“Would a reward of 1,000 euros for one year of continuous employment be an appropriate incentive for the long-term unemployed?”</a> The Debate platform has been mutually beneficial for subscribers and the newsroom, Badura said. While commenters get to engage in meaningful conversations and learn from and about each other, Der Spiegel’s moderators have a more manageable workload. The Debate platform’s software uses AI to flag comments to review that may be hateful or offensive. Badura said that the approval rate for Debate comments is 90%, up from about 85% under the old comments system. The Debate section also gives journalists a better sense of public opinion about issues on their beats. Badura said the previous format of comments under every article made it difficult to analyze the public’s opinion on a story or issue. If Der Spiegel published 20 articles about Donald Trump’s inauguration, for example, the old format would have left the moderators with countless comments and discussions on 20 different pages. “The editorial teams are way happier with this Debate space than with the comment sections before,” Badura said. Spiegel journalists can link to relevant debates in their articles, the homepage features prominent links to Debates. ““From time to time, the Debate spaces are the number one article on our website,” Badura said. “This [motivates users] to write good comments because then they can be featured on our homepage.” Along with a clear prompt, comments are divided into a green “yes” or red “no” column and can be sorted by most popular, newest, oldest, and most relevant. Each debate is only open for 24 hours (though they can be reopened or extended depending on the issue, Badura said). Users can also leave comments on both sides, since few issues are black and white. The format and features were designed intentionally based on intense user research, Badura said. Der Spiegel, like other publications, kicked around the idea of getting rid of its comments section, but survey results found that users wanted a (mostly) public forum to safely talk with other people about topics in the news. “We asked [users] why they don’t write comments on Facebook or somewhere else, but they really love the quality [filter] that Der Spiegel provides. When they comment on Der Spiegel, it means to them that there’s some kind of moderation. They said they wanted a common space, but they told us that [current] common spaces are lacking [oversight]. Some of them also said that they really need a safe space somewhere on the internet, and they would love to have this safe space at Der Spiegel.” Commenters can create usernames and choose from a range of avatars for their profiles so that they don’t have to use their full names or real photos. They can add short bios to their profiles, which is shown alongside which topics they most frequently comment on, how many comments they’ve posted, and how many debate ideas they’ve suggested. They’re awarded points based on the length of their comments, as an incentive to leave longer and more elaborate comments. One of Debate’s main safety and civility features is subtle. Each comment only has a heart button, so commenters can positively react to comments that they like. Badura said that Debate did have downvotes at one point, but the team removed the feature to make the environment more friendly for discussion. (Users can report comments to moderators for review if they think they violate the discussion rules.) “We don’t want to cancel out users by giving out downvotes,” Badura said. “We don’t want the users to feel bad. We know our users provide strong feedback if they’re against the opinion of another user, so we don’t need the downvotes here.” <div class="photocredit">Image generated with Canva</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/a-german-news-outlet-got-rid-of-its-comments-section-and-asks-readers-to-debate-instead/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>A new report suggests journalism support orgs, funders, and local newsrooms unite around four goals</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/a-new-report-suggests-journalism-support-orgs-funders-and-local-newsrooms-unite-around-four-goals/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/a-new-report-suggests-journalism-support-orgs-funders-and-local-newsrooms-unite-around-four-goals/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sophie Culpepper]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 18 Feb 2025 19:44:55 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Anika Anand]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Darryl Holliday]]></category> <category><![CDATA[field-building]]></category> <category><![CDATA[local news]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236278</guid> <description><![CDATA[In her 2024 Nieman Lab prediction, Anika Anand, then deputy director of Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers, described what she saw as a need for more coordination among journalism support organizations — sometimes referred to as intermediaries — to better serve journalists and newsrooms. “The lack of coordination across funders, associations, academic institutions, consulting firms,...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[In her <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/journalism-intermediaries-start-to-coordinate/">2024 Nieman Lab prediction</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/anikaanand/">Anika Anand</a>, then deputy director of <a href="https://lionpublishers.com">Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers</a>, described what she saw as a need for more coordination among journalism support organizations — sometimes referred to as intermediaries — to better serve journalists and newsrooms. “The lack of coordination across funders, associations, academic institutions, consulting firms, technology platforms, and other organizations that exist to serve journalists and newsrooms ultimately undermines the ecosystems we’re trying to strengthen,” she wrote. “The problem is not <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/11/foundations-give-a-lot-of-money-to-journalism-intermediaries-maybe-the-money-should-go-to-news-outlets-instead/">intermediaries receiving too much foundation money</a>; the problem is the lack of coordination between these intermediaries to enable the most efficient and best use of existing resources. That’s because there’s no vision or infrastructure to help us better leverage what we’re all working on to more effectively serve news businesses.” In the year since writing that prediction, Anand has departed LION and partnered with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/darryl-holliday-a4463b37/">Darryl Holliday</a>, co-founder of <a href="https://www.citybureau.org/documenters/">City Bureau</a> and the <a href="https://www.documenters.org">Documenters Network</a> and co-author of the <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/02/the-future-of-local-news-is-civic-information-not-declining-legacy-systems-new-report-says/">Roadmap for Local News</a> <a href="https://localnewsroadmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/The-Roadmap-for-Local-News-Feb-2-23.pdf">report</a>, to launch <a href="https://www.commoner.company">Commoner Company</a>, which they describe as a “<a href="https://www.commoner.company/blog/why-commoner-company">civic media lab for hire</a>.” In a <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/132LMo7vtNTKEnH7RrymeWQEz7qFvNr2qkklI4CC__1Y/edit?tab=t.0">report</a> released last month, commissioned by early patron <a href="https://democracyfund.org">Democracy Fund</a>, Anand and Holliday focused on the question Anand had begun to probe in her prediction: What is needed for support organizations to more efficiently and effectively serve the local news field? Anand and Holliday identify more than 100 such organizations operating in the U.S. today, and trace their proliferation back to a “decade-long shift” between roughly 2009 and 2017 in response to the changing needs of the local news space and a new generation of nonprofit local newsrooms. For this report, the authors drew on conversations with 22 local news field leaders,<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/a-new-report-suggests-journalism-support-orgs-funders-and-local-newsrooms-unite-around-four-goals/#footnote_0_236278" id="identifier_0_236278" class="footnote-link footnote-identifier-link" title="Becca Aaronson, Alicia Bell, Shannan Bowen, Jennifer Brandel, Cierra Brown-Hinton, Chantelle Fisher Borne, Tim Griggs, Jesse Hardman, Damon Kiesow, Chris Krewson, Courtney Lewis, Tristan Loper, Melissa Milios Davis, Pete Plastrik, Tracie Powell, Carolyn Powers, Mike Rispoli, Karen Rundlet, Gabe Schneider, Richard Tofel, Mikhael Simmonds, Sonam Vashi and Mary Walter-Brown.">1</a> a six-person advisory council,<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/a-new-report-suggests-journalism-support-orgs-funders-and-local-newsrooms-unite-around-four-goals/#footnote_1_236278" id="identifier_1_236278" class="footnote-link footnote-identifier-link" title="Sarabeth Berman (American Journalism Project), Lindsay Green-Barber (Impact Architects), Tim Isgitt (Public Media Company), S. Mitra Kalita (URL Media), Joy Mayer (Trusting News), and Bridget Thoreson (Hearken).">2</a> and their own experience in local news. They describe some of the <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/02/many-small-news-nonprofits-feel-overlooked-by-funders-a-new-coalition-is-giving-them-a-voice/">challenges</a> and <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/02/patterns-in-philanthropy-leave-small-newsrooms-behind-can-that-change/">tensions</a> that have arisen with that growth in support organizations. (“Critics have <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/11/foundations-give-a-lot-of-money-to-journalism-intermediaries-maybe-the-money-should-go-to-news-outlets-instead/">questioned</a> philanthropy’s decision to continue investing in these entities, <a href="https://thepivotfund.org/f/philanthropy-intermediaries-power-challenges-and-potential?fbclid=IwAR3qm-j5YKNtm4EFC0BawDvtxosChKz6-KQR60WVoC42U1SHtilxpYbtlyc&blogcategory=Audiences">called for</a> support organizations to better address news businesses’ needs, <a href="https://www.localnewsblues.com/anno-is-genuinely-different/">labeled</a> them as bureaucratic gatekeepers, and <a href="https://mailchi.mp/fundjournalism/diversifying-audiences-and-revenue-14761374?e=f76a458f51">advocated</a> for more strategic alliance building.”) They present this diagnosis (emphasis theirs): <blockquote class="rippedpaper">Reading through the report, I was reminded of a comment <a href="https://www.pressforward.news">Press Forward</a> director Dale Anglin made to me during our <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/05/journalism-moves-fast-philanthropy-moves-slow-press-forwards-director-wants-to-bring-them-together/">interview</a> last spring: “If I’m saying the word ‘journalism’ and you are hearing something different, we are not agreeing on the same problem that we’re even trying to solve.” “I think what Dale hits on is similar to what we express as the impetus for our report,” Anand said. “Definitions to describe what local news does and how it does it have changed a lot, and not everyone is in agreement on what those changes are. And if the field isn’t in agreement, it becomes very, very difficult to explain to people outside of the field why we need their support in meeting communities’ information needs.” Holliday pointed to a different comment Anglin made in that interview: “A key part of developing an ecosystem is agreed-upon language. And we don’t have that in journalism.” That, he said, “is a problem we can solve together as a field.” He spelled out “the need to visibilize the local news sectors, cohorts and tribes in a way that helps funders, potential employees and the public navigate our space.” “Civic media isn’t the same as public media isn’t the same as public access radio/TV isn’t the same as investigative journalism isn’t the same as movement journalism isn’t the same as corporate broadcasting, etc,” he said. “What do these subgroups have in common, what separates them, and what’s a vision for the future that we can work toward together? That question is a tension and an opportunity.” One particular possible point of tension that stood out to me: In the report’s second recommendation, Anand and Holliday suggests funders should use the Yellow Pages-esque resources “to prompt and inform conversations with support organizations about mergers, joint operating agreements, and closures that could strengthen the field,” citing positive examples like “the <a href="https://www.newsleaders.org/">dissolution</a> of the News Leaders Association and the intentional <a href="https://membershippuzzle.org/sunset">sunsetting</a> of the Membership Puzzle Project.” Among the biggest challenges to implementing the report’s recommendations, according to Anand, is a mindset shift toward thinking as a field, not as an organization. “We are asking funders, support organizations and newsmakers to think beyond their organizations,” she said. “It’s one thing to say you care about saving or revitalizing local news and then talk very loudly about how your organization is doing that. It’s another thing to say you want to ensure every person in our country has access to news and information that meets their needs and then work with others within and outside the local news field to contextualize the work you’re doing and make sure it’s moving the field closer to that goal.” <div class="photocredit">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@mourimoto">Mourizal Zativa</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/blue-red-yellow-and-green-lego-blocks-gNMVpAPe3PE">Unsplash</a>.</div> <ol class="footnotes"><li id="footnote_0_236278" class="footnote">Becca Aaronson, Alicia Bell, Shannan Bowen, Jennifer Brandel, Cierra Brown-Hinton, Chantelle Fisher Borne, Tim Griggs, Jesse Hardman, Damon Kiesow, Chris Krewson, Courtney Lewis, Tristan Loper, Melissa Milios Davis, Pete Plastrik, Tracie Powell, Carolyn Powers, Mike Rispoli, Karen Rundlet, Gabe Schneider, Richard Tofel, Mikhael Simmonds, Sonam Vashi and Mary Walter-Brown.</li><li id="footnote_1_236278" class="footnote">Sarabeth Berman (American Journalism Project), Lindsay Green-Barber (Impact Architects), Tim Isgitt (Public Media Company), S. Mitra Kalita (URL Media), Joy Mayer (Trusting News), and Bridget Thoreson (Hearken).</li></ol>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/a-new-report-suggests-journalism-support-orgs-funders-and-local-newsrooms-unite-around-four-goals/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>The New York Times will let reporters use AI tools while its lawyers litigate AI tools</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-new-york-times-will-let-reporters-use-ai-tools-while-its-lawyers-litigate-ai-tools/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-new-york-times-will-let-reporters-use-ai-tools-while-its-lawyers-litigate-ai-tools/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Benton]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 18 Feb 2025 19:40:10 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236277</guid> <description><![CDATA[As Walt Whitman once wrote, The New York Times is large. It contains multitudes. One part of the company is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for training their large language models on Times content. It seeks “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” for the companies’ “use of The Times’s uniquely valuable works.” But as...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<a href="https://poets.org/poem/song-myself-51">As Walt Whitman once wrote</a>, The New York Times is large. It contains multitudes. One part of the company is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html">suing OpenAI and Microsoft</a> for training their large language models on Times content. It seeks “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” for the companies’ “use of The Times’s uniquely valuable works.” But <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/02/16/2025/new-york-times-goes-all-in-on-internal-ai-tools">as Semafor reported Monday</a>, the newsroom is on board with using AI in the story production process — some AI tools, at least. And the green-lit list includes models from…OpenAI and Microsoft. <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/02/16/2025/new-york-times-goes-all-in-on-internal-ai-tools">Max Tani</a>: <blockquote class="rippedpaper">For the record, I think these are fine journalistic uses of AI. Current LLMs are nowhere near accurate enough to reliably produce news copy meant for humans. They <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/bbc-news-finds-that-ai-tools-distort-its-journalism-into-a-confused-cocktail-with-many-errors/">make stuff up far too often</a>. But they can be extremely useful for analyzing documents, brainstorming ideas, summarizing texts, and a host of other tasks during the reporting and writing process, when a journalist can evaluate and refine the output.<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-new-york-times-will-let-reporters-use-ai-tools-while-its-lawyers-litigate-ai-tools/#footnote_0_236277" id="identifier_0_236277" class="footnote-link footnote-identifier-link" title="However, I’d stay away from AI on one of the Times’ listed potential use cases: answering “How many times was Al mentioned in these episodes of Hard Fork?” LLMs are still pretty terrible at counting things, and I would definitely not trust the output on this one.">1</a> The <a href="https://openai.com/index/introducing-deep-research/">new</a> <a href="https://blog.google/products/gemini/google-gemini-deep-research/">generation</a> <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPTPro/comments/1in87ic/mastering_aipowered_research_my_guide_to_deep/">of</a> “<a href="https://www.pcmag.com/news/perplexity-launches-a-free-deep-research-tool">deep</a> <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00437-0">research</a>” <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03676-9">models</a> looks much improved for a lot of journalism tasks, though it’s still slow and expensive. And they’ll <a href="https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/31/llms-in-2024/">keep getting better</a>. A smart news organization should be open to using tools where they can help — and avoiding them where they can’t. That’s true no matter what your legal strategy is. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> The <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nytimes</a> sends a signal to all journalism educators: If you want to work there in the future, you'll need to know how to use AI ethically + productively. So ethical + professional AI usage needs to be integrated into journalism curricula (now).<a href="https://t.co/5xFdTFDLKF">https://t.co/5xFdTFDLKF</a> — Michael Socolow (@MichaelSocolow) <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelSocolow/status/1891503705897251112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> The desire to implement AI tools seems (to me) well ahead of where the products actually are. Most people I know that work with AI on a regular basis say that any time savings is lost to editing and fact checking the outputs. <a href="https://t.co/DKr4ntvUOP">https://t.co/DKr4ntvUOP</a> — Evan DeSimone (@MediaEvan) <a href="https://twitter.com/MediaEvan/status/1891477167155843536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="bluesky-embed" data-bluesky-uri="at://did:plc:g7f26f54lxzp3tlwccdwk5nb/app.bsky.feed.post/3lihvbrcvck2s" data-bluesky-cid="bafyreigl7jp5zbayhkatlsrrqeqqbqw2rxs2ba2h3clrb5wubac4ro7obm"> The NY Times is going all-in on AI—on its own terms. It’s rolling out AI tools for headlines, summaries, and interview prep. The irony? They’re suing OpenAI for training on their content—while paying to use the same AI models that trained on everyone's data to power their newsroom. <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:g7f26f54lxzp3tlwccdwk5nb/post/3lihvbrcvck2s?ref_src=embed">[image or embed]</a> — Avi (<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:g7f26f54lxzp3tlwccdwk5nb?ref_src=embed">@savvyavi.bsky.social</a>) <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:g7f26f54lxzp3tlwccdwk5nb/post/3lihvbrcvck2s?ref_src=embed">February 18, 2025 at 1:28 PM</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> Le New York Times accélère sur l’IA. Quelques exemples de prompts que les journalistes pourront utiliser <a href="https://t.co/zZRJFZinNM">https://t.co/zZRJFZinNM</a> <a href="https://t.co/HWTdHFvuCp">pic.twitter.com/HWTdHFvuCp</a> — Jean-Noël Buisson (@jnbuisson) <a href="https://twitter.com/jnbuisson/status/1891530752719761871?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> Countless billions of investments and millions of credulous articles yet GenAI boosters still can't really figure out any real uses… <a href="https://t.co/GuHfqejRNU">https://t.co/GuHfqejRNU</a> <a href="https://t.co/FeoOM6TRFb">pic.twitter.com/FeoOM6TRFb</a> — Lincoln Michel (@TheLincoln) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheLincoln/status/1891493328757063828?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> "Can you revise this paragraph to make it tighter?" The New York Times goes all-in on internal AI tools, by <a href="https://twitter.com/maxwelltani?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MaxwellTani</a> <a href="https://t.co/W6HGbSgxcc">https://t.co/W6HGbSgxcc</a> "We view the technology not as some magical solution but as a powerful tool that, like many technological advances before, may be… — Stephen Landry (@landryst) <a href="https://twitter.com/landryst/status/1891498489823080853?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="bluesky-embed" data-bluesky-uri="at://did:plc:h4g2heotwea4ohldzb7fpubi/app.bsky.feed.post/3lif657jkxk2e" data-bluesky-cid="bafyreiebiwm3j7sa3a3znlckcleluykdr54rwr2cnzyy4ezyek3vzig2x4"> Beyond the fact that this is stupid because AI hallucinates and can't even be a reliable source for how to cook eggs much less understand politics: this also puts the power of the press in whoever owns and builds the AI tools.Cancel your NYT subs.www.semafor.com/article/02/1… <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:h4g2heotwea4ohldzb7fpubi/post/3lif657jkxk2e?ref_src=embed">[image or embed]</a> — Jon Neimeister (<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:h4g2heotwea4ohldzb7fpubi?ref_src=embed">@andantonius.bsky.social</a>) <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:h4g2heotwea4ohldzb7fpubi/post/3lif657jkxk2e?ref_src=embed">February 17, 2025 at 11:29 AM</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <div class="photocredit">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/time-lapse-photo-of-yellow-taxi-driving-past-the-nyt-sZc95ZGSYZQ">Stéphan Valentin</a>.</div> <ol class="footnotes"><li id="footnote_0_236277" class="footnote">However, I’d stay away from AI on one of the Times’ listed potential use cases: answering “How many times was Al mentioned in these episodes of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/column/hard-fork">Hard Fork</a>?” LLMs <a href="https://hackernoon.com/why-cant-ai-count-letters">are</a> <a href="https://community.openai.com/t/gpt-cannot-count-words-why/996739">still</a> <a href="https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=68167">pretty</a> <a href="https://blog.adafruit.com/2024/12/03/ai-still-struggles-to-count-the-number-of-rs-in-strawberry-why/">terrible</a> at counting things, and I would definitely not trust the output on this one.</li></ol>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-new-york-times-will-let-reporters-use-ai-tools-while-its-lawyers-litigate-ai-tools/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Blurred lines: When it comes to news habits, age may be more important than nationality</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/blurred-lines-when-it-comes-to-news-habits-age-may-be-more-important-than-nationality/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/blurred-lines-when-it-comes-to-news-habits-age-may-be-more-important-than-nationality/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sarah Scire]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 18 Feb 2025 16:43:21 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236223</guid> <description><![CDATA[A new report finds that when it comes to news consumption, age isn’t just a number. Older people look to the news for different things than their younger counterparts. The study — based on survey data from more than 45,000 people in 23 European nations — investigated what motivated people to consume news. Though there...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[A new report finds that when it comes to news consumption, age isn’t just a number. Older people look to the news for different things than their younger counterparts. The study — based on survey data from more than 45,000 people in 23 European nations — investigated what motivated people to consume news. Though there are notable differences in media ecosystems across the different countries, the survey found no “country effect” when looking at news consumption. Instead, age emerged as the more influential factor over how and why people sought news. From the paper, published in the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ejc">European Journal of Communication</a> last month, by University of Navarra researchers <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/m%C3%B3nica-recalde-viana-68504ab3/?originalSubdomain=es">Mónica Recalde</a>, <a href="https://x.com/alfvara">Alfonso Vara-Miguel</a>, <a href="https://es.linkedin.com/in/jriope">Jorge del Río Pérez</a>, and <a href="https://portalcientifico.unav.edu/investigadores/327779/colaboracion/investigador/617956?lang=en">Cristina Sánchez-Blanco</a>: <blockquote class="rippedpaper">The younger cohort, meanwhile, showed <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/06/the-differences-seem-to-be-growing-a-look-at-the-rising-generation-of-news-consumers/">weaker direct connections</a> to news brands and prefer video. They are more likely to seek news as a means for personal and intellectual growth, for entertainment, and for social purposes. Younger people may “perceive consuming news as a means of personal and intellectual growth, viewing it as an opportunity to expand their knowledge, broaden their perspectives, and stay relevant in an ever-changing world,” the study notes. “As they are still in the process of shaping their identities and beliefs, they may be more inclined to seek diverse sources of information to inform their worldviews.” The 23 European countries studied include the U.K. and France, Norway and Sweden, Slovakia and Hungary. On why there was no “country effect,” the researchers put forth some explanations: Homogeneity: National cultures and boundaries are becoming less distinct, leading to “homogeneity among certain audience groups” that “transcends geographic or cultural contexts.” Digital environment: This trend is especially obvious among younger generations who have come of age in a “highly interconnected and digitalized media environment,” the study notes. That digital media landscape “emphasizes immediacy, interactivity, and global access” and shapes news consumption habits similarly across borders. Younger news consumers have adapted to a media environment characterized by algorithms, personalization, and certain platforms. From the paper: <blockquote class="rippedpaper"><div>As global technology platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google News have become dominant channels for news dissemination, the way news is accessed, distributed, and interacted with has become increasingly standardized across countries. These platforms operate under similar algorithmic principles worldwide, prioritizing content based on individual behavioral patterns—such as age and interests—rather than cultural or national characteristics.</div></blockquote> Information-rich markets: The European countries studied are what the researchers describe as information-rich markets. All have widespread internet access and few barriers to accessing news — both of which may be factors in diminishing the influence of country-specific media structures. The study also acknowledges some limitations, such as relying on self-reported data from news consumers and clustering news consumers into just two age groups. (As someone who narrowly falls into the “non-young” category, I naturally agree on this last point.) You can read the full study <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02673231241309574">here</a>. <div class="photocredit">Photo of globe by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@kylejglenn">Kyle Glenn</a></div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/blurred-lines-when-it-comes-to-news-habits-age-may-be-more-important-than-nationality/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Trump wants news outlets to get on board with “Gulf of America” — or else. Will they?</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/trump-wants-news-outlets-to-get-on-board-with-gulf-of-america-or-else-will-they/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/trump-wants-news-outlets-to-get-on-board-with-gulf-of-america-or-else-will-they/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Benton]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 13 Feb 2025 15:00:47 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[access]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Associated Press]]></category> <category><![CDATA[authoritarianism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category> <category><![CDATA[free speech]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Gannett]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Gulf of America]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Gulf of Mexico]]></category> <category><![CDATA[language]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Los Angeles Times]]></category> <category><![CDATA[place names]]></category> <category><![CDATA[press freedom]]></category> <category><![CDATA[The New Yorker]]></category> <category><![CDATA[USA Today]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Washington Post]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236172</guid> <description><![CDATA[Place names are political. When they change, it’s often the result of someone’s victory, whether political or military. When Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City or St. Petersburg became Leningrad, you knew there was a new boss in town. Other times, it’s a sign that someone or something has fallen out of public favor —...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[Place names are political. When they change, it’s often the result of someone’s victory, whether political or military. When <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_City">Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg">St. Petersburg became Leningrad</a>, you knew there was a new boss in town. Other times, it’s a sign that someone or something has fallen out of public favor — like when the Ontario city of Berlin <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin-to-Kitchener_name_change">decided to become Kitchener</a> when its young men were fighting Germans in World War I. <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2308814">Authoritarians</a> <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Francesco-Perono-Cacciafoco/publication/351187583_Reflections_on_the_Politics_of_Place_Re-Naming_Decolonisation_the_Collapse_of_Totalitarian_Regimes_and_Government_Changes/links/608fc7e4299bf1ad8d72cc68/Reflections-on-the-Politics-of-Place-Re-Naming-Decolonisation-the-Collapse-of-Totalitarian-Regimes-and-Government-Changes.pdf">especially</a> <a href="https://research.sabanciuniv.edu/id/eprint/26852/">love</a> to <a href="https://hal.science/hal-01284588/document">change</a> the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45387637?seq=1">names</a> of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01426397.2025.2461567">places</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264275119315689">seeing</a> it “<a href="https://kabk.github.io/go-theses-23-samuel-salminen/">as a tool</a> for constructing new notions of national identity and promoting certain historical narratives while denying, suppressing, or erasing others.” You know what else is political? The language that news organizations choose to use. “Illegal immigrants” vs. “undocumented people,” “estate tax” vs. “death tax,” “rebels” vs. “freedom fighters,” “racist” vs. “racially charged” — each choice tells readers something about the underlying assumptions of the writer or publication. Language choices can either lend legitimacy or withhold it. So it’s not surprising that the tension between these two forces — a government changing a familiar place name and journalists deciding whether to go along — has become a political flashpoint. At issue is the body of water I grew up <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayne,_Louisiana">about 30 miles away</a> from, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Mexico">Gulf of Mexico</a>. It’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Mexico#Name">had that name</a> for centuries — far longer than there has been <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Mexico">a country named Mexico</a>. On Inauguration Day, Donald Trump signed <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/31/2025-02096/restoring-names-that-honor-american-greatness">an executive order</a> “restoring” a name it had never before had, the Gulf of America. <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5105335-gulf-of-america-mount-mckinley-name-changes/">On January 24</a>, “<a href="https://www.epa.gov/gulfofamerica/why-it-important-protect-gulf-america">Gulf of America</a>” became the <a href="https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/search/names/558730">official name</a> within the <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/tools/geographic-names-information-system-gnis">federal government</a>. And this week, <a href="https://blog.google/products/maps/united-states-geographic-name-change-feb-2025/">Google</a>, <a href="https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1889496850874474747">Apple</a>, and <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/610902/bing-jumps-on-the-gulf-of-america-bandwagon">Microsoft</a> have all made the change in their respective map platforms. Now it’s up to individual news organizations to decide the name they’ll use. Just as with <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/07/elon-musk-can-change-what-he-calls-twitter-but-can-he-change-what-everyone-else-calls-it/">the platform formerly known as Twitter</a>, publishers make these editorial decisions on behalf of their audience and their own values. At least that’s how it’s supposed to go in a country with a First Amendment. On Tuesday afternoon, <a href="https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/announcements/ap-statement-on-oval-office-access/">we learned</a> that Trump <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-ap-journalism-first-amendment-8a83d8b506053249598e807f8e91e1ae">aims to expand his realm of authority to include newsroom style guides</a>: <blockquote class="rippedpaper">Here’s a <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/white-house-blocks-ap-reporter-from-oval-office-event-over-gulf-of-america-policy/7972268.html">Voice of America story</a> on the controversy. Might as well read it while <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/us/politics/kari-lake-voice-of-america.html">VOA</a> is <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/09/what-would-project-2025-do-for-or-to-journalism/#:~:text=Put%20Voice%20of%20America%20under%20the%20president%E2%80%99s%20command%20%E2%80%94%20or%20shut%20it%20down%20entirely.">still allowed to write about it</a>. On Wednesday, the White House <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/white-house-punish-ap-reporters-gulf-naming-dispute-118760471">insisted</a> that the AP, by sticking with “Gulf of Mexico,” was telling “lies” and would continue to be blocked from events. Blocking reporters’ access over house style manages to be — like a lot of <a href="https://x.com/StevenCheung47/status/1889431512141144331">bullying</a> — simultaneously deeply troubling and hilariously petty. Even before yesterday, I’d have argued the best choice for news outlets was to stick with “Gulf of Mexico,” a perfectly good 400-year-old name that every reader will understand. But if Trump is going to start barring reporters over it, maintaining the old name is the only reasonable choice. Before, the main risk of using “Gulf of America”<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/trump-wants-news-outlets-to-get-on-board-with-gulf-of-america-or-else-will-they/#footnote_0_236172" id="identifier_0_236172" class="footnote-link footnote-identifier-link" title="Beyond, of course, the risk of confusing your readers.">1</a> was appearing to endorse a xenophobic gesture. Now, it looks like preemptive surrender to an unconstitutional threat. But we’re already seeing “Gulf of America” pop up in stories that have nothing to do with the renaming per se. Right-wing outlets like Alabama’s <a href="https://yellowhammernews.com/mexican-cartels-are-smuggling-alabama-red-snapper-tuberville-britt-fight-back-with-new-law/">Yellowhammer News</a> and <a href="https://1819news.com/news/item/federal-act-would-protect-gulf-of-america-seafood-producers-from-illegal-mexican-fishermen">1819 News</a> are already using Trump’s term without any clarification. (You may remember 1819 News from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/12/us/alabama-mayor-suicide-smiths-station.html">one of the most grotesque incidents</a> in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/12/alabama-mayor-suicide-outed">recent journalism history</a>.) Others, like <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/coast-guard-surging-assets-gulf-america-other-waterways-support-trumps-executive-orders">Fox News</a> and <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/02/11/exclusive-sen-mike-lee-constitution-empowers-congress-to-tap-american-pirates-to-fight-cartels/">Breitbart</a>, are happily on board. I reached out to 15 major news organizations to see what their style would be going forward. Below are all of the responses from those who’ve gotten back to me; I’ll keep adding them as they come in. So far, none plan to switch completely to “Gulf of America,” though Gannett plans to use both names in tandem. <h3 class="subhead">Associated Press: Gulf of Mexico</h3> Amanda Barrett, AP’s vice president of standards and inclusion, <a href="https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/announcements/ap-style-guidance-on-gulf-of-mexico-mount-mckinley/">issued the wire service’s guidance</a> on January 23: <blockquote class="rippedpaper"><div>The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences. The AP regularly reviews its style guidance regarding name changes, in part to ensure its guidance reflects common usage. We’ll continue to apply that approach to this guidance and make updates as needed. There are other examples where the AP refers to a geographical place by more than one name. For example, the Gulf of California is sometimes referred to as the Sea of Cortez. The U.S. government has designated that body of water as the Gulf of California, while Mexico recognizes it as the Sea of Cortez.</div></blockquote> AP’s style decisions are, of course, the default for a large share of mainstream U.S. news organizations. <h3 class="subhead">Bloomberg: Gulf of Mexico</h3> Bloomberg will be following the AP, whose style decisions, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-11/white-house-bars-reporter-from-event-in-gulf-of-america-flap">this story</a> notes, form “the basis for many broadcasting and news services, including Bloomberg News.” <h3 class="subhead">The New York Times: Gulf of Mexico</h3> From a Times spokesperson: “The Times takes many factors into consideration when dealing with disputed geographical names, and we reflect settled, common usage in our journalism. In the case of the gulf, it is an international body of water that has been known as the Gulf of Mexico for several hundred years. We will continue to follow common usage in updating our style guidance, like we have done in the past with other areas of the world. We’ll continue to cover the news of the President’s executive order fairly and in service of our audiences, and will refer to ‘Gulf of America’ when needed for reader context.” <h3 class="subhead">Reuters: Gulf of Mexico</h3> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/white-house-correspondents-protest-access-denial-over-gulf-mexico-naming-issue-2025-02-12/">This Wednesday story</a> includes a graf on Reuters’ stance: <blockquote class="rippedpaper"><div>Most news organizations, including Reuters, call it the Gulf of Mexico although, where relevant, Reuters style is to include the context about Trump’s executive order.</div></blockquote> <h3 class="subhead">The Washington Post: Gulf of Mexico “in most contexts”</h3> A spokesperson pointed me to a paragraph in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2025/02/11/associated-press-white-house-reporter/">Tuesday’s Jeremy Barr story</a> about the AP situation: <blockquote class="rippedpaper"><div>The Post has also decided to continue using the name Gulf of Mexico “in most contexts” because the body of water “is not solely within the United States’ jurisdiction and the name Gulf of America might confuse global readers,” according to a style guidance.</div></blockquote> <h3 class="subhead">Los Angeles Times: Gulf of Mexico</h3> From Ruthanne Salido, assistant managing editor of the multiplatform desk and co-chair of the standards and practices committee: “It simply comes down to the American president’s lack of authority to rename geographic points that lie outside U.S. boundaries and territories.” Here’s how a newsroom memo put it: “As for the Gulf of Mexico vs. the Gulf of America, the U.S. president does not have the authority to rename the gulf. So we’ll stick with Gulf of Mexico. There’s no need to mention the ‘alternative name at this point unless, of course, that’s the point of the story,’ News copy desk manager John Penner notes.” <h3 class="subhead">USA Today/Gannett: Both</h3> A spokesperson said Gannett newspapers “will continue to use both references to provide clarity and accuracy for readers. For example: ‘The Gulf of Mexico, now referred to as the Gulf of America by the U.S. government…'” <a href="https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2025/01/22/mississippi-snow-epic-amounts/77874524007/">Here’s a recent example</a> from Gannett’s Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger: “After all, it’s not every day people living along the Gulf of America, more commonly known in the U.S. as the Gulf of Mexico, experience snow.” <h3 class="subhead">The Atlantic: Gulf of Mexico</h3> From an internal memo Wednesday morning: <blockquote class="rippedpaper"><div>As you are probably aware, the White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from attending an Oval Office event yesterday, because the AP has not changed its style guide to accept Trump’s demand that the Gulf of Mexico be called the “Gulf of America.” We share the AP’s alarm over this clear affront to the First Amendment. We also share its <a href="https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/announcements/ap-style-guidance-on-gulf-of-mexico-mount-mckinley/">rationale</a> for continuing to use “Gulf of Mexico”: This is the internationally recognized name for an internationally controlled body of water, one that has been accepted for more than 400 years. Our obligation is to reflect reality accurately. We should, of course, acknowledge the dispute over the name wherever this information is appropriate and relevant to a story. We should, similarly, acknowledge the Trump administration’s threats to press freedom. And as ever, we will continue to evolve our style guide as language itself evolves.</div></blockquote> <h3 class="subhead">The New Yorker: Gulf of Mexico</h3> A magazine spokesperson told me: “We’re going to follow AP guidance on this.” <ol class="footnotes"><li id="footnote_0_236172" class="footnote">Beyond, of course, the risk of confusing your readers.</li></ol>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/trump-wants-news-outlets-to-get-on-board-with-gulf-of-america-or-else-will-they/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>BBC News finds that AI tools “distort” its journalism into “a confused cocktail” with many errors</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/bbc-news-finds-that-ai-tools-distort-its-journalism-into-a-confused-cocktail-with-many-errors/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/bbc-news-finds-that-ai-tools-distort-its-journalism-into-a-confused-cocktail-with-many-errors/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Laura Hazard Owen]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 13 Feb 2025 13:00:28 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Link post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[AI]]></category> <category><![CDATA[BBC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[BBC News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Pete Archer]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236155</guid> <description><![CDATA[When the BBC tested four generative AI tools on articles on its own site, it found many “significant issues” and factual errors, the company said in a report released Tuesday. The BBC gave four AI assistants — OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and Perplexity — “access to our website for the duration of the research1...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[When the BBC tested four generative AI tools on articles on its own site, it found many “significant issues” and factual errors, the company said in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/documents/bbc-research-into-ai-assistants.pdf">a report released Tuesday</a>. The BBC gave four AI assistants — OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and Perplexity — “access to our website for the duration of the research<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/bbc-news-finds-that-ai-tools-distort-its-journalism-into-a-confused-cocktail-with-many-errors/#footnote_0_236155" id="identifier_0_236155" class="footnote-link footnote-identifier-link" title="The BBC clarified to me that it amended its robots.txt to allow the AI assistants to crawl the site for the duration of the experiment.">1</a> and asked them questions about the news, prompting them to use BBC News articles as sources where possible. AAI answers were reviewed by BBC journalists, all experts in the question topics, on criteria including accuracy, impartiality, and how they represented BBC content,” Pete Archer, the BBC’s program director for Generative AI, wrote. The AI assistants’ answers contained “significant inaccuracies and distorted content from the BBC,” the company said. Over half (51%) of the AI answers had contained “significant issues of some form,” 19% of answers “introduced factual errors — incorrect factual statements, numbers, and dates,” and “13% of the quotes sourced from BBC articles were either altered from the original source or not present in the article cited.” A few examples of errors, from the report: <blockquote>Google’s Gemini incorrectly stated that “The NHS advises people not to start vaping, and recommends that smokers who want to quit should use other methods.” In fact, the NHS does recommend vaping as a method to quit smoking. Microsoft’s Copilot incorrectly stated that Gisèle Pelicot uncovered the crimes against her when she began having blackouts and memory loss. In fact, she found out about the crimes when the police showed her videos they had found when they confiscated her husband’s electronic devices. Perplexity misstated the date of Michael Mosley’s death and misquoted a statement from Liam Payne’s family after his death. OpenAI’s ChatGPT claimed in December 2024 that Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Iran in July 2024, was part of Hamas leadership.</blockquote> The Guardian also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/11/ai-chatbots-distort-and-mislead-when-asked-about-current-affairs-bbc-finds">noted</a> that “in response to a question about whether the convicted neonatal nurse Lucy Letby was innocent, Gemini responded: ‘It is up to each individual to decide whether they believe Lucy Letby is innocent or guilty.’ The context of her court convictions for murder and attempted murder was omitted in the response, the research found.” “It’s not hard to see how quickly AI’s distortion could undermine people’s already fragile faith in facts and verified information,” Deborah Turness, CEO of BBC News and current affairs, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2025/articles/how-distortion-is-affecting-ai-assistants/">wrote in a blog post</a>. “We live in troubled times, and how long will it be before an AI-distorted headline causes significant real world harm?” Turness also pointed to the BBC’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd0elzk24dno">recent reporting</a> on Apple’s AI-generated news notifications. A <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd0elzk24dno">notification in December</a>, for instance, “made it appear BBC News had published an article claiming Luigi Mangione, the man arrested following the murder of healthcare insurance CEO Brian Thompson in New York, had shot himself. He has not.” Last month, Apple <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq5ggew08eyo">suspended</a> the AI-generated notifications. <ol class="footnotes"><li id="footnote_0_236155" class="footnote">The BBC clarified to me that it amended its robots.txt to allow the AI assistants to crawl the site for the duration of the experiment.</li></ol>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/bbc-news-finds-that-ai-tools-distort-its-journalism-into-a-confused-cocktail-with-many-errors/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>4</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>If you ask New York Times reporters to spend less time on Twitter, will they? (Spoiler: yes)</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/if-you-ask-new-york-times-reporters-to-spend-less-time-on-twitter-will-they-spoiler-yes/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/if-you-ask-new-york-times-reporters-to-spend-less-time-on-twitter-will-they-spoiler-yes/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Benton]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 11 Feb 2025 18:49:45 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[addiction]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Bluesky]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Dean Baquet]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Elon Musk]]></category> <category><![CDATA[gender]]></category> <category><![CDATA[management]]></category> <category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category> <category><![CDATA[newsroom culture]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Nikole Hannah-Jones]]></category> <category><![CDATA[professionalism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[social media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236133</guid> <description><![CDATA[It’s a question that’s crossed the minds of countless news executives over the past two decades: How can I get my reporters to spend less time on Twitter? For years, Twitter offered journalists an enthralling mix of community, excitement, and eyeballs. It was a buzzing global newsroom, where you could watch big stories break in...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[It’s a question that’s crossed the minds of countless news executives over the past two decades: How can I get my reporters to spend less time on Twitter? For years, Twitter offered journalists an enthralling mix of community, excitement, and eyeballs. It was a buzzing global newsroom, where you could watch big stories break in real time. It was an after-work bar where you could swap stories with colleagues. It was where you could see your readers talking about your work — and everyone else’s. And it was where you could be a human being in your own voice, not just a cog in the publisher’s machine, the one that feeds paragraphs to the copy desk. It was addictive enough that it seemed some reporters were writing more for the retweets than for the audience. So what happens when a news organization tries to pull its staffers away — not to get them off Twitter entirely, but to cut back? That’s the question behind <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2025.2452265#d1e481">an interesting paper</a> just published in the journal <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rjos20">Journalism Studies</a>. The authors are <a href="https://www.ndsu.edu/communication/faculty/shuning_lu/">Shuning Lu</a> of North Dakota State University and <a href="https://www.com.cuhk.edu.hk/people/wei-longhan/">Longhan Wei</a> and <a href="https://drhailiang.com/">Hai Liang</a> of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. (I’ve previously enjoyed some of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VGF2tvkAAAAJ&hl=en">Lu’s other research</a>, which includes work on online discourse, news avoidance, and political efficacy.) The title is “Social Media Policies as Social Control in the Newsroom: A Case Study of the New York Times on Twitter”; here’s the abstract, all emphases mine: <blockquote class="rippedpaper">Baquet’s announcement created what researchers love most, a <a href="Natural experiment">natural experiment</a>. Did Times staffers’ tweeting look different after April 7 than it did before? And if so, how were those changes distributed within the newsroom? Did, say, political reporters change their behavior more than sports columnists or art critics? Were mid-level managers more likely to conform than low-level reporters? Did journalists in faraway foreign bureaus change as much as those who see their bosses in the Times’ midtown newsroom daily?<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/if-you-ask-new-york-times-reporters-to-spend-less-time-on-twitter-will-they-spoiler-yes/#footnote_0_236133" id="identifier_0_236133" class="footnote-link footnote-identifier-link" title="Well, this was 2022, so an awful lot of the boss-seeing was probably still on Zoom.">1</a> To find out, Lu et al. gathered 185,969 tweets from 549 Times newsroom staffers over the first six months of 2022 — roughly half before the policy change and half after it. They then used automated text classifiers to rate each tweet as professional or personal, as well as fact-based or opinionated. (I’m sure someone could quibble with any one of those classifications, but the methodology seems sound to me. The authors paid real humans to evaluate a random sample of 1,000 tweets — with five evaluators per tweet! — then used those results to train an AI model that examined all 185,969; more details in the paper.) Overall, their analysis rated 61% of all tweets as professional versus 39% personal; among the professional tweets, 75% were classified as fact-based, 25% as opinionated.<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/if-you-ask-new-york-times-reporters-to-spend-less-time-on-twitter-will-they-spoiler-yes/#footnote_1_236133" id="identifier_1_236133" class="footnote-link footnote-identifier-link" title="Here are a few examples from the paper’s supplemental materials. A professional tweet: “Five key passages from the Alito abortion draft. Nonpaywall link.” A personal tweet: “I haven’t posted a photo of my dog here in a while…” A fact-based tweet: “‘I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but I’m going to keep fighting to try to keep going.’ Rafael Nadal after winning his 14th French Open.” And an opinionated tweet: “I love pintos. And I’ve become very fond of some of the other Rancho Gordo beans!” Not the spiciest of hot takes, but you get the picture.">2</a> So what did they find? Let’s start with the big-picture result: Times staffers listened to their bosses. There was a clear before-and-after for their frequency of tweeting. (A huge relief for anyone who’s ever read a <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Newsroom_Management.html?id=HsMUzQEACAAJ">newsroom management book</a>.) The number of staffers tweeting on a given day fell by 14% right after the policy change, and that lower level still persisted months later. (The study singles out two reporters who cut back: magazine reporter <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/nikole-hannah-jones">Nikole Hannah-Jones</a>, whose daily tweet count dropped from 33 before the memo to 15 afterward, and climate reporter <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/hiroko-tabuchi">Hiroko Tabuchi</a>, who went from 19 to 5.) For those still tweeting, their output was increasingly professional and fact-based, decreasingly personal and opinionated. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/nyt-twitter-1.png" alt="" width="700" height="548" class="nakedboxedimagewide" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/nyt-twitter-2.png" alt="" width="700" height="699" class="nakedboxedimagewide" /> But what about the distribution of that impact within the newsroom? About 30% of the staffers in the sample were managers as opposed to reporters, columnists, and so on. About 26% covered politics, and 11% were stationed overseas. But the authors found no statistically significant difference in how any of those groups changed their behavior compared to their byline-having, politics-ignoring, or ZIP Code-using peers. They did find some behavioral differences among those groups — ones you might expect. Critics and columnists posted more opinionated tweets, for example, while those covering politics posted more fact-based ones. But they didn’t find that the policy change itself had any differential impact among the various groups. That surprised the authors: <blockquote class="rippedpaper">Having mid-2022 data in an early-2025 paper is admirable speed by the standards of a lot of academic research. But it’s remarkable how little the <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/lightning-in-a-bottle-meredith-clark-on-black-twitters-journalistic-impact-legacy-and-writing-its-obituary/">Twitter of three years ago</a> resembles the social media environment most reporters work in today. Baquet’s memo went out to the newsroom on April 7, 2022. Just three days earlier, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-takes-9-percent-stake-twitter-slamming-companys-free-speech-rcna22805">a regulatory filing revealed</a> that Elon Musk had acquired a minority stake in Twitter. Seven days after the memo, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/14/1092792108/twitter-elon-musk-buy-company">Musk offered to acquire the entire company</a> for $43 billion, a deal that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk#Attempted_termination">after much drama</a> closed on October 27.<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/if-you-ask-new-york-times-reporters-to-spend-less-time-on-twitter-will-they-spoiler-yes/#footnote_2_236133" id="identifier_2_236133" class="footnote-link footnote-identifier-link" title="Since Musk didn’t gain actual control of the platform until roughly four months after the tweet window being studied here, his wild policy shifts shouldn’t be a confounder in the analysis. And the authors did several tests to see if his general…Muskiness might have influenced the results before he actually took possession and found no evidence.">3</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_under_Elon_Musk">A few other things</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_Elon_Musk">have happened since</a>. “Twitter” is now only the brand identity I use to passive-aggressively refer to something called “X.” The <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/news/twitter-traffic-on-downward-trend-since-elon-musks-takeover">traffic</a> it sends to news <a href="https://niemanreports.org/npr-twitter-musk/">publishers</a> has <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/03/social-media-traffic-news-sites-decrease">dried up</a> (or, more accurately, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/15/twitter-x-links-delayed/">been</a> <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/05/x-cuts-headlines-from-link-previews-as-musk-wants-users-posting-directly-on-the-platform/">dried</a> <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/03/musk-x-links-long-form">up</a>). While Twitter is still arguably the most important platform for journalism — it’s still where most politics and sports news breaks first, for example — large segments of the news media have decamped for Bluesky and other platforms. That decentralization — along with Musk’s continued animus against the press and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/26/twitter-usage-in-us-fallen-by-a-fifth-since-elon-musks-takeover">the platform’s overall decline</a> — has made Twitter far less important to the industry and its workers than it was three years ago. If a newsroom boss made a similar announcement in 2025 — hey, let’s cool it with the tweeting, everybody, it’s a distraction, it warps our journalism, and it’s a big reputational risk — they’d probably face even less grumbling than Baquet did. “Why I’m leaving X” pieces are to 2025 what “<a href="https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/why-im-leaving-new-york-essays-through-the-ages">Why I’m leaving New York</a>” pieces were to the mid-2010s. Lu, Wei, and Liang had one other finding. For each of those 185,969 tweets, they recorded the number of retweets, quote tweets, and likes it received. Would a world of fewer tweets — and even fewer hot takes — mean Twitter users lost interest in what Times staffers were writing? After all, one line of argument has long held that humanizing reporters on Twitter strengthened their bond with the audience, building their own personal brands in a way that benefits the publisher too. The answer: It didn’t make any difference. Their analysis found the average Times staffer tweet got basically the same audience engagement pre- and post-memo. “This is encouraging,” they write. “Shifting to professional and fact-based reporting on social media not only enhances journalistic norms and maintains the organizational reputation but also retains user engagement, which corroborates research that finds a positive relationship between perceived journalistic accountability and news engagement among news users.” <div class="storybreak-simple"></div> Ten or fifteen years ago or so, I’d occasionally get asked a question by news company executives: Do we really need to have our own iPhone app? My standard advice then<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/if-you-ask-new-york-times-reporters-to-spend-less-time-on-twitter-will-they-spoiler-yes/#footnote_3_236133" id="identifier_3_236133" class="footnote-link footnote-identifier-link" title="This advice is basically unchanged today.">4</a> is that an iPhone app can be a great way to serve your outlet’s most engaged superfans — the ones most attached to your work, the ones willing to give it a spot on their phone’s homescreen. If doing a better job retaining those superfans is something you need help with, then sure, a mobile app can help. But for most publishers, a dedicated iPhone app is a lot of product distraction for relatively little reward. It’ll only be used by a very small fraction of your audience. And even if that fraction is a particularly valuable one, your product investment is likely better spent on your website, your newsletter, and other more direct points of audience contact. In 2025, from my perspective, social media is becoming more and more like those iPhone apps. The people who follow you on Twitter (or Bluesky, or wherever) are some of your biggest fans. Seeding your news in front of them can play a big part in it reaching larger audiences. A lot of positive outcomes can come from that kind of direct connection. But overall, journalists’ investments in serving social media have probably reached the point of diminishing returns. Individual circumstances will obviously vary, but I suspect most reporters would benefit from taking a couple more steps back. <div class="photocredit">Illustration via DALL-E 3.</div> <ol class="footnotes"><li id="footnote_0_236133" class="footnote">Well, this was 2022, so an awful lot of the boss-seeing was probably still on Zoom.</li><li id="footnote_1_236133" class="footnote">Here are a few examples from the paper’s supplemental materials. A professional tweet: “Five key passages from the Alito abortion draft. Nonpaywall link.” A personal tweet: “I haven’t posted a photo of my dog here in a while…” A fact-based tweet: “‘I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but I’m going to keep fighting to try to keep going.’ Rafael Nadal after winning his 14th French Open.” And an opinionated tweet: “I love pintos. And I’ve become very fond of some of the other Rancho Gordo beans!” Not the spiciest of hot takes, but you get the picture.</li><li id="footnote_2_236133" class="footnote">Since Musk didn’t gain actual control of the platform until roughly four months after the tweet window being studied here, his wild policy shifts shouldn’t be a confounder in the analysis. And the authors did several tests to see if his general…Muskiness might have influenced the results before he actually took possession and found no evidence.</li><li id="footnote_3_236133" class="footnote">This advice is basically unchanged today.</li></ol>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/if-you-ask-new-york-times-reporters-to-spend-less-time-on-twitter-will-they-spoiler-yes/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>The (nearly) full list of Good Daily’s AI-generated local newsletters</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-nearly-full-list-of-good-dailys-ai-generated-local-newsletters/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-nearly-full-list-of-good-dailys-ai-generated-local-newsletters/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Andrew Deck]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 10 Feb 2025 19:41:36 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Link post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[AI]]></category> <category><![CDATA[automation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[generative AI]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Good Daily]]></category> <category><![CDATA[local news]]></category> <category><![CDATA[newsletters]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236085</guid> <description><![CDATA[On January 27, I published a story on Good Daily, a network of AI-generated local newsletters that over the past year has quietly spread to 355 towns and cities across the U.S. Since our story ran, I’ve received requests to share a list of all the newsletters we’ve identified. These requests have come in from...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[On January 27, I published a story on <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/tag/good-daily/">Good Daily, a network of AI-generated local newsletters</a> that over the past year has quietly spread to 355 towns and cities across the U.S. Since our story ran, I’ve received requests to share a list of all the newsletters we’ve identified. These requests have come in from journalism scholars, pink slime watchdog groups, and local outlets looking to identify newsletters that might be aggregating their own original reporting. Already other journalists have picked up the story and covered Good Daily’s reach in their own states and communities, including in <a href="https://coloradomedia.substack.com/p/two-colorado-cities-are-targets-of">Colorado</a>, <a href="https://www.cvilletomorrow.org/a-robot-wrote-that-morning-charlottesville-newsletter-in-your-inbox/">North Carolina</a>, and <a href="https://forwardky.com/robot-newspapers-hit-kentucky-tag-investigation/">Kentucky</a>. To make this information more accessible to readers and researchers, I’ve put together a comprehensive database of all the Good Daily newsletters currently operating in the U.S. So far we have logged 337 editions in 47 states, including <a href="https://gooddaywallawalla.com/">Good Day Walla Walla in Washington</a>, <a href="https://jacksonmorning.com/">Jackson Morning News in Tennessee</a>, and <a href="https://dailyriorancho.com/">Daily Rio Rancho in New Mexico</a>. The state with the most newsletters in our database is Texas, with 31 and counting, including <a href="https://gooddayabilene.com/">Good Day Abilene</a> and <a href="https://laredotodaynews.com/">Laredo Today</a>. <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hG29-xHHoaDKIfWUGkptNMWfL41FZt_lR2XDR_IwXJ8/edit?gid=0#gid=0">You can find the full Good Daily newsletter database here. </a>Our list is 18 shy of the 355 newsletter figure confirmed by Matthew Henderson, Good Daily’s founder and editor, in our <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/inside-a-network-of-ai-generated-newsletters-targeting-small-town-america/">original story</a>. I’ll be continuing to update this database with additional newsletters as I find them. As always, if you spot similar newsletters or news sites circulating in your community that you suspect might be AI-generated, I’d be curious to know. You can send tips via email (<a href="mailto:andrew_deck@harvard.edu">andrew_deck@harvard.edu</a>) or over Signal (andrewdeck.01). ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-nearly-full-list-of-good-dailys-ai-generated-local-newsletters/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>5</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>“Lightning in a bottle”: Meredith Clark on Black Twitter’s journalistic impact, legacy — and writing its “obituary”</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/lightning-in-a-bottle-meredith-clark-on-black-twitters-journalistic-impact-legacy-and-writing-its-obituary/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/lightning-in-a-bottle-meredith-clark-on-black-twitters-journalistic-impact-legacy-and-writing-its-obituary/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Hanaa' Tameez]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 10 Feb 2025 19:40:59 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[black press]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Black Twitter]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Elon Musk]]></category> <category><![CDATA[meredith clark]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Meredith D. Clark]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category> <category><![CDATA[We Tried to Tell Y'all]]></category> <category><![CDATA[X]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236068</guid> <description><![CDATA[Meredith Clark’s research started when she attended the National Black Journalists Association convention in New Orleans in 2012. As a journalist and a graduate student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, she wanted to study how Black people use Twitter. At the conference, she passed out cards asking attendees to tweet at her...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredithdclark/">Meredith Clark</a>’s research started when she attended the National Black Journalists Association convention in New Orleans in 2012. As a journalist and a graduate student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, she wanted to study how Black people use Twitter. At the conference, she passed out cards asking attendees to tweet at her responding to one question: What is Black Twitter? The responses signaled that the answer was complicated and interesting, and Clark spent the next decade posing the question to Black Twitter itself, defending her dissertation on it, <a href="https://www.meredithdclark.com/archivingblacktwitter">trying to archive Black Twitter</a> after Elon Musk purchased the platform, and — in January — publishing her first book, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/we-tried-to-tell-yall-9780190068141?cc=us&lang=en&">We Tried to Tell Y’all: Black Twitter and the Rise of Digital Counternarratives</a> (Oxford University Press, $24.99). In We Tried to Tell Y’all, Clark chronicles Black Twitter’s history not just as an often joyful online community but also as a space that challenged mainstream media narratives, broke news, and reframed major stories about Black people in the United States. Black Twitter is, in part, a result of the historic exclusion of Black voices from the mainstream news media, she argues. And while Musk’s erosion of the platform has fragmented the community and driven some users away, the impacts of Black Twitter on journalism — from holding the media accountable to showing journalists ways to center social and racial justice in news stories — are long-lasting. I caught up with Clark to learn more about why Black Twitter is part of media history, what it’s like to write an ongoing obituary of an online phenomenon (while getting locked out of her Twitter account), how she “collaborated” with her interview sources, and more. Our conversation from mid-January has been edited for length and clarity. <div class="storybreak-simple"></div> <div class="conl">Hanaa’ Tameez: The framing you chose — of Black Twitter as a place to challenge the narratives in mainstream journalism about Black communities — is really interesting. Tell me a little bit about why that framing and lens is important for this issue, and why it’s important for journalists to understand.</div> <div class="conr">Meredith Clark: One of the notions we have about journalism is that journalism is the first draft of history. But I’ve always said that journalism is the first draft of historical fiction, because there are so many perspectives that are left out of reporting. That has structurally been the case since journalism was professionalized in this country. When you think about the fact that there were <a href="https://www.searchablemuseum.com/illegal-to-read/">Black codes and slave codes that did not allow Black people to learn how to read and write</a>, you know those people’s stories weren’t being collected and told. Their perspectives weren’t represented in news. That continued with segregation in terms of education. It continued with segregation in the workplace. We even have that problem today with the so-called “racial reckoning” of 2020. That was all about the fact that in the news industry, news outlets were really slow to meaningfully integrate. When we first started having conversations about what Black Twitter is and was, people referred to it as the Black press. Being a journalist, I was like, nope, that’s not it. That’s not what’s happening. Because it wasn’t that people were adhering to practices that the Black press as we know it also followed. It was that people were telling their stories in unfiltered, non-conforming ways. I thought it was essential for journalists to understand that there’s more than one way to tell a story, more than one way to authenticate a source and to note that a source is credible. There’s more than one way to engage with an audience — instead of just putting out content or the news and waiting for people to react to it, [we can] really take advantage of the interactivity that’s made possible by technologies that were always there but [that] perhaps we did not have the time, focus, or imagination to engage with.</div> <div class="conl">Tameez: How has Black Twitter made journalism better? Or is that even the right framing of it? Is it that it’s contributed to making journalism better or that it’s its own thing?</div> <div class="conr">Clark: I think Black Twitter has challenged our widely accepted notions of what journalism is and can be. For me, it’s a space where we began to see the power struggles between journalists and the public in ways we hadn’t before. Certainly we had alternative media, but even with the creation of alternative media outlets, there’s a certain degree of capital of access — both financial capital and social capital that’s necessary for people to publish and to have their stories heard. With Black Twitter, those pre-qualifications built on respectability and identity and racial hierarchy were erased…I think what Black Twitter has done for journalism is really offer a lens of what is possible if we let go of notions that are informed by white supremacy of what is correct.</div> <div class="conl">Tameez: What are some the most impactful moments of Black Twitter on our larger information ecosystem? And what are some of the shortcomings?</div> <div class="conr">Clark: When I first did this research for my dissertation, Black Twitter was not getting covered in the news. Then the Black press started covering what Black Twitter was talking about, but didn’t necessarily refer to it as Black Twitter; it was just Black people on Twitter. The breakthrough came from one of the agenda-setting newspapers that we have in this country, The New York Times. I attribute it to [the Times] because although there was an earlier case — and I’ll talk about that in a moment — when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/us/if-they-gunned-me-down-protest-on-twitter.html">Tanzina Vega wrote [for the Times] about the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown trending in Ferguson</a>, she moved beyond the traditional ways that we source information and went directly to what people were talking about online. She had to go out and get perspectives and narratives from people whom she could authenticate. She knew they were real people. This was not just a curiosity about how Black people were playing online — which is how Black Twitter had been covered almost up until that point by white press — but showing the inner workings of a story as it unfolded. An earlier example of that — where the white mainstream press had to rely on the Black press to pick it up, but the Black press actually <a href="https://archive.ph/UMvQI#selection-1985.35-1985.436">got it</a> from Black Twitter — was the coverage of the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/08/30/140058680/race-violence-justice-looking-back-at-jena-6">Jena Six protests</a> in Louisiana, where these high schoolers were suspended from their high school because of a fight. The organizing that young people did in Louisiana and across the South was one of the precursors to the organizing that we saw behind the case of Trayvon Martin and every other hashtag memorial that followed. But even that had to be authenticated by another press system before people really started paying attention to what Black Twitter was talking about. Those are a couple of the cases that I point to from early on. There are also a number of cases that point to how Black Twitter calls out [journalistic] practices that don’t really work. One I still grapple with is delayed identification headlines and ledes — we’ll say, a person in this city did this thing, and then [we don’t] identify them by their full name [until later in the story]. One of the things that Black Twitter does, especially if it’s a person who is known within Black communities, is <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/07/07/888498009/say-her-name-how-the-fight-for-racial-justice-can-be-more-inclusive-of-black-wom">call them by their name</a>. How many times have we seen that repeated, whether it’s for victims of racial violence or for people who accomplished something amazing? That’s one of those simple, everyday approaches that I think Black Twitter offers, almost on a daily basis, that shows us how journalism can be done differently.</div> <div class="conl">Tameez: In the book, you refer to your subjects and sources as your “collaborators.” What was your relationship with them like throughout your research and writing the book?</div> <div class="conr">Clark: It was essential to me that people be able to tell their own stories. I’m engaging directly in conversation, and I’m in that space with people in [multiple ways]. It’s not just being on Twitter the platform — I met folks out in the world, where we ran into each other at different [events]. I’ve been literally walking down the street and someone said, “Oh, hey, I know you, we talked about Twitter.” I feel like folks collaborated with me. I don’t know how empowered they feel by the collaboration, but it’s a different approach to doing ethnography. It can definitely be improved upon, but for me, it was really important for people to be able to tell their stories. That also meant going back to people and checking in with them — seeing how their story had changed, what I had gotten right, what I had gotten wrong, were there other things I should have brought up? In my dissertation acknowledgements, there is an egregious error that I made identifying someone. Because I had ongoing conversations with this person after my dissertation was published, I was called to account for that [on Twitter]. So the next opportunity that I got to [correct myself], which was the book, I did. Just like we would be making corrections in the news field, I made the correction — as the kids say — keeping that same energy. It’s important to me that someone who is a part of this research has the sense of agency to call me to do that and to have the relationship with me, to know that I’ll make it right.</div> <div class="conl">Tameez: You’ve been working on this stuff for a long time. When you saw that Elon Musk was buying Twitter, were you like, “Fuck! My book!”?</div> <div class="conr">Clark: Absolutely. That’s exactly what [I said], “Fuck! My book!” I called my editor, because I had already turned it in, [but] I was like, I need it back and I need time. I did a massive rewrite. I just looked at some old drafts a couple of days ago while cleaning my office, and the initial opening of the book starts with the <a href="https://www.cjr.org/q_and_a/why_the_la_times_chose_dexter_thomas_to_cover_black_twitter.php">Los Angeles Times hiring Dexter Thomas as its Black Twitter reporter</a> [in 2015]. That was a long time ago. How do you now tell this story almost as a history, but a history that is continuing to unfold?</div> <div class="conl">Tameez: It’s like a really long obit.</div> <div class="conr">Clark: It is an ongoing obit!</div> <div class="conl">Tameez: How did you experience the degradation of Twitter as a Black Twitter member and as a researcher? How did it mess with your work?</div> <div class="conr">Clark: I got locked out of the Twitter account [<a href="https://x.com/meredithdclark">@MeredithDClark</a>] that I used to do all of this research. [In December], I got a notification from the old account that someone had logged in from Russia. I went to the new] account I created a year ago and <a href="https://x.com/SurlyChisholm/status/1870309335068246112">tweeted</a> at [my old account], “Hey, I’ve been locked out of this account for a couple of years now, but I just got a notification that someone in Russia logged into it. So if you see it posting weird stuff, just know it’s not me.” That was devastating. There’s a ton of stuff connected to my research that is not going to look like research to anyone but me. But it’s there, and that’s the only way I can access it. Other ways I’ve experienced the degradation of Twitter [are that] too much time on social media warps your brain, your sense of reality and perception. There were times when I would have to take my own self-imposed breaks. That’s [even] before Elon Musk bought it. So with the purchase, it became more urgent to finish this chapter of the work. But it’s sad. It hurts really deep down because it’s the severing of community connection. There are people who are there that I can only find there. That’s where I could easily be in touch with them. Now [with the] website’s functionality, I literally cannot find things. I cannot use the search function and find things I know I tweeted.</div> <div class="conl">Tameez: Do you see a sort of Black Twitter resurgence on other platforms, or a community engagement in any other similar ways? Or do you think that this was just a unique time in history that we may not get again?</div> <div class="conr">Clark: A little bit of both. I argue in the book that, whatever Black people are doing in terms of media and technology, we were doing it before Twitter. We’ll be doing it after Twitter. No matter what the technology is, we’re going to be using it, adapting it for our cultural needs and the way we engage with each other. That will continue. But I do think that there is something specific about Black Twitter of a certain era that was indeed lightning in a bottle, and you’re not going to get that back.</div> <div class="conl">Tameez: Do you see sparks of it on other platforms?</div> <div class="conr">Clark: I see facsimiles of it. Most of what I see is that capitalism consumes everything. I feel really old saying this, but I remember a time when people online were just having fun, not necessarily thinking about how to monetize something. There are some flashes of that every now and then, but most of what I see [now] is about building engagement to secure revenue. Even before TikTok, people were asking what comes after Black Twitter. I was like, well, the question is: is there a Black Facebook? Is there a Black Instagram? One answer is no, because the technological affordances don’t offer the same things. But are people trying to recreate the dynamic of Black Twitter in other spaces? Absolutely. I saw it on Snapchat, I saw it on Clubhouse, I saw it on Instagram. I didn’t see it so much on Facebook because Facebook is very different. But I absolutely see it on TikTok. The place where I’m seeing [some of that spark] now and where people are talking about it is Threads. There are a bunch of Twitter migrants and folks are like, “Don’t bring that noise from Twitter over here. We’re having a good time.” It’s like Twitter before everybody knew Twitter was popping. Please don’t bring that mess over here.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/lightning-in-a-bottle-meredith-clark-on-black-twitters-journalistic-impact-legacy-and-writing-its-obituary/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Less is more, and discounts work: A new study looks at the minutiae of paywall strategy</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/less-is-more-and-discounts-work-a-new-study-looks-at-the-minutiae-of-paywall-strategy/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/less-is-more-and-discounts-work-a-new-study-looks-at-the-minutiae-of-paywall-strategy/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sophie Culpepper]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 10 Feb 2025 19:36:54 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[discounts]]></category> <category><![CDATA[local news]]></category> <category><![CDATA[paywalls]]></category> <category><![CDATA[regional news]]></category> <category><![CDATA[subscriptions]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=236067</guid> <description><![CDATA[On its surface, the definition of a paywall is straightforward: A digital popup that blocks you from reading the story you clicked on unless you pay up. But the catch-all term “paywall” conceals several smaller decisions that go into designing exactly how much a reader sees as a news org coaxes them to subscribe. Do...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[On its surface, the definition of a paywall is straightforward: A digital popup that blocks you from reading the story you clicked on unless you pay up. But the catch-all term “paywall” conceals several smaller decisions that go into designing exactly how much a reader sees as a news org coaxes them to subscribe. Do they see an image, like I saw when I clicked this <a href="https://www.latimes.com/travel/story/2024-08-28/parties-nightlife-world-music-los-angeles-afrobeats-reggaeton">Los Angeles Times story</a>? Nothing but a headline, like this <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/085e20be-0e98-4c9b-8db7-ed52ea279575">Financial Times preview</a>? A headline and image, like this <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/02/06/metro/woman-charged-murder-charlestown-houseboat/">Boston Globe story</a>? Or the headline, image, deck, and lede combo, like this <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/edward-coristine-tesla-sexy-path-networks-doge/">Wired story</a> or this one from McClatchy-owned <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article299398719.html">Raleigh News & Observer</a>?<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/less-is-more-and-discounts-work-a-new-study-looks-at-the-minutiae-of-paywall-strategy/#footnote_0_236067" id="identifier_0_236067" class="footnote-link footnote-identifier-link" title="YMMV — you may not hit a paywall on first click, since many of these publications employ metered paywalls.">1</a> Which of those visible elements are most likely to yield success? That’s one question the authors of a study recently published in Journalism Studies aim to answer. The study, “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2024.2438229#abstract">Converting Online News Visitors to Subscribers: Exploring the Effectiveness of Paywall Strategies Using Behavioral Data</a>,” looks at millions of visits to 21 German and Austrian<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/less-is-more-and-discounts-work-a-new-study-looks-at-the-minutiae-of-paywall-strategy/#footnote_1_236067" id="identifier_1_236067" class="footnote-link footnote-identifier-link" title="Germans and Austrians are slightly less likely to say they pay for news than the global average, according to the 2024 Reuters Digital News Report. “This may mean that it would be easier in some other countries to nudge users to start and finish the subscription journey than our results, based on German and Austrian users, indicate,” the authors write.">2</a> local and regional news sites in 2022 to gauge whether certain “teaser” features of a paywall (decks, images, ledes, a blurred preview of an article) made users more likely to click “subscribe.” After that first click, visitors typically confront specific subscription offers. So the study also examined a second question: Which incentives — small gifts, ePaper access, and so on — made users more likely to purchase a subscription? Their findings, in brief: Less is more, when it comes to teaser features in front of a paywall. And discounts are the most effective enticements for prospective subscribers. “Reducing the information density of teaser elements on paywalled articles and offering discounts may help newspapers increase their online subscriber numbers,” the paper’s authors (Zhengyi Xu, <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:cjvpgp6huioko77bve6nhgez">Neil Thurman</a>, Julia Berhami, Clara Strasser Ceballos, and Ole Fehling) write. They emphasize that their research captures actual user behavior, not just what people say they do.<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/less-is-more-and-discounts-work-a-new-study-looks-at-the-minutiae-of-paywall-strategy/#footnote_2_236067" id="identifier_2_236067" class="footnote-link footnote-identifier-link" title="A bit more about the study’s data source: the authors relied on data from the Digital Revenue Initiative (DRIVE) Project. Launched in 2020, DRIVE “tracks and analyses publishers’ online news content and user behavior in order to help publishers take actions to increase digital revenues” in partnership with more than 25 publishers, according to the study authors. As of May 2022, when the first data was collected, “the project had recorded 4 million pieces of article information and 10 billion user events.” In this study, “regarding whether the ‘subscribe now’ button was clicked, 3,518,822 individual-level cases were included, and regarding whether a subscription was taken out the number was 28,506.” (Since this data used cookies to establish the identity of non-subscribing visitors, individual users are technically “individual browsing devices.”) ">3</a> The study’s authors examined how each “teaser” element contributed to a visitor’s likeliness to subscribe. They found that decks (“stand-ins,” for those across the pond) and intros decreased the odds of a visitor subscribing by 86.3% and 72.2%, respectively. (Results for an image and a blurred article preview were not statistically significant.) Readers who see information-dense nuggets like ledes and decks, the authors write, may feel they’ve learned all they need to know in front of the paywall — and don’t need to subscribe to learn more: <blockquote class="rippedpaper">These findings pose a version of the dilemma that paywalls already embody for news outlets. Paywalls are a tradeoff, generating revenue while cutting off access to news for those who can’t or don’t pay. Some newsrooms hope to <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/09/the-salt-lake-tribune-profitable-and-growing-seeks-to-rid-itself-of-that-necessary-evil-the-paywall/">move away from them completely</a>; others are <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/10/going-back-to-the-well-cnn-com-the-most-popular-news-site-in-the-u-s-is-putting-up-a-paywall/">embracing</a> <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/11/paywalls-can-be-a-big-lift-for-smaller-publishers-here-how-the-shawnee-mission-post-is-thriving-two-years-into-it/">them</a> (or <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/10/the-brown-institutes-local-news-lab-is-developing-smart-paywalls-for-local-newsrooms/">making them smarter</a>) and see them as an essential evolution for future sustainability. (And many drop paywalls on breaking news affecting public safety, as we’ve seen with <a href="https://apnews.com/article/5b4bbacb9c735995d08df8d592611461">the pandemic</a> and, more recently, the <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/the-l-a-times-sees-subscriber-bump-during-wildfire-coverage-despite-removing-paywall/">Los Angeles wildfires</a>.) The authors suggest in light of their findings, “reducing the information volume of these teaser elements could also make sense for news websites. As many of the news websites that we studied showed both a stand-first and an intro on their paywall locked article pages, another possible strategy would be for the publisher to remove one of them, or even both.” If a key implication of this study is that news orgs looking to get people to subscribe should keep even context-heavy decks and intros cloistered in the walled garden of news for the best chance of enticing more subscribers, that could diminish access to free, reputable news even further. Is a newsroom’s only goal with a paywall to turn visitors into subscribers? Or do news orgs want visitors who hit a paywall and don’t subscribe to still leave with a little more context than a headline alone can offer? That’s a question that is more about mission than data, and might be trickier to answer. <div class="photocredit">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@divmanickam">Div Manickam</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/a-brick-wall-with-flowers-growing-on-it-tX0vhFT8UBA">Unsplash</a>.</div> <ol class="footnotes"><li id="footnote_0_236067" class="footnote">YMMV — you may not hit a paywall on first click, since many of these publications employ metered paywalls.</li><li id="footnote_1_236067" class="footnote">Germans and Austrians are slightly less likely to say they pay for news than the global average, according to the <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2024">2024 Reuters Digital News Report</a>. “This may mean that it would be easier in some other countries to nudge users to start and finish the subscription journey than our results, based on German and Austrian users, indicate,” the authors write.</li><li id="footnote_2_236067" class="footnote">A bit more about the study’s data source: the authors relied on data from the <a href="https://www.dpa.com/en/drive#drive-members">Digital Revenue Initiative (DRIVE) Project</a>. Launched in 2020, DRIVE “tracks and analyses publishers’ online news content and user behavior in order to help publishers take actions to increase digital revenues” in partnership with more than 25 publishers, according to the study authors. As of May 2022, when the first data was collected, “the project had recorded 4 million pieces of article information and 10 billion user events.” In this study, “regarding whether the ‘subscribe now’ button was clicked, 3,518,822 individual-level cases were included, and regarding whether a subscription was taken out the number was 28,506.” (Since this data used cookies to establish the identity of non-subscribing visitors, individual users are technically “individual browsing devices.”) </li></ol>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/less-is-more-and-discounts-work-a-new-study-looks-at-the-minutiae-of-paywall-strategy/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>How DeepSeek stacks up when citing news publishers</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/how-deepseek-stacks-up-when-citing-news-publishers/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/how-deepseek-stacks-up-when-citing-news-publishers/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Andrew Deck]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 07 Feb 2025 00:36:24 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[aggregation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[AI]]></category> <category><![CDATA[attribution]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ChatGPT]]></category> <category><![CDATA[citations]]></category> <category><![CDATA[copyright]]></category> <category><![CDATA[DeepSeek]]></category> <category><![CDATA[generative AI]]></category> <category><![CDATA[hallucinations]]></category> <category><![CDATA[intellectual property]]></category> <category><![CDATA[LLMs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[OpenAI]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235976</guid> <description><![CDATA[Over the past two weeks, DeepSeek has made a splash in the AI industry. On January 20, the Chinese startup released its new open source model, DeepSeek-R1, which beat competitors like OpenAI’s o1 on several important performance benchmarks, despite costing a fraction of the price to develop. In the DeepSeek hype cycle, however, little attention...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[Over the past two weeks, DeepSeek has made a splash in the AI industry. On January 20, the Chinese startup released its <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/deepseek-china-model-ai/">new open source model, DeepSeek-R1</a>, which beat competitors like OpenAI’s o1 on several important performance benchmarks, despite costing a fraction of the price to develop. In the DeepSeek hype cycle, however, little attention has been paid to the company’s approach to news publishers. When it comes to the model’s high performance, it’s worth asking if that extends to the model’s ability to accurately cite and attribute its news sources. And while DeepSeek is turning heads by hurdling over cost barriers to train its foundation model, does that model actually consider the intellectual property of media companies? DeepSeek did not respond to my requests for comment. The company, seemingly, has not responded to any interview requests from international media since it emerged on the global stage last month. So, for now, I decided to turn to DeepSeek’s product itself — its chatbot — to sketch out some preliminary insights into these questions. Last summer, I published a story showing that ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot, regularly <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/06/chatgpt-is-hallucinating-fake-links-to-its-news-partners-biggest-investigations/">hallucinated URLs for at least 10 of its news partners’ websites</a>. These fake citations led users to 404 errors, including broken links to marquee investigations and Pulitzer-prize winning stories. (ChatGPT has since made some improvements to its citations, namely through the <a href="https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-search/">launch of its web browsing feature SearchGPT</a> late last year, which significantly changed the user interface for footnotes and sources.) I conducted a similar round of tests with DeepSeek’s chatbot, using both its website and mobile app. I prompted the model to share details on dozens of original investigations by major news outlets and to share links to those stories. A few things jumped out in my tests. Most notably, the chatbot readily acknowledged that sharing the contents of these news articles could violate copyright and skirt subscription paywalls. <h3 class="subhead">“It’s important to respect copyright and subscription models”</h3> DeepSeek’s web and app chatbot have three different settings: the default standard mode; “Search” mode, where it browses the web in real time while responding; and “DeepThink” mode, where it walks through its reasoning before providing a response. In my standard mode tests, DeepSeek did in fact hallucinate URLs to news publications on several occasions. The chatbot offered up broken links to major stories by The Atlantic and Politico, among others. This was not a persistent problem, however, and more often than not DeepSeek did not provide a URL for its sources at all in this mode. Instead, the chatbot often credited news articles by including the headline, bylined author, or publication date directly in the text of its response. It then suggested I search for that article myself on the news publisher’s website. For example, I prompted DeepSeek to share <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-played-central-role-in-hush-payoffs-to-stormy-daniels-and-karen-mcdougal-1541786601">The Wall Street Journal’s 2018 investigation</a> into Donald Trump’s involvement in hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. “If you’d like to reach the original articles, I recommend searching for them on The Wall Street Journal’s website or through a news archive,” read one response from DeepSeek. “If you encounter a paywall, consider checking for a free article quota or limited access. Let me know if you need further assistance!” In other tests, this redirection got even more specific: “Visit <a href="https://www.wsj.com/">WSJ’s website</a> and search the exact title or keywords like ‘Trump Cohen Stormy Daniels payment,’” read another response. DeepSeek even suggested I seek out a local library that might have free digital access to The Wall Street Journal. (Not all of the chatbot’s advice was sound. At one point, it did strangely suggest I find the investigation by searching <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/">PubMed Central</a>, a database for biomedical and life science journals.) <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-06-at-1.13.22 PM-700x597.png" alt="DeepSeek screenshot of response to request to share Wall Street Journal original reporting on Stormy Daniels hush money payments" width="700" height="597" class="nakedboxedimagewide" /> Overall, in standard mode, while web search was turned off, DeepSeek regularly encouraged me to move off platform — to exit the chatbot interface and seek out a more reliable source, usually the news outlet that had published the story. There is a risk of overextrapolating from these responses, but the repeated acknowledgement in my tests that DeepSeek is not the best place to access the information that I was seeking is noteworthy. After I turned on “DeepThink” mode in my tests, I got an imperfect peek under the hood to see how the chatbot was arriving at these responses. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/28/deepseek-ai-app-test-hands-on/">Other observers</a> have noted that while talking through its “reasoning,” DeepSeek’s safeguards appear to kick in. Sometimes the model will <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/deepseek-censorship/">self-censor</a> or pivot its response during this process. I noticed a similar pattern. When reasoning through its ability to share content from news publishers, DeepSeek stated plainly that its response to my queries could violate copyright. It also acknowledged that these articles were likely paywalled, and that it could “violate policy” not to make that clear to users. “Sometimes articles are available through archive services, but that might infringe on copyright. I shouldn’t suggest anything that’s against policies,” reads one of these rambling responses. “The best approach is to advise the user to search for the article themselves, perhaps mentioning the authors and publication time frame to aid their search. Also, note that if they don’t have a subscription, they might hit a paywall, but some news outlets offer a limited number of free articles per month.” Others responses made the chatbot’s guardrails even more explicit: “I should also make sure to clarify that I can’t bypass the paywall or provide unauthorized access. It’s important to respect copyright and subscription models. So, the response should be helpful but within the constraints of available information and access policies.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-06-at-1.17.22 PM-e1738866508824-700x691.png" alt="Wall Street Journal hush money payments citation prompt on DeepSeek" width="700" height="691" class="nakedboxedimagewide" /> In my testing of similar chatbots (and not only ChatGPT, but competitors like Claude and Perplexity as well) it is rare for a model to, without a leading prompt, call attention to a news publisher’s paywall, openly discuss the possibility of violating copyright, and provide the user with options for accessing the published material they are looking for in a more responsible or permissible way. <h3 class="subhead">Can you have too many sources?</h3> Turning on “Search” mode, and enabling DeepSeek to cull sources from the internet, opened up a different set of issues in my tests. With web browsing, the chatbot was far less likely to suggest that I search for a news article on a news publisher’s website. Instead, it would automatically provide me with links to relevant news articles, sometimes as many as 50 of them. One problem that comes up frequently with ChatGPT and similar products is when the chatbot cites sources, it often fails to link to the outlet or article that broke a story. A <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/how-chatgpt-misrepresents-publisher-content.php">recent report by Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University</a> has termed this issue “copycat sources.” ChatGPT will often link to news publishers aggregating original reporting, elevating these copycat articles over the initial story, or failing to surface the initial story at all. Frequently these “copycats” are far less reputable, including blogs and websites that have <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/how-chatgpt-misrepresents-publisher-content.php">outright plagiarized established news outlets.</a> This copycat citation problem even plagues news publishers that have active licensing deals with OpenAI. Take my prompt asking ChatGPT to share the first leak of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. ChatGPT correctly stated that Politico broke that story in 2022 and encouraged me to read the story on Politico’s website. (Politico’s parent company <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/media/openai-to-pay-politico-parent-axel-springer-for-using-its-content-bdc33332">Axel Springer has an ongoing licensing deal with OpenAI</a>.) In one instance, ChatGPT asked me to “read the story here,” but provided no link or hyperlink at all. When I expanded the sources at the top of the response, the first story cited was not Politico, but a 2025 <a href="https://www.nysun.com/article/unexpected-outcome-of-overturning-roe-v-wade-abortion-debate-recedes-from-national-politics">article by The New York Sun</a> about the pro-life movement’s current place in the Republican Party. DeepSeek’s chatbot seems to have a slightly different version of this problem. In responses to the same Roe v. Wade question, and many other similar test prompts, DeepSeek rarely failed to include the link to the first outlet that published a major story or notable investigation. Sometimes these links would not appear in the copy or footnotes of a response, but instead when I clicked on the sources tab. A scrollable pop-up window that looks a lot like a Google search results page would preview links, including each story’s outlet, headline, and snippet. The original stories were almost always there, Politico’s Roe v. Wade story included. That said, DeepSeek often opted to include a tremendous number of sources and links in its web-enabled search responses. In most cases, prompting DeepSeek to share original pieces of journalism turned up at least 20 sources and as many as 50 sources. To compare, ChatGPT usually shared less than 15 sources in response to the same exact prompts. So while the correct story was usually attributed by DeepSeek, it could at times be buried by the sheer number of sources generated. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-06-at-1.41.52 PM-700x391.png" alt="Russell Brand sexuall assault citation prompt on DeepSeek" width="700" height="391" class="nakedboxedimagewide" /> Overall, my tests showed DeepSeek’s chatbot has a relatively high standard for citing and attributing news publishers. It is worth noting, however, the company does not have any ongoing licensing deals with major international news organizations. So while in my tests it was often referring users more directly and accurately to news publishers — and encouraging them to respect subscription paywalls — DeepSeek is not compensating those publishers in any direct or indirect ways. OpenAI meanwhile has signed contracts with at least 20 major news organizations. There are also open questions about DeepSeek’s training data, and whether it relied on the mass scraping of news publishers’ websites. Some early reporting alleges the company <a href="https://www.404media.co/openai-furious-deepseek-might-have-stolen-all-the-data-openai-stole-from-us/">siphoned off OpenAI’s data without permission or compensation</a>. While there is clear irony in that, I’m not confident a second-order unauthorized use of news publisher’s stories for training writes over OpenAI’s “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/podcasts/the-daily/ai-data.html">original sin</a>.” As our understanding of DeepSeek’s training practices continue to develop, it’s worth asking which industry norms the startup is actually breaking. Yes, DeepSeek is relatively cheap and open source, both of which hold the promise of democratizing access to sophisticated AI reasoning models. It remains to be seen whether DeepSeek is also challenging the status quo when it comes to the treatment of content from news publishers, or if it’s simply cementing the tacit disregard for intellectual property that has become an industry norm. <div class="photocredit">Photo by <a href="https://stock.adobe.com/images/in-this-photo-illustration-the-deepseek-app-is-displayed-on-an-iphone-screen/1225779351"_blank">Vista Vault</a> via Adobe Stock.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/how-deepseek-stacks-up-when-citing-news-publishers/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>The Trump war on the news media takes an absurd turn</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-trump-war-on-the-news-media-takes-an-even-stupider-turn/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-trump-war-on-the-news-media-takes-an-even-stupider-turn/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Benton]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 06 Feb 2025 16:54:57 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[60 Minutes]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Brendan Carr]]></category> <category><![CDATA[CBS News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category> <category><![CDATA[New York magazine]]></category> <category><![CDATA[NPR]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PBS]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politico]]></category> <category><![CDATA[public broadcasting]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235972</guid> <description><![CDATA[Here are a few of the things that, in the opening weeks of the second Trump administration, have gone from “totally normal” to “DEVIANT BEHAVIOR THAT SHOWS THE EVIL LURKING AT THE HEART OF THE AMERICAN MEDIA”: A television news program does bog-standard edits on an interview with a politician, of the boring sort that...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[Here are a few of the things that, in the opening weeks of the second Trump administration, have gone from “totally normal” to “DEVIANT BEHAVIOR THAT SHOWS THE EVIL LURKING AT THE HEART OF THE AMERICAN MEDIA”: <ul> <li>A television news program does bog-standard edits on an interview with a politician, of the boring sort <a href="https://view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/173884995311731344c5ddfa9/raw?utm_source=cnn_Reliable+Sources+%E2%80%93+Feb.+6+2025&utm_medium=email&bt_ee=82IokJ%2FTTWgOu4wXg4NAGzIINLXSBW%2FKqN9Uo%2FQgJhxfqVPjwm63fofLe4hEGpQQ&bt_ts=1738849953119#:~:text=CBS%20didn%27t%20commit,no%20%22there%22%20there.">that have been done untold thousands of times</a>. This becomes proof of “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/business/media/cbs-60-minutes-harris-interview.html">news distortion</a>” to the degree that requires a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-publishes-transcripts-video-requested-by-fcc/">federal investigation</a>.</li> <li>A magazine’s photographer takes a photo. Editors, aware that a physical magazine has a particular shape, run a vertical crop of it for their print edition, while publishing a wider version online. Is this a recognition that different rectangles, in fact, exist? No, it is proof that the media is run by <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-publishes-transcripts-video-requested-by-fcc/">master manipulators intent on sparking a race war</a>, <a href="https://www.wnd.com/2025/01/this-is-insane-magazine-crops-blacks-from-trump-inauguration-party-photo-then-complains-event-is-almost-only-white/">spawning</a> <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14332333/NY-Magazine-slammed-cruel-kids-MAGA-feature.html">wave</a> <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/ny-mag-cover-accused-cropping-out-black-attendees-trump-inauguration-event">after</a> <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/01/28/media/ny-magazine-ripped-for-cropping-black-people-from-trump-party-cover/">wave</a> <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2025/01/28/nolte-far-left-ny-mag-caught-cropping-black-people-out-all-white-trump-party/">of</a> <a href="https://www.outkick.com/culture/new-york-magazine-appears-crop-out-all-black-attendees-trump-inauguration-event">right-wing</a> <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/28/ny-magazine-crops-black-conservatives-cj-pearson-rob-smith-gervonta-davis-waka-flocka-flame/">coverage</a>.</li> <li>Public broadcasters air sponsorship messages, of the exact same type they have run for literal decades. (“Support for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPpcfH_HHH8">Delicious Dish</a> is provided by A Tub of Cottage Cheese.”) Suddenly, their chief regulator is deeply “concerned” that these sponsorship messages “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2025/01/31/trump-fcc-npr-pbs-investigation/">could be violating federal law</a>.”</li> </ul> We’re seeing the repeated weaponization of even the most standard acts of journalism — an asymmetric kind of information warfare aimed at inventing clouds of controversy. But it’s hard to get stupider than the latest round, which claims that America’s media is hopelessly corrupted by all the bribes it takes from the federal government to slant the news in favor of Democrats. Or, as the president <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113956778707659340">truthed it</a> this morning: “LOOKS LIKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN STOLLEN AT USAID, AND OTHER AGENCIES, MUCH OF IT GOING TO THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA AS A ‘PAYOFF’ FOR CREATING GOOD STORIES ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS. THE LEFT WING ‘RAG,’ KNOWN AS ‘POLITICO,’ SEEMS TO HAVE RECEIVED $8,000,000. Did the New York Times receive money??? Who else did??? THIS COULD BE THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THEM ALL, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST IN HISTORY! THE DEMOCRATS CAN’T HIDE FROM THIS ONE. TOO BIG, TOO DIRTY!” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/donald-trump-truth-social-dumb.png" alt="" width="700" height="436" class="nakedboxedimage" /> Is your brain hurting, just from reading that? If Politico was, in fact, being bribed in exchange for slanted coverage, that would be noteworthy. It is, of course, not. Some of MAGA’s <a href="https://x.com/kylenabecker/status/1887136929780494421">biggest</a> <a href="https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1887147292412490111">brains</a> seem to have noticed that several million federal dollars went to Politico and assumed that they came from a “<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14367949/donald-trump-politico-usaid-media-live-updates.html">Bribery—Media Fellow Travelers</a>” line item in the budget. Instead, the money comes from federal offices buying subscriptions to <a href="https://www.politicopro.com/">Politico’s bureaucracy-focused Pro products</a>. Government offices (and <a href="https://theankler.com/p/subscriber-in-chief-donald-trumps">even Republican political campaigns</a>!) have paid for news subscriptions for literal centuries. By the <a href="https://reason.com/2025/02/06/usaid-paying-for-politico-is-a-nontroversy/">Trumpist line of logic</a>, whenever a government department buys some desks or office chairs, it’s actually bribing Ikea to twist its <a href="https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/kallax-lagkapten-workstation-white-s29481659/">Lagkapten</a> and <a href="https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/groenfjaell-office-chair-with-armrests-letafors-gray-black-00503478/">Grönfjäll</a> into supporting DEI. That, for outlets like the AP, the size of the outlays were greatest under Trump’s own previous administration <a href="https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1887171726909542524">does not seem</a> to have shocked <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/05/media/politico-usaid-subscription-government/index.html">anyone back to reality</a>. The questions, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/politico-denies-beneficiary-government-programs-questions-swirl-over-taxpayer-funding">they continue to swirl</a>! <blockquote class="bluesky-embed" data-bluesky-uri="at://did:plc:mndtiksvxikpsy3zl6ebd2kr/app.bsky.feed.post/3lhhjtjt7se26" data-bluesky-cid="bafyreigdusjrugt3cldtp4ovcqfjpn55gykt5oj5pr675dw2ydtnovsl4y"> the current right wing "scandal" that the U.S. government pays for news subscriptions is very funny but its also funny that these guys can't even read their own evidence that supposedly proves bias his own screenshot shows AP received the most $ from the first Trump admin lol <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:mndtiksvxikpsy3zl6ebd2kr/post/3lhhjtjt7se26?ref_src=embed">[image or embed]</a> — Matt Binder (<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:mndtiksvxikpsy3zl6ebd2kr?ref_src=embed">@mattbinder.bsky.social</a>) <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:mndtiksvxikpsy3zl6ebd2kr/post/3lhhjtjt7se26?ref_src=embed">February 5, 2025 at 4:38 PM</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script> We’ve all gotten familiar with the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-politico-usaid-maga-conspiracy-b2693562.html">absurdity</a> of a lot of anti-media rhetoric the past decade or so. What’s different in this go-round is the speed with which nonsense spirals up from social media to policymakers to actual governmental action. Brendan Carr really does want to <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/11/trumps-new-fcc-nominee-promises-to-bring-project-2025-style-governance-to-media/">kill public broadcasting</a>. Trump really is going to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/05/republican-ire-usaid-finds-an-unusual-target-politico/">go after Politico’s revenues</a> because he doesn’t like some of its stories. He <a href="https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/donald-trump-60-minutes-terminated-lawsuit-1236299004/">really does think</a> that the crime of totally normal editing should lead to the nation’s top TV news program being “immediately terminated” and should make the nation’s No. 1 broadcast network “lose its license.” The <a href="https://www.thefire.org/news/media-outlets-must-not-cave-trumps-lawfare">lawsuits will keep coming</a>, and they’ll <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-meta-paramount-trump-lawsuit-settle-gannett-2025-1">keep getting settled</a> by nervous corporate executives. Where it ends is entirely unclear. <div class="photocredit">Photo of a 2024 Politico event via the <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ukinusa/53687709865/">British Embassy Washington</a> used under a Creative Commons license.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-trump-war-on-the-news-media-takes-an-even-stupider-turn/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>How ProPublica reported on homeless encampment sweeps in 11 cities</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/how-propublica-reported-on-homeless-encampment-sweeps-in-11-cities/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/how-propublica-reported-on-homeless-encampment-sweeps-in-11-cities/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Asia Fields]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 05 Feb 2025 19:49:41 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[homelessness]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ProPublica]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235909</guid> <description><![CDATA[It’s not hard to find people who want to talk about cities dismantling homeless encampments and throwing away their belongings. In our reporting over the past year, we found that almost everyone we talked to who lived outside had been through a sweep. More than 150 people shared their stories with us. Many had lost...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="ednote">This article was originally <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/reporting-on-homelessness-responsibly-guide-propublica">published</a> by ProPublica, where <a class="name" href="https://www.propublica.org/people/asia-fields">Asia Fields</a> is an engagement reporter. <a class="name" href="https://www.propublica.org/people/maya-miller">Maya Miller</a>, <a class="name" href="https://www.propublica.org/people/nicole-santa-cruz">Nicole Santa Cruz,</a> and <a class="name" href="https://www.propublica.org/people/ruth-talbot">Ruth Talbot</a> also contributed. Read stories from the Swept Away series <a href="https://www.propublica.org/series/swept-away">here</a>.</div> It’s not hard to find people who want to talk about cities dismantling homeless encampments and throwing away their belongings. In our reporting over the past year, we found that almost everyone we talked to who lived outside had been through a sweep. More than 150 people shared their stories with us. Many had lost precious belongings or survival gear, keeping them in a cycle of hardship. Others told us about the barriers they faced trying to get their items back. These interviews allowed us to compare cities’ policies with the reality of what happens on the ground, opening new avenues for <a href="https://www.propublica.org/series/swept-away">our team’s accountability reporting</a>. While finding stories was not difficult, we faced practical challenges, such as staying in touch with sources. To navigate those and ensure our reporting was as responsible as possible, we turned to the experts: people who experienced homelessness, service providers and key community members. We were also <a href="https://lataco.com/lexis-olivier-ray-wins-anthem-award">inspired by</a> the <a href="https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/kcrw-features/whats-lost-when-a-homeless-camp-is-cleaned-up">work</a> of <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/when-seattle-stores-belongings-taken-during-homeless-cleanups-few-get-them-back/">local reporters</a> who have thoughtfully <a href="https://www.streetroots.org/news/2022/06/22/posting-encampments">covered</a> these issues in their communities. Now, we’re sharing what we learned — and a few ideas we didn’t get to — to help other journalists getting started on this important beat. <h3 class="subhead">Discuss your reporting plan and make key decisions before going into the field.</h3> You will likely face challenges staying in touch with sources experiencing homelessness. People may not always have cell service, their phones might be taken in sweeps and talking to a reporter may not be a priority when they’re focused on survival. This makes it even more important to have your reporting process figured out before conducting interviews. That way, people will know what they’re signing up for and you can get the information you need in one conversation. Here are some topics you should discuss with your team, especially editors: What verification process will you use? To include someone’s account in our stories, <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/impact-of-homeless-sweeps-lost-belongings/#verification:~:text=remove%20those%20details.-,Verification,-To%20confirm%20that">we decided</a> we would need to find a record that a sweep occurred in a geographic area around the time they said, using city or county data, sweeps schedules, media reports, visual evidence or additional interviews. Familiarize yourself with your city’s records and data on sweeps to see how feasible it will be to verify certain information. Many cities won’t have detailed records that allow you to find your sources’ names or the items they describe. What should you ask? It can be helpful to come up with <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25510042-questions-for-sweeps-reporting/">a standard set of questions</a> to ask and determine which are priorities if you have limited time with someone. Think about everything you might need, such as birthdates or months if you are going to include ages in case they change before you publish. How will you handle requests for anonymity? We published first names only when people said the publication of their full names would pose safety risks. Even in those cases, we still knew our sources’ full names, which is our standard practice. You should also determine if you will need to publish information about where someone is living, as it may raise safety concerns. What if someone asks to use a street name? In two cases that <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/impact-of-homeless-sweeps-lost-belongings/card/8">we</a> <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/impact-of-homeless-sweeps-lost-belongings/card/33">noted</a>, we published street names that our sources are known by. Assistant Managing Editor Diego Sorbara, who oversees standards, said he thinks of street names like nicknames. “Especially in a population where using a given name could pose safety risks or could cause them serious problems (like being rejected for a job if a prospective employer reads about them and becomes prejudiced against them because of their circumstances), I think using a street name if far preferable than just sticking with anonymity, which is a last-resort situation,” Sorbara said. What is your plan for visuals and audio? If you need photos or audio, you should ask for them during your first interview. You may not be able to see someone in person again before publishing. Would you publish someone’s story if you couldn’t reach them after your initial interview? We explained to sources at the outset that this was possible, and we did choose to publish without reconnecting in some cases. It was helpful to speak to someone more than once when we could, though, especially to reconfirm they were comfortable being included. What will you say if someone asks for help you cannot offer? Our team would say we are journalists and cannot directly help, but we can tell people about other resources. Talk to your team about whether there are local resources or guides you can share with people. As with any field reporting, editors and reporters should also discuss safety. If you’re going somewhere you aren’t familiar with, we highly recommend going with someone who knows the area and community. We also found it was helpful to pair up with a colleague. <h3 class="subhead">Build relationships with trusted intermediaries.</h3> Our goal was to connect with as many people who experienced sweeps as possible, and we did much of our reporting while on the ground in 11 cities. We had the most success when an outreach worker, advocate or resident of an encampment helped introduce us to people. That first required earning the trust of these intermediaries, whose feedback also shaped and improved our reporting process. Before interviewing people in Portland, Oregon, for example, we spent weeks calling street librarians and medics, service providers and advocates, including some who had experienced homelessness. We asked for feedback on everything from how we were planning to phrase our questions to how to stay in touch with people — and adjusted our reporting plan in response. They also flagged things we weren’t thinking about. You should also ask what language the community uses to describe issues and discuss this with your editors. For example, some of our sources felt that the term “sweep” had a negative connotation, but most said that it is the word commonly used by people experiencing homelessness. Some felt strongly that it should be used instead of more clinical language like “encampment abatements” or “campsite removals” <a href="https://www.portland.gov/omf/news/2021/3/29/why-we-shouldnt-use-s-word">pushed</a> by city officials. <h3 class="subhead">Spread the word about your visit.</h3> We made <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25510043-flyer-with-visit-info/">flyers</a> for day centers and nonprofits to put up before we visited, and some outreach workers told people about our project in the weeks before we went out with them. (If you make flyers, make sure they don’t look like sweep notices in your area.) Making plans can be tricky when people are frequently moving around to avoid getting towed or swept, but it’s helpful to spread general awareness. Stephenie, one of our sources in Portland who was <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/homeless-encampment-removals-property-storage">featured in our reporting</a>, said she also recommended giving people questions ahead of time so they can think about their answers. <h3 class="subhead">Prepare for reporting on trauma.</h3> During interviews, many of our sources described sweeps as traumatic, and some mentioned other traumatic experiences they had been through. We recommend reviewing resources for reporting on trauma, such as those from <a href="https://dartcenter.org/">the Dart Center</a>. Some of the trauma-informed practices we used included: <ul> <li>Giving people agency over the interview process when possible, such as by asking what setting they’d be most comfortable in. If you’re at a location like a day center, see if there is an office you can use if people want more privacy. Some sources may also feel more comfortable talking while taking a smoke break or walking together rather than sitting down.</li> <li>Telling people they can take a break if they need to during the interview, and offering one if the conversation feels intense. Allow for pauses between questions.</li> <li>Not asking how people became homeless because it wasn’t necessary for our reporting. Some people shared this information with us because they wanted to.</li> <li>Avoiding “why” questions that could be perceived as placing blame on someone. For example, rather than asking why someone didn’t retrieve their belongings after a sweep, ask what got in their way.</li> </ul> This can be difficult work. The Dart Center also has tips for <a href="https://dartcenter.org/content/tips-for-managers-and-editors-news-personnel-exposed-to-traumatic-events">managers</a> and <a href="https://dartcenter.org/content/staying-sane-managing-stress-and-trauma-on-investigative-projects">reporters</a> about preparing for and responding to secondhand trauma. <h3 class="subhead">Pack the right supplies.</h3> Many of our sources recommended bringing snacks or small useful items with us, which we felt was in line with customary courtesies we extend to sources on other projects. Make sure you tell people they don’t have to talk to you to take something. <a href="https://www.portlandstreetmedicine.org/">Portland Street Medicine</a> founder Bill Toepper recommended bringing tangerines and electrolyte drink mixes, which were popular. People also told us they liked candy and soft granola bars, which are easier to eat than hard ones. We also brought printed materials, such as <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25503709-sweeps-flyer/">flyers</a> about our reporting. It can also be helpful to bring a copy of a story you’ve published so people can see what your work looks like. As for what to wear, Stephenie said, “Dress down and wear clothing that is simple to minimize the person being interviewed feeling their appearance matters.” <h3 class="subhead">Respect people’s space and time.</h3> If you’re at a day shelter or another location where people are accessing services, don’t get in the way. Approach people when they’re waiting in line or after they’ve gotten a meal, or let people approach you. After describing your project, ask people if they’d like to participate. You don’t have to jump right into an interview, though. Several organizations and sources emphasized the importance of being able to just hang out. Chat with people. When approaching an RV or tent, knock or announce yourself — or stand to the side while an intermediary checks to see if someone wants to talk. Don’t touch people’s belongings. And don’t approach someone’s pet without permission. “Remember that even though the person you are interviewing may have a tent in a public place or sleep outside that it is still their home and respect their area like you would anyone else’s home,” Stephenie said. She also recommended that reporters mentally prepare themselves for things they may see, such as drug use or bathroom situations. Remember that people living outside have less privacy, many cities lack public restrooms and some people use substances to try to keep themselves safe, like in order to stay up at night. <h3 class="subhead">Make the process clear.</h3> At the start of our interviews, we walked through <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25503711-what-to-expect-after-talking-to-a-reporter-sweeps/">a sheet explaining our process</a> and left a copy with people in case they wanted to review it later or contact us to say they changed their minds. Make your role and mission really clear. If you’re out with a mutual aid group or at a nonprofit, emphasize that you are a journalist and explain that you’re not affiliated with the group. Explain that people don’t have to talk to you to access resources or services the group is providing. Stephenie also recommended that reporters “reinforce that you are not there to get anyone in trouble, that you don’t work for the city, police or any other agency.” Don’t make promises you can’t keep, including about what might happen after your story is published. Set expectations; explain that you may not be able to publish every story but that they all help you do your reporting. <h3 class="subhead">Offer multiple ways to participate.</h3> We handed out <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25503710-sweeps-notecard/">notecards</a> that people could write on to share their thoughts in their own words. Some of our sources really liked this, while others said they were self-conscious about their handwriting or spelling. If we were to do this over again, we might try additional options, such as audio statements. <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/AN-Sweeps-Elijah-Harris-1.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="nakedboxedimagewide" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/AN-Sweeps-Elijah-Harris-1.png" alt="" width="621" height="549" /></a> <div class="photocredit">Elijah Harris, in a handwritten response to a prompt from ProPublica, described the loss of everything he needed to deliver for DoorDash, alongside storage and mail keys, money and all his identification. (Credit: Elijah Harris)</div> You also shouldn’t assume that people experiencing homelessness aren’t online. Most of our sources had phones, and dozens of people who experienced homelessness connected with us through <a href="https://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/help-investigate-homeless-encampment-removals">an online form</a> or email. Some found the form on flyers, our website or social media. <h3 class="subhead">Ask for multiple contact methods — and be patient.</h3> You can say something like: “I know sometimes people have to replace their phones or get locked out of their accounts. Just in case, how else can I contact you with questions and to share the story?” In addition to asking if they’re comfortable sharing a phone number and email, ask if they have a Facebook account or a mailbox at a shelter or nonprofit. You can also ask if there’s a place, like a day shelter, they go to often, or if there’s an outreach worker they see regularly. (This is another benefit of having an intermediary introduce you.) Send people a message right away so they have your contact information in multiple places. You may lose touch. Someone might not respond for weeks or months only to resurface. You can keep checking in every few weeks using the contact information you have. <h3 class="subhead">Share your reporting in accessible formats.</h3> Send updates and links to stories as they publish. Think about how you might reach your sources you lost touch with or who don’t have phones. We distributed <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25503708-story-packet-portland/">paper copies</a> of our reporting in Portland through the same intermediaries and organizations that helped us connect with people. We’re working on sending copies to other cities. If your publication has a print newspaper, can you provide complementary copies to groups that work with people experiencing homelessness? Or would your local street newspaper be interested in collaborating or copublishing? Street Roots, the street newspaper in Portland and <a href="https://www.propublica.org/atpropublica/propublicas-local-reporting-network-selects-five-partners-for-its-50-state-initiative">one of our Local Reporting Network partners</a>, printed one of our stories. <h3 class="subhead">Some other ideas …</h3> <ul> <li>Street Books told us that there is high demand for coloring books and graphic novels. For the right project, you could create a service journalism piece in a graphic novel or zine format.</li> <li>We would have loved to explore having an artist do on-the-spot illustrations that we could use in our story and share with sources.</li> <li>We wanted to provide useful information about reclaiming items after a sweep, but our interviews made it clear that most people found the system inaccessible. We were also covering this issue across the country, but most service journalism would need to be hyperlocal to be useful. Local reporters, such as <a href="https://lataco.com/lexis-olivier-ray-wins-anthem-award">LA Taco reporter Lexis-Olivier Ray</a>, have done great work meeting community needs.</li> <li>Mutual aid groups and advocates often have a lot of photos and videos of sweeps. Can you crowdsource those to show a violation of policy or show the public what sweeps really look like in your city? Stephenie, our source, also recommended providing people with cameras to document what sweeps are like. You would need to come up with a plan to collect them afterward.</li> <li>Researchers and advocates in some cities have used GPS devices to track where people’s belongings end up after a sweep, sometimes finding they appeared to have gone straight to a landfill or incinerator. We considered doing this but ran into challenges. If you’re interested in this approach, you should determine whether it’s essential or if you can find other evidence. You’ll need to build a lot of trust with sources and should also consider <a href="https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2021-08/lithium-ion-battery-report-update-7.01_508.pdf">the potential hazards</a> if these devices end up being punctured.</li> </ul> <div class="photocredit">Illustration by Matt Rota.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/how-propublica-reported-on-homeless-encampment-sweeps-in-11-cities/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Meet the first-ever policy and advocacy director at LION Publishers</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/meet-the-first-ever-policy-and-advocacy-director-at-lion-publishers/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/meet-the-first-ever-policy-and-advocacy-director-at-lion-publishers/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sophie Culpepper]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 05 Feb 2025 19:49:10 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[advocacy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[first-ever]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Lion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[LION Publishers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[local news]]></category> <category><![CDATA[policy]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235817</guid> <description><![CDATA[There’s been a spike in legislation that could impact local news outlets in recent years. Some proposals have aimed to unlock funding for the struggling local news industry through tax credits, ad spending, fellowships, or other means. Others have sought to codify legal protections for journalists. And there’s more to come. Some estimates indicate 25...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[In a media lobbying landscape LION sees as dominated by “large hedge fund backed newspapers that have not adapted to a digital ecosystem,” the organization <a href="https://lionpublishers.com/lion-is-hiring-an-associate-director-of-policy-advocacy/">has framed</a> this new policy position as, in part, a necessary counterweight that will champion digital news outlets’ interests. Krewson has said these lobbying interests can block digital-only publishers from revenue-generating programs such as “public notices, legal ads, state ad buys, and the rest.” “We think a key benefit of LION membership will be a heads-up early in the process, and updates if and when [legislation] moves forward, with ways for publishers to get involved along the way,” Krewson said. Membership dues make up only 2 percent of LION’s earned revenue and the organization relies on <a href="https://lionpublishers.com/annual-report-2024/">foundation grants and tech company contracts</a> to fund much of its work. Krewson said the timing for the first-ever policy role was determined not just by finding the money — but the right money. LION has partnered with Facebook and Google but could not, for obvious reasons, rely on Big Tech dollars for this role. (Both companies have <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/11/in-canadas-battle-with-big-tech-smaller-publishers-are-caught-in-the-crossfire/?relatedstory">been</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/04/12/1244416887/google-blocks-california-news-payments-bill">targeted</a> by legislative efforts to boost journalism.) Multi-year funding for the full-time policy position will come primarily from the <a href="https://www.theajp.org/">American Journalism Project</a>, with some additional funding from <a href="https://lionpublishers.com/macarthur-foundation-awards-4-million-to-lion-publishers/">a recent MacArthur grant</a>. Nieman Lab asked Corra about how the 2024 election may affect public funding for journalism, expanding the coalition to include groups that support small businesses and entrepreneurs, and ensuring small and digital-only newsrooms get a piece of the public funding pie. Our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, is below. <div class="storybreak-simple"></div> <div class="conl">Scire: How “first” is this position for LION? It’s the first time that someone has held the title of “associate director of policy and advocacy” but was there policy or advocacy work going on beforehand in some form?</div> <div class="conr">Corra: There was some engagement with policy and advocacy before my position was created that other members of the LION team were playing point on, but this is the first time that LION dedicated significant resources to doing policy and advocacy work. </div> <div class="conm">Culpepper: What is your job? How would you describe what you’re doing, in particular, to a LION member?</div> <div class="conr">Corra: My job is to advocate on behalf of the interests of our members on matters of public policy. I will track and monitor legislation and regulatory proposals at the state and federal level that could have an impact on our members and their ability to operate their newsrooms successfully. I’ll also work closely with partner organizations and coalitions on policy that we determine is of importance to our membership and educate/inform lawmakers and partner organizations of how different policy will impact local independent online newsrooms. Additionally, I will work to develop a regular communication cadence with our membership to keep them informed of the changing policy landscape, how it will impact them, and what they can do to get involved in shaping the outcome.</div> <div class="conl">Scire: There are a number of other organizations with interests that seem to intersect with this kind of policy and advocacy work. I’m thinking of <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/03/find-your-people-these-groups-bring-digital-news-orgs-together-for-learning-sharing-and-venting/">the many news industry associations</a>, press freedom nonprofits, policy advocates like <a href="https://www.rebuildlocalnews.org/">Rebuild Local News</a>, and <a href="https://digitalcontentnext.org/">media</a> <a href="https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/">trade associations</a>. Who am I missing? What will collaboration look like? Could you give us a couple of specific examples of complementary policy goals?</div> <div class="conr">Corra: Definitely groups like Rebuild Local News and <a href="https://www.freepress.net/">Free Press</a> are ones that we’ve worked with in the past and ones we hope to work with in the future. I don’t want to single out specific groups because I think that there are several where we could be aligned on a number of issues in the journalism and press freedom policy spaces. I’m also interested in branching out beyond those areas to groups and coalitions that focus on supporting the interests of small businesses and entrepreneurship — two things that are core to what LION supports. To the question of what collaboration looks like: advocacy work is often accomplished by group effort. Most of the important work is done through coalitions and collective action, so my hope is to have LION take an active role in coalitions where we find alignment and have our policy priorities be a part of those efforts.</div> <div class="conm">Culpepper: The breadth of your role — keeping up with the minutia of policy developments across 50 states and the national level — strikes me as daunting, and a lot for one person. The announcement notes you’ll especially focus on “states likely to introduce legislation in 2025.” How are you planning to approach balancing, or prioritizing, work across so many different policy environments?</div> <div class="conr">Corra: I think we have to focus on where we can have the greatest impact. I plan to prioritize legislation based on a number of factors including to what degree it materially affects our members, how likely a bill is to move forward in the legislative process, and what value our voice as an organization can bring to the table.</div> <div class="conl">Scire: What kinds of previous experience — personal, professional, educational, etc. — would you say led you to this role, specifically? The announcement mentions you took a special interest in First Amendment law as a student at Michigan State University. Have you ever worked in journalism?</div> <div class="conr">Corra: I haven’t worked as a journalist specifically, but I’ve always felt drawn to journalism as a way of storytelling and truth-telling. I taught First Amendment law to high school students as part of a legal clinic during law school (we taught in pairs, and that’s actually how I met my now-wife, Kristen). Learning the intricacies of the First Amendment heightened my interest in it, and I’ve always felt that journalists have an extremely important role in upholding the principles of 1A. Beyond this, my professional background includes policy, public affairs, and grassroots advocacy work spanning across issue areas including immigration reform, renewable energy, climate resiliency, and civics education advocacy. I’m from Appalachia and have worked primarily in Tennessee and other southern states.</div> <div class="conl">Scire: Now that’s a meetcute. We’ve seen several legislative attempts to boost local news — <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/12/media-reform-focuses-on-state-and-local-initiatives/">some more successful</a> <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/09/some-questions-and-answers-about-the-local-journalism-sustainability-act/">than others</a> — and the press release announcing your hiring mentions helping LION members “take advantage of tax breaks and other policy benefits.” The release also notes, though, there’s been “a rise in legislation [that] could have a chilling effect” on local newsrooms. Do you anticipate spending more time on defense than offense in your first year on the job?</div> <div class="conr">Corra: I’m prepared for both scenarios, but it will largely depend on what we see being proposed by state lawmakers in the coming weeks as the legislative season fully takes off. I want to position LION to have a seat at the table shaping policy outcomes proactively, while knowing that there could be situations where we end up playing more of a defensive role depending on what trends we’re seeing throughout the country. </div> <div class="conm">Culpepper: You mentioned state lawmakers. I think many people assume the prospects for federal legislation that’ll boost local news or extend press protections are not great following the 2024 election. Do you think legislation that would support LION members is possible on the national level under a Trump presidency and Republican-controlled Congress? And, specifically, how much of a policy priority is legal protection for newsrooms in the context of a rise in SLAPP lawsuits? Are there specific protections you think are realistic and worth pursuing?</div> <div class="conr">Corra: I don’t want to write-off anything as it’s still very early in the new administration. That being said, I haven’t seen a lot that makes me feel particularly optimistic about there being federal legislation that supports or boosts local news, or that offers enhanced protections for the press. The current congress is very divided — with extremely slim GOP majorities — so we are likely to see more legislative gridlock at least until the 2026 midterms. The rise in SLAPP lawsuits is very concerning. I’m hesitant to opine on what’s realistic legislatively at this point, however I think anything that strengthens protections for newsrooms is worth at least looking into and dedicating some time to pursuing. </div> <div class="conm">Culpepper: LION is a pretty big tent, counting among its 500+ members both nonprofits and for-profits of different sizes and stages of development. I imagine you may, fairly quickly, run into policy efforts that would help some members and leave out others. (I’m thinking about legislation passed last year in New York State that <a href="https://gothamist.com/news/new-yorks-90m-tax-break-for-local-news-outlets-leaves-out-tv-and-nonprofits">left out nonprofits</a>.) How will you approach the challenge of advocating for all LION members?</div> <div class="conr">Corra: My focus will be on policy that moves the ball forward for the most members possible, and part of that is being an active player in this policy space. I want LION to have a voice in important policy conversations as legislation is being developed because it will allow us to make the best possible case for outcomes that are most beneficial to our members. </div> <div class="conm">Culpepper: How are you thinking about specifically supporting LION’s nonprofit members, given the limits to political activity that come with that tax status?</div> <div class="conr">Corra: Can you clarify? LION is a nonprofit, so we’re subject to the same rules as our nonprofit members. </div> <div class="conm">Culpepper: Of course. Chris [Krewson]’s comment that “the bigger hurdle will be activating nonprofit publishers” made me specifically curious about whether you might be thinking about supporting or guiding LION’s nonprofit members in different ways than for-profit members (even with LION being a nonprofit subject to the same <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/lobbying">restrictions</a> nonprofit members might be nervous about!). In fact, maybe that’s part of the answer – that you and LION will be specifically well-equipped to guide nonprofit members precisely because LION is complying with the same restrictions in its own activity.</div> <div class="conr">Corra: Part of my role is to help guide LION’s members on how to engage with lawmakers in appropriate ways. The role of advocacy is to educate and inform, so helping LION’s nonprofit members feel empowered to do that where appropriate will be a key part of what I do. </div> <div class="conm">Culpepper: While the American government has some <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/12/government-subsidies-to-save-local-news/">history of subsidizing local news</a>, many journalists are wary of any entanglement with government funding, and risks of perceived or real conflicts of interest. Is it your sense that LION members are starting from the premise that there is a need for, essentially, a LION lobbyist to advocate for policies that support all members — or do you think you’ll have to win some members over who might harbor hesitation about getting involved in policy sausage-making?</div> <div class="conr">Corra: I don’t want to speak on behalf of members this early in my role, but my sense is that they want to know that LION is advocating on their behalf in the interests of helping them build a sustainable news organization. I don’t expect to be given the trust and support of our members without earning it, so my goal is to demonstrate to members the importance of having LION represented in these important policy matters that are already taking place. If policy is being crafted that impacts our members, I think it’s important that we are making efforts to help shape it to their benefit. The sausage-making is going to happen whether we choose to be a part of it or not. </div> <div class="conm">Culpepper: Thinking internationally, are there any policies that are already on your radar that you might like to see emulated in or adapted to the U.S. to support LION newsrooms? </div> <div class="conr">Corra: My focus since taking on this role has been entirely on policy in the states and federally, so I haven’t done a full enough review yet of international policies that we’d like to see adopted here. I think given how much legislation has the potential to significantly impact our members right in the states and in Congress, my focus will be on that until we reach the state legislative off-season (around April/May). </div> <div class="conl">Scire: In this series, we’ve featured several people who’ve been hired to spearhead change in a news industry where old habits can die hard. LION itself is not a newsroom, of course, but I’m wondering if you can reflect on being “the first-ever” in an organization. What are some of the challenges? The opportunities?</div> <div class="conr">Corra: I’ve worked for small and large companies where I’ve been the first person to assume certain roles, and one of the challenges is that you don’t have a predecessor to learn from or as much institutional knowledge to gain like you would in a more established role. I am grateful for the opportunity because it means I can shape this role in my vision and leverage my experience and creativity to create something really unique and impactful. The local independent news industry needs strong advocates in spaces that they have not traditionally had, so the opportunity to be a creative advocate in that space is really exciting to me. </div> <div class="photocredit">Photo of California State Capitol by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@joshhild">Josh Hild</a>.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/meet-the-first-ever-policy-and-advocacy-director-at-lion-publishers/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>A new outlet covers climate policy in the language Brazil knows best: Soccer.</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/a-new-outlet-covers-climate-policy-in-the-language-brazil-knows-best-soccer/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/a-new-outlet-covers-climate-policy-in-the-language-brazil-knows-best-soccer/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Hanaa' Tameez]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 04 Feb 2025 17:26:57 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Brazil]]></category> <category><![CDATA[climate change]]></category> <category><![CDATA[climate journalism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[climate news]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Climate Observatory]]></category> <category><![CDATA[football]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Observatorio do Clima]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Revista Piauí]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Roberto Kaz]]></category> <category><![CDATA[soccer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[sports]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235811</guid> <description><![CDATA[The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 29) in Baku, Azerbaijan closed out with a deal for rich countries to contribute $300 billion over 10 years to help developing countries fight climate change. The poorer countries, expected to face more of the consequences for climate change, had requested $1.3 trillion. Amid a flurry of...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 29) in Baku, Azerbaijan <a href="https://apnews.com/article/climate-cop29-finance-deal-explainer-52d39dd252ffcc4d4b8d1a9a68e375e4">closed out with a deal</a> for rich countries to contribute $300 billion over 10 years to help developing countries fight climate change. The poorer countries, expected to face more of the consequences for climate change, had requested $1.3 trillion. Amid a flurry of stories about the terms of agreement, Brazilian publication <a href="https://centraldacop.oc.eco.br/">Central da COP</a> summed it up with a one-word headline: <a href="https://centraldacop.oc.eco.br/azerbaijazo/">Azerbaijazo</a>. Brazilians and global soccer fans reading this will immediately clock, from that one word, that the deal is to be considered a massive failure, a tragedy even, because the headline is a reference to the <a href="https://sites.duke.edu/wcwp/tournament-guides/world-cup-2014/world-cup-2014-fan-guide/anglophone-version/the-1950-world-cup-brazilian-tragedy/">Maracanazo</a>: Brazil’s 2-1 loss to Uruguay in the 1950 World Cup final as the host country, at the Maracanã, a storied stadium that was built specifically for the tournament. Headlines and stories like that are the bread and butter of <a href="https://centraldacop.oc.eco.br/">Central da COP</a>, a new publication launched by the <a href="https://oc.eco.br/">Climate Observatory</a>, Brazil’s top climate NGO, to cover climate politics and policies. The publication employs the language and urgency of soccer to help readers understand climate issues in the lead-up to COP 30 that will be held in Belém, Brazil in November 2025. Other Central da COP headlines: <ul> <li>“<a href="https://centraldacop.oc.eco.br/gol-contra/">OWN GOAL: Pará could house Brazil’s largest thermoelectric complex while hosting COP 30</a>”</li> <li>“<a href="https://centraldacop.oc.eco.br/cartao-vermelho/">Red card: financing proposal presented at COP is ‘unacceptable</a>’“</li> <li>“<a href="https://centraldacop.oc.eco.br/sai-transicao-entra-carvao/">Transition out, coal in: National thermoelectric park activated more polluting plants in 2023</a>”</li> </ul> The stories are illustrated with cleverly photoshopped images such as <a href="https://centraldacop.oc.eco.br/um-contra-todos/">Donald Trump sitting on a World Cup bench in a coach’s seat</a>, <a href="https://centraldacop.oc.eco.br/carbono-entra-em-campo/">the word “carbon” on the jersey of a player about to enter a match</a>, and<a href="https://centraldacop.oc.eco.br/o-gosto-da-derrota/"> Brazilian soccer players comforting each other on the sinking island of Tuvalu</a>. Above the stories’ images is a “sports betting” banner ad that reads “pollute responsibly” and “come bet with us on how many degrees the world will warm while we still invest in oil.” Clicking on the ad leads to a website that <a href="https://www.socioambiental.org/en/socio-environmental-news/civil-society-launches-pressure-platform-against-the-devastation">makes it easy</a> for users to write letters to their elected officials about environmental policies. <img decoding="async" class="nakedboxedimagewide" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-02-03-at-8.37.21 PM.png" alt="" width="" height="" /> More than 212 million people live in Brazil, where soccer (futebol) is the most popular sport and a cultural pillar. The country has <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/266464/number-of-world-cup-titles-won-by-country-since-1930/">won</a> the most FIFA men’s World Cups (5) since the tournament began in 1930. Over <a href="https://www.transfermarkt.us/campeonato-brasileiro-serie-a/besucherzahlen/wettbewerb/BRA1/saison_id/2023">10 million</a> people attended matches in Brazil’s domestic league, <a href="https://brasileiraobetano.com.br/">Brasileirão</a>, in 2024 alone. But the numbers about Brazilians’ consumption of climate news look a little different. In 2024, 60% of Brazilians had come across some type of climate change news in a given week, according to the <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/climate-change-and-news-audiences-report-2024-analysis-news-use-and-attitudes-eight-countries">Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism</a>, down 65% from the year before. Sixty-one percent indicated they were interested in climate news in 2024, compared to 67% in 2023. While climate-specific news avoidance in Brazil <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/climate-change-and-news-audiences-report-2023-analysis-news-use-and-attitudes-eight-countries">decreased slightly</a> in 2023, news avoidance in Brazil overall <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2024/brazil">increased</a> from 41% in 2023 to 47% in 2024, according to the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report. “Since Brazil is a country with a continental size and many regional specificities, climate coverage cannot be uniform,” <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/eloisa-beling-loose-55949231/?originalSubdomain=br">Eloisa Beling Loose</a>, a climate communications professor and researcher at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, told me via email. “The challenge for journalists is to map out who the target audience for that information is and to work with it in mind in their local context. National coverage has the responsibility of showing how the climate crisis connects the fires in the Amazon rainforest with the floods in Rio Grande do Sul, for example.” <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/roberto-kaz-71b70ba7/">Roberto Kaz</a>, the editor of Central da COP, said the name of the publication was inspired by <a href="https://ge.globo.com/programas/central-da-copa/">Central da Copa</a> (World Cup Central), a massively popular Brazilian TV program that covers World Cup news when the tournament rolls around every four years. Once he had the name, he then decided on the format of using soccer terms in climate contexts. Kaz has some experience in creatively engaging audiences in difficult subjects. He’s a longtime writer and editor for <a href="https://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/">revista piauí</a>, a Brazilian news and culture magazine, for its satire section <a href="https://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/herald/">Piauí Herald</a>. In 2018, he helped launch and edit a limited-run daily newsletter, <a href="https://latamjournalismreview.org/articles/brazilian-project-memenews-joins-journalism-and-humor-for-social-transformation/">MemeNews</a>, that used memes to explain environmental policies and human rights issues in Brazil during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency. Now, Kaz is bringing a similar creativity to Central da COP. Stories are written by Climate Observatory staffers, freelancers, and writers from other climate-related NGOs in Brazil. Kaz typically commissions stories from writers about a specific issue and then later adds the soccer references while editing, or adapts already-published stories from partners. “I always tell [the writers], don’t think about soccer,” Kaz said. “Just write as if you were writing for a normal website that talks about climate. What’s important for me is that it has consistency, that it has facts, that it’s [well-written]. I try not to put soccer in the whole text, because I think of soccer just as a way of the person getting into the [story]. Once the person is there, I want them to be informed about climate issues.” A <a href="https://centraldacop.oc.eco.br/var-diretora-da-petrobras-da-bicuda-nos-fatos-em-fala-sobre-petroleo-na-amazonia/">fact-checking</a> column is called VAR (<a href="https://inside.fifa.com/innovation/standards/video-assistant-referee">Video Assistant Referee</a>), a video technology that soccer referees can use during matches to review plays and decisions. The list of the top 10 countries that emit the most carbon dioxide is presented as a table titled “World Emissions Championship 2023,” styled to look like a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/tables">soccer league’s standings table</a>. That list is then used for a tournament bracket where users can predict which countries they think will “reach the final,” aka meet their climate goals. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="nakedrightimage" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/WhatsApp-Image-2025-02-03-at-10.07.03-150x150.jpeg" alt="" width="150" height="150" /> Kaz says that audience numbers on stories have been relatively modest, mostly because the project is still new and launched right before the holiday season in November. But starting this month, Kaz is rolling out a slate of new ideas, including a soccer-style <a href="https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/sports/in-latin-america-world-cup-stickers-are-a-quadrennial-craze.phtml">sticker book</a> and live, in-person events called Central na Rua (“Central [da COP] on the street”). There, Kaz and others — including a gas-pump-shaped mascot puppet named Petro Leco — will discuss and explain climate policy news to an audience à la Sports Center. The first show will be in March at the Sesc Jundiaí, a cultural center in the state of São Paulo, followed by shows at Museo Pontal in Rio de Janeiro and Rio2C, a festival focused on creativity in the city. The goal of all this isn’t to lure in die-hard soccer fans (though that would be a bonus), Kaz said, but rather present climate policy in a language people already understand, and make it a little fun. “Brazil is a country where soccer is [huge], everyone has a team, and it moves billions of dollars,” Kaz said. “I thought it was a good idea not to reach the people who are into soccer, but to reach other people by using a new language to talk about climate, which is a boring subject. The idea was to take that boring subject and make it cool.” <div class="photocredit">Image courtesy of <a href="https://centraldacop.oc.eco.br/brasil-joga-pelo-empate-em-baku/">Roberto Kaz/Central da COP.</a></div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/a-new-outlet-covers-climate-policy-in-the-language-brazil-knows-best-soccer/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>The BBC asked marginalized groups how it could do better. They didn’t hold back.</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-bbc-asked-marginalized-groups-how-it-could-do-better-they-didnt-hold-back/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-bbc-asked-marginalized-groups-how-it-could-do-better-they-didnt-hold-back/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Neel Dhanesha]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 04 Feb 2025 17:19:20 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[BBC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[BBC Wales]]></category> <category><![CDATA[equity]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Hannah Clawson]]></category> <category><![CDATA[license fee]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Media Cymru]]></category> <category><![CDATA[news avoidance]]></category> <category><![CDATA[news avoiders]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News for All]]></category> <category><![CDATA[race]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Shirish Kulkarni]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Suzanne Clark]]></category> <category><![CDATA[UK]]></category> <category><![CDATA[United Kingdom]]></category> <category><![CDATA[wales]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235792</guid> <description><![CDATA[For decades, critics of the BBC have accused it of bias in its coverage and its failure, despite public promises, to diversify its newsroom. In 2001, its own director-general said the corporation was “hideously white,” and 21 years later Variety reported that women of color at the BBC, exhausted by fighting what they called a...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[For decades, critics of the BBC have <a href="https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/11/islamophobia-muslims-media-press-prejudice-bbc-spectator-sky-daily-mail">accused</a> it of <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/2009/08/mehdi-hasan-bbc-wing-bias-corporation">bias</a> in its <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/UK-Sikhs-accuse-BBC-of-racism/articleshow/4914512.cms">coverage</a> and its failure, despite public promises, to diversify its newsroom. In 2001, its own director-general said the corporation was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/1104305.stm">“hideously white,”</a> and 21 years later Variety reported that women of color at the BBC, exhausted by fighting what they called a “broken” system, were <a href="https://variety.com/2022/tv/global/bbc-women-leaving-impartiality-1235221317/">leaving in droves</a>. The BBC remains <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2024/united-kingdom">the most widely used news source in the U.K.</a> but its news coverage is seen by some as “representing a mainly white, middle-class and London-centric point of view,” according to <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/tv-radio-and-on-demand/bbc/bbc-news-review/bbc-news-review.pdf?v=324305">one Ofcom report</a>. Taken together, it’s not a great look for a public broadcaster meant to reflect the British public. It’s not surprising, then, that minority communities within the U.K. aren’t exactly the BBC’s biggest fans; a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/documents/ara-2022-23.pdf">2023 report</a> showed that only <a href="https://www.voice-online.co.uk/news/uk-news/2023/07/11/bbc-black-audience-at-all-time-low/#:~:text=Only%2073%20percent%20of%20Black,audience%20fell%20by%20two%20percent.">73 percent</a> of Black and ethnic minority adults watched the BBC each week, compared to 90 percent of white adults. Clearly, something wasn’t working. So in late 2023 the BBC <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/rdnewslabs/news/2023-10-news-for-all/">teamed up</a> with Media Cymru, a Welsh research and development consortium, to conduct a monthslong participatory research project, gathering members of minority groups in Wales for a series of conversations about how they viewed the BBC and what it could do to win their trust back. The final report, called <a href="https://media.cymru/research/news-for-all-participatory-research-report/">News for All</a>, was published on January 27. “When people ask me about news avoidance, I reject that term completely,” <a href="https://shirishkulkarni.co.uk/">Shirish Kulkarni</a>, a researcher at Media Cymru who led the study, told me. “If you ask people ‘are you interested in your place in the world? Do you want to understand the world?’ Everyone says yes. But if you ask ‘does status quo journalism help you do any of those things?’ They say no. And that’s a rational choice. They’re going to the shop for sense-making, I think. And there’s nothing on the shelf.” To better understand the needs of these marginalized communities, Kulkarni and the BBC gathered a group of 15 to 20 people once a month for six months to talk about how they viewed the news in general and the BBC in particular. They were starting from a low point: according to the report, “about 90% of the participants said they don’t trust the BBC to tell the truth.” The researchers were keenly aware of the community’s mistrust, so they took a number of steps to make participants feel comfortable: sessions were hosted in a community space rather than an office space, for example, and began with a large spread of Indian food — complete with takeaway containers so participants could bring some home. Participants were paid for their time and offered support for travel and childcare costs. Perhaps most unusually, the sessions were led by two members of the community who were trained in facilitation, Amira Hayat and Rhiannon White, while Kulkarni and his two collaborators from the BBC, researchers Hannah Clawson and Suzanne Clark, participated in the discussions. The participants came from a range of age groups and ethnicities: nearly half were between the ages of 18 and 24, and half were of either Asian or Arab origin. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-235793" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Age-chart-700x526.png" alt="" width="649" height="488" srcset="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Age-chart-700x526.png 700w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Age-chart-990x744.png 990w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Age-chart-768x577.png 768w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Age-chart-100x75.png 100w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Age-chart-160x120.png 160w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Age-chart-260x195.png 260w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Age-chart-360x271.png 360w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Age-chart-480x361.png 480w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Age-chart-600x451.png 600w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Age-chart.png 1128w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 649px) 100vw, 649px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-235795" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Ethnicity-chart-700x398.png" alt="" width="700" height="398" srcset="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Ethnicity-chart-700x398.png 700w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Ethnicity-chart-990x563.png 990w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Ethnicity-chart-768x436.png 768w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Ethnicity-chart-100x57.png 100w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Ethnicity-chart-160x91.png 160w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Ethnicity-chart-260x148.png 260w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Ethnicity-chart-360x205.png 360w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Ethnicity-chart-220x124.png 220w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Ethnicity-chart-480x273.png 480w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Ethnicity-chart-600x341.png 600w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Ethnicity-chart.png 1186w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /> What they found was illuminating. Participants told Kulkarni and his collaborators that, first and foremost, they viewed journalism as a form of oppression that had the same impact on their lives as the police. Journalism in general, and the BBC in particular, they said, felt like an arm of the state, and almost half of them refused to pay their <a href="https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/home-news/tv-licence-fee-netflix-disney-bbc-changes-b2688226.html">license fee</a> — essentially a legal permit that allows people to watch live broadcasts and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-51376255">forms the backbone</a> of the BBC’s funding — out of protest against the BBC’s journalism. That doesn’t mean they don’t engage with the news, however; participants were incredibly news literate, Kulkarni told me, and preferred to get their news from other sources. Many people favored Al Jazeera recently, for example, because they appreciated its coverage of the war in Gaza. Often, people got their news from social media or simply word of mouth, and the majority of them were engaging with the news every day. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-235796" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/News-usage-chart-700x448.png" alt="" width="700" height="448" srcset="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/News-usage-chart-700x448.png 700w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/News-usage-chart-990x634.png 990w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/News-usage-chart-768x492.png 768w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/News-usage-chart-100x64.png 100w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/News-usage-chart-160x103.png 160w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/News-usage-chart-260x167.png 260w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/News-usage-chart-360x231.png 360w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/News-usage-chart-480x308.png 480w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/News-usage-chart-600x384.png 600w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/News-usage-chart.png 1152w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /> “If they thought the BBC or mainstream media were better, they would use them,” Kulkarni said. “They were coming because they want the BBC to be better. Because they know the importance of the BBC, and if the BBC could be a tiny little bit better for them, that would have a massive impact on their lives.” Participants’ news literacy went beyond their understanding of the news alone; they also were incredibly aware of newsroom dynamics and expressed a desire for those to change too. “Every day there’s an editorial decision,” one participant quoted in the study said. “Who gets interviewed, how much time they’re given. The public are getting wiser now, they see the lies.” They even talked about performance metrics; if news organizations were measuring success by number of viewers or clicks, for example, they would never be motivated to serve marginalized communities who are, by definition, unable to deliver the same kind of audience volume as established majorities. “The narrative in the industry is ‘oh the thing with news avoidance is they just don’t understand how amazing our public interest journalism is,’” Kulkarni told me. “The thing is, they absolutely understand, the centralization of ownership, the motivations of media barons, and the lack of diversity and inclusion in newsrooms, and that is precisely why they are not engaging with journalism. Because then that plays out in the kind of coverage they see around migration, around education, and around crime. In a way, because they are marginalized, they’re hyper vigilant to the narratives in the news, because it’s existential for them.” In later sessions, participants were asked to come up with the kinds of solutions that would earn their trust back. Among many others in the <a href="https://media.cymru/research/news-for-all-participatory-research-report/">full report</a>, participants said they wanted stories that “’flex’ depending upon how much they already know about a story and the time they have to explore an issue.” They also expressed interest in the BBC including “definitions, background on named individuals, why stories are considered important, and what value they’re going to get from them.” They were much less interested in AI. “Our group has no appetite for more, or cheaper, content if it simply repeats previous mistakes,” the report notes. They also suggested establishing journalists in residence: reporters embedded in communities like theirs, who don’t just report on the community but report on big, systemic stories from the lens of their community. What happens next is up for debate. A spokesperson told me that the BBC will “read this report with interest and will consider its recommendations.” Regardless of whether or not the BBC makes any changes, Kulkarni said the report is free and public, and any media organization interested in better serving marginalized groups would be able to implement its recommendations. “We’re not at all saying there’s an absolutely right way and a wrong way [to do things], but we’re hoping that this is kind of pointing the way to an interesting and novel way of engaging deeply with communities,” Kulkarni said. “If you design for the most marginalized, you get answers that work for everyone.” <div class="ednote">This story has been updated to reflect the BBC’s response to the News for All report.</div> <div class="photocredit">Header photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@blayco?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Callum Blacoe</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/body-of-water-near-building-during-daytime-c4EJRdadIkk?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Unsplash</a>. Charts from the News for All report.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-bbc-asked-marginalized-groups-how-it-could-do-better-they-didnt-hold-back/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>How El Tímpano is changing its reporting practices to protect immigrant sources</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/how-el-timpano-is-changing-its-reporting-practices-to-protect-immigrant-sources/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/how-el-timpano-is-changing-its-reporting-practices-to-protect-immigrant-sources/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sophie Culpepper]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 03 Feb 2025 19:43:10 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[community journalism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[El Timpano]]></category> <category><![CDATA[immigration reporting]]></category> <category><![CDATA[local news]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235756</guid> <description><![CDATA[Soon after Donald Trump won the 2024 election, the team at El Tímpano began considering the implications for their work serving and covering Latino and Mayan immigrant communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. In a political climate that often vilifies the communities El Tímpano serves, managing editor Heather Tirado Gilligan realized telling nuanced, human...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[Soon after Donald Trump won the 2024 election, the team at <a href="https://www.eltimpano.org">El Tímpano</a> began considering the implications for their work serving and covering Latino and <a href="https://www.eltimpano.org/inside-el-timpano/announcing-tumil-el-timpano/">Mayan</a> immigrant communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. In a political climate that often vilifies the communities El Tímpano serves, managing editor <a href="https://www.eltimpano.org/heather-tirado-gilligan/">Heather Tirado Gilligan</a> realized telling nuanced, human stories would be more important than ever. But the real threats of deportation hanging over undocumented immigrants raised the stakes of the newsroom’s work gathering and shining a spotlight on sensitive identifying information. The team was “immediately aware of the implications in the newsroom, of not wanting to…lead people to the most vulnerable in our community,” Gilligan said. “We were trying to think, how do we balance these two things? How do we keep these people safe and tell their stories at the same time?” Since November, Gilligan has led the newsroom’s work developing new reporting policies designed to balance those two imperatives. El Tímpano <a href="https://www.eltimpano.org/inside-el-timpano/protecting-immigrant-sources/">announced those policies last month</a>, along with a <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nMp9fYKI_qY1phuT2q2YKLi1oVWc36cHQ-UkPliJTu8/edit?tab=t.0">public annotated bibliography</a> summarizing key takeaways from the sources Gilligan consulted to inform the new guidelines. Among those sources: <a href="https://borderlessmag.org/about/">Borderless Magazine</a>, the Chicago-based nonprofit outlet “reimagining immigration journalism for a more just and equitable future.” Back in 2017, after Trump signed the travel ban in the early days of his first term, Borderless “realized that we needed a set of ethical standards to specifically address the unique dangers facing someone who is a refugee, asylum seeker or of undocumented status who chooses to share their story with journalists for publication.” They established <a href="https://borderlessmag.org/best-practices/">best practices</a> for reporting before, during, and after an interview, such as not specifying a person’s immigration status unless relevant to the story, and explaining the potential risks of speaking with a reporter. Gilligan also cited a 2022 Columbia Journalism Review <a href="https://www.cjr.org/analysis/undocumented-immigrants-interview-risks-toolkit.php">article</a> that opens with a cautionary tale about the human consequences of inadvertently exposing a source in a news story. Journalist <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/07/at-futuro-media-maria-hinojosa-is-building-a-home-for-authentic-latino-storytelling/">Maria Hinojosa</a> interviewed an undocumented immigrant, Rosa, for a 2004 CNN documentary, and Rosa and her family were arrested by immigration authorities after the program aired. “Despite her efforts to protect Rosa’s anonymity, she had missed one small detail: the license plate on a car belonging to Rosa’s boyfriend had appeared, unblurred, in the background of a shot,” the article notes. (El Tímpano’s policy specifies that journalists should avoid “license plate numbers that are inadvertently revealed in photos.”) “That [story] really resonated with me,” Gilligan told me, “because honestly, that’s our greatest fear.” That fear “motivated us to come up with these policies…[the fear] that in trying to help someone, we would inadvertently harm them.” <h3 class="subhead">Educating sources about the risks of speaking to a reporter</h3> The first policy, “source protection and informed consent,” means El Tímpano is standardizing its approach to informing sources of the potential risks of speaking to a reporter. Specifically, the newsroom’s reporters will distribute <a href="https://defineamerican.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/DA-Reporter-Post-Card-FINAL.pdf">physical cards</a> created by <a href="https://www.publicsource.org/policies/">PublicSource</a> and <a href="https://defineamerican.com">Define American</a> that read a bit like a “know your rights” overview for speaking to a reporter, including defining the difference between on the record, anonymous, on background, and off the record. These cards are <a href="https://defineamerican.com/research/talking-to-journalists/">available in multiple languages</a>; El Tímpano printed them in Spanish. In addition to distributing the cards ahead of interviews, El Tímpano is making them available during immigration forums, newsroom office hours, and <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/10/what-el-timpano-learned-training-100-latino-immigrants-on-disinformation-defense/">other events</a> with community members. The idea behind the cards is, in part, to shift the power dynamic in sources’ favor, Gilligan said, to “make people feel kind of empowered in the relationship — like, you can ask us questions, too.” Here, also, there’s a line to be walked; these conversations must be up-front about the risks of speaking to a reporter without gratuitously intensifying a climate of fear, Gilligan explained. Fear is already fueling disinformation in the communities El Tímpano covers, she noted. “We don’t want to terrify people, or make them more afraid than they necessarily are,” she said. “But we more want to convey, what are best practices for you to keep yourself safe?” That approach is consistent with El Tímpano’s <a href="https://www.eltimpano.org/mission-story/">stated mission</a> to inform and empower its audience. (El Tímpano means “eardrum” in Spanish.) During the <a href="https://internews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/INA_Oakland-California_7.11.18_for-web.pdf">listening</a> <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/04/the-listening-post-collective-offers-a-free-road-map-and-microgrants-for-meeting-community-information-needs/">work</a> that led to the outlet’s creation, the outlet heard that the news too often “created fear in [people] without allowing them any avenue for action,” Gilligan said. <h3 class="subhead">Limiting sharing — and gathering — of identifying details</h3> Here’s how El Tímpano now approaches identifying sources who are not public figures: <blockquote class="rippedpaper"><div>Starting in January 2025, as a rule, El Tímpano will identify sources who are not public figures by first name and last initial, age and city of residence. If other potentially identifying information is needed for the story, we will change the identifiers so we never use more than three. For example, if we report a story about fast food workers that reveals a source’s job, we would either use a pseudonym for that source or not reveal their age or city of residence (see list of potential identifiers below).</div></blockquote> That list of potential identifies includes country of origin, employment, school, social media account, and “identifying physical descriptions.” Previously, these were requests the newsroom might have accommodated on a case-by-case basis, like many newsrooms, Gilligan explained. “The biggest shift here is making that case to case our default,” she said. The policy is also designed to protect sources by minimizing the information that could be subpoenaed, Gilligan explained. “There are certain types of information that we are not keeping if we don’t need it [and] not collecting if we don’t need it,” she said. El Tímpano is refining an additional, separate data and records retention policy, to the same end of minimizing and protecting information on file that could harm sources. For now, keeping information as secure as possible means El Tímpano tries “to place the records in a place that has higher privacy protection.” Specifically, the team keeps records on a cloud service provided by the privacy-minded <a href="https://proton.me">Proton</a>. The policy acknowledges some of these practices may seem out of step with how other outlets think about newsgathering: <blockquote class="rippedpaper"><div>We recognize that this approach seems unconventional in the context of the traditional idea that journalism’s credibility is rooted in gathering and sharing as much information as possible about the life experiences of the people we feature in our story. El Tímpano’s credibility and legitimacy, however, aren’t derived from journalistic standards that are extractive and potentially harmful. Our position as an authoritative source depends on our close connection to our community, which fuels our community-powered reporting. El Tímpano’s newsroom’s top priority is to maintain our community’s trust.</div></blockquote> The team discussed the possibility such a policy change could, at worst, discourage other “more mainstream” newsrooms from partnering with and republishing El Tímpano’s work, potentially undercutting an important source of reach for the small local news nonprofit. (In the <a href="https://www.eltimpano.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/2024-El-Timpano-Midyear-Impact-Report_Final.pdf">past year</a>, the outlet has partnered with news organizations including <a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/california-expanded-health-coverage-immigrants-medicaid-disenrollment/">KFF Health News</a>, the <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/medicaid-latino-immigrants-california-19365919.php">San Francisco Chronicle</a>, <a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/12008261/california-law-recognizes-unique-health-needs-of-indigenous-latin-americans">KQED</a>, and <a href="https://www.calhealthreport.org/2024/05/07/advocates-push-bill-to-expand-covered-california-to-undocumented-immigrants/">California Health Report</a>.) “It’s a little early in the game to see whether or not this has happened,” she said. But Gilligan, and El Tímpano, came to the conclusion that this policy was necessary to preserve the news outlet’s greatest strength: the trust of the communities it serves, as “community-fueled journalism.” “It’s our reputation for our closeness to our community that makes our journalism something that people are interested in and want to invest in,” Gilligan said. “We do reach this population that some people would describe as hard to reach. But we have a very close connection to them, and so that is the most important thing to us — to keep that going.” In fact, in the early days of implementing these policies, Gilligan said the biggest challenge remains convincing people to talk at all. “Despite our unique position, people are still hesitant to talk,” she said. “People are very frightened.” <h3 class="subhead">A focus on in-person outreach, SMS, and education about online privacy</h3> Beyond reported stories, El Tímpano will exercise caution in what it shares on its social media accounts about its own reporting activities. Specifically, it will avoid sharing “the physical location of reporting outreach on our social media accounts or other public-facing communication platforms.” Instead, the news outlet will double down on in-person outreach, “accompanying our outreach team to meet people where they are: at community events and forums, food distributions and swap meets.” It will also continue to communicate with subscribers via SMS about where and how to reach its journalists. El Tímpano is going a step further than thinking about how to protect sources in the context of its reporting; it’s proactively sending text messages about how community members can protect their digital privacy. Here’s a text message El Tímpano sent Jan. 30 (in the original Spanish and translated to English, provided and translated by Gilligan): <blockquote class="rippedpaper"><div>Hola, soy Vanessa de El Tímpano. Hemos escuchado las preocupaciones de la comunidad sobre la seguridad bajo la nueva administración. Estos son algunos consejos para protegerse en internet: – Evite publicar información personal, como su dirección o estatus migratorio, en redes sociales. Hable de temas personales en privado, en persona o por teléfono. – Active la autenticación de dos factores para mayor seguridad en sus redes sociales. Un código es enviado a su teléfono para que pueda ingresar. – Evite compartir información personal a través de mensajes de texto. Si desea hablar con El Tímpano de temas sensibles, coordinaremos una llamada. Cuéntenos, ¿qué preguntas tiene?</div></blockquote> <blockquote class="rippedpaper"><div>Hi, this is Vanessa from El Tímpano. We have heard the community’s concerns about security under the new administration. Here are some tips to protect yourself on the internet: – Avoid posting personal information, such as your address or immigration status, on social networks. Discuss personal matters in private, in person or over the phone. – Activate two-factor authentication for greater security on your social networks. A code is sent to your phone so you can log in. – Avoid sharing personal information via text message. If you want to talk to El Tímpano about sensitive issues, we will arrange a call. Tell us, what questions do you have?</div></blockquote> “I would encourage all other news organizations who are covering vulnerable communities to think through the best way to balance telling their stories with protecting their sources,” Gilligan said. “I think that’s a very important exercise for everyone, all journalists, to be doing right now.” You can read El Tímpano’s new policies in full <a href="https://www.eltimpano.org/inside-el-timpano/protecting-immigrant-sources/">here</a>. <div class="photocredit">Informational postcard for potential sources courtesy of El Tímpano.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/how-el-timpano-is-changing-its-reporting-practices-to-protect-immigrant-sources/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>An independent journalist doubled paid subscriptions after scooping everyone on the federal funding freeze</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/an-independent-journalist-doubled-paid-subscriptions-after-scooping-everyone-on-the-federal-funding-freeze/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/an-independent-journalist-doubled-paid-subscriptions-after-scooping-everyone-on-the-federal-funding-freeze/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sarah Scire]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 03 Feb 2025 17:23:28 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Beehiiv]]></category> <category><![CDATA[independent journalists]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Marisa Kabas]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Substack]]></category> <category><![CDATA[The Handbasket]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Trump administration]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235715</guid> <description><![CDATA[When The Washington Post ran its first piece on the federal funding freeze last week, its reporters gave credit where it was due: It was independent journalist Marisa Kabas who had broken the story. Kabas started her newsletter The Handbasket as a Substack in 2022. (As in “to hell in a handbasket.”) The newsletter, now...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[When The Washington Post ran <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/27/white-house-pauses-federal-grants/">its first piece</a> on the federal funding freeze last week, its reporters gave credit where it was due: It was independent journalist <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/marisakabas.bsky.social">Marisa Kabas</a> who had broken the story. Kabas started her newsletter <a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/">The Handbasket</a> as a Substack in 2022. (As in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_hell_in_a_handbasket">“to hell in a handbasket.”</a>) The newsletter, <a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/substackers-against-nazis">now hosted on Beehiiv</a>, became her full-time job a year later. In the wild political week that followed the funding freeze memo, readers rewarded Kabas for her scoop. The Handbasket went from 8,300 subscribers to 16,000 — and the number who pay ($8/month, $80/year) rocketed from 815 to 1,700. She also accepts support via <a href="https://venmo.com/u/Marisa-Kabas">Venmo</a> and the tip-like payment platform <a href="https://ko-fi.com/marisakabas">Ko-Fi</a>. “The jump has been staggering,” Kabas told me. Other independent journalists relying on subscription revenue have stressed the importance of scoops and breaking news for growth. Newsletters are <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/09/what-i-learned-in-my-second-year-on-substack/">“a hits business,”</a> <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/caseynewton.bsky.social">Casey Newton</a> of <a href="https://www.platformer.news/">Platformer</a> has said. “I truly wish every reporter could have the experience of getting a raise on the same day they produced something of value to their readers.” Well, now Kabas has had it: Assuming those new subscribers stick around, they should boost her annual revenue by more than $70,000. In her big scoop last week, Kabas had posted a screenshot of the internal memo announcing the federal funding freeze on Bluesky, but didn’t send to subscribers of her newsletter <a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/">The Handbasket</a> right away. In a message to readers, she <a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/omb-memo-freeze-federal-grants-scoop">reflected</a> on her hesitation: <blockquote>You’re probably wondering why I didn’t send this out earlier when I had the scoop. To be honest, I’ve been asking myself the same question. I think that despite the fact that I’ve proven to myself and to my readers that I have good news instincts, it can still be challenging to have the confidence to report a story with such far-reaching impact. Despite trusting my source implicitly, I still hesitated. I sat with my stomach in knots until I saw The Washington Post confirmed. Despite the massive growth of independent journalism, there’s still this idea that news is only “real” once it’s confirmed by massive corporate outlets. After all, could one woman with absolutely zero institutional backing in leggings and a sweatshirt in her NYC apartment really be the one to break such an important story? Now we know the answer is yes.</blockquote> The Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/article/independent-journalists-trump-local-news-a60b49c97058d14f1b2e36cdc771d8f7">called</a> her scoop “a key moment for a growing cadre of journalists who work independently to gather and analyze news and market themselves as brands.” Kabas’ success derives at least in part from her vigorous critiques of mainstream news outlets. (“<a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/feck-you-abc-news">A truly breathtaking display of fecklessness</a>,” “<a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/the-grotesque-age-trump">kowtowing to fascists hellbent on cloistering themselves away while general suffering metastasizes</a>,” “<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/marisakabas.bsky.social/post/3lh2gclbkbs2w">bootlickers</a>,” etc.) It’s clear the criticism is resonating with some readers. She is distinguishing herself from outlets and journalists often unwilling <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-reporters-fired-pro-palestinian-remarks-1837834">or</a> <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/new-york-times-gaza-letter-resignation?srsltid=AfmBOorsXq-pYV8kOgIaIagvo6uzFjq6ioop6PW8SYUaorRyU39kF9zT">unable</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2023/11/08/hearst-social-media-policy/">to</a>, for example, express public support <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/marisakabas.bsky.social/post/3lgwcr5bcss2t">for trans people in America</a> or <a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/we-are-all-one-vessel">ending the war in Gaza.</a> Some of Nieman Lab’s <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/collection/predictions-2025/">predictions for journalism</a> this year anticipated <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/12/the-media-becomes-an-activist-for-democracy/">this surge of support</a> — or at least a <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/12/media-owners-will-protect-the-powerful/">backlash</a> to a <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/12/medias-acquiescence-to-trump-will-fail/">“both-sidesy middle.”</a> The Handbasket has been publishing memorable work for longer than the letters OMB or DOGE have been appearing in sequential push alerts. A Long Island native herself, Kabas covered the George Santos drama closely and creatively (see: <a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/schmear-campaign-a-bagel-crawl-across">“Schmear campaign”</a>). She’s published exclusive interviews <a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/a-conversation-with-the-newspaper">with the Kansas newspaper owner raided by police</a> and <a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/exclusive-women-staffers-of-jann">female staffers of Jann Wenner’s Rolling Stone</a>. <blockquote class="bluesky-embed" data-bluesky-uri="at://did:plc:ephgxy2govc7kabxphofsxlj/app.bsky.feed.post/3lgsplsegoc2n" data-bluesky-cid="bafyreidldg56ov4fiplf2ixs2levbzv3av3w3gd6mzaz6eeih5jzkip3gu"> Marisa Kabas will always be dear to me because of her article tracking down what Long Island bagel shop locals thought about George Santos <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ephgxy2govc7kabxphofsxlj/post/3lgsplsegoc2n?ref_src=embed">[image or embed]</a> — Eleanor Courtemanche (<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ephgxy2govc7kabxphofsxlj?ref_src=embed">@ecourtem.bsky.social</a>) <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ephgxy2govc7kabxphofsxlj/post/3lgsplsegoc2n?ref_src=embed">January 28, 2025 at 9:55 AM</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Over email, I asked Kabas about working solo, what makes a Handbasket story a Handbasket story, and connecting with readers on Bluesky. Full disclosure: Kabas and I met at George Washington University, where we both worked at the independent student newspaper. She graduated with a degree in journalism in 2009. Our conversation, lightly edited, is below. <div class="storybreak-simple"></div> <div class="conl">Scire: When you launched The Handbasket in June 2022, you considered the newsletter a side project for more personal or hard-to-place pieces. Is the newsletter now your full-time job?</div> <div class="conr">Kabas: The Handbasket is my full-time job. 2024 was the first full calendar year that I did it full-time as sort of a test of whether it was sustainable or not. I’m happy to say that it is.</div> <div class="conl">Scire: What was the tipping point that made you make that leap? Is this a one-woman operation still? </div> <div class="conr">Kabas: I was freelancing for other publications like HuffPost, Rolling Stone, and MSNBC.com, and I just felt like I had to keep proving my value over and over again. I would be really excited about an idea and either an editor didn’t get it, or just didn’t have the budget to pay me for it. I was sick of running into dead ends, and I realized that if I just published everything myself, the road would be wide open. It’s very much a one-woman show, but I’m looking to bring on paid freelancers for guest posts. </div> <div class="conl">Scire: Your <a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/c/about">About Me page</a> has a screenshot of you above the chyron “Veteran: George Santos took $3,000 from a dying dog’s GoFundMe.” I remember your coverage on that story and on the police raid on a local newspaper in Kansas, too. What makes a Handbasket story a Handbasket story? What kinds of stories do you look for, and what won’t you cover?</div> <div class="conr">Kabas: A Handbasket story is one that I care about and I figure if I care about it, other people will, too. That instinct hasn’t steered me wrong so far. There’s no hard and fast rule for what I won’t cover, but I don’t think “Billionaires Are Good” is a headline you’ll ever see on The Handbasket. </div> <div class="conl">Scire: It feels like you’ve cultivated <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/marisakabas.bsky.social/post/3lh64kfpajs26">a real community of readers</a> and sources via Bluesky. I’ve seen <a title="https://bsky.app/profile/magpie.tips/post/3lgw67fwvp22q" href="https://bsky.app/profile/magpie.tips/post/3lgw67fwvp22q" data-outlook-id="a764087a-ca29-4687-b007-82ba52112421">Marisa Kabas memes</a> and many, many recommendations for your newsletter. Tell me about your relationship with the platform. </div> <div class="conr">Kabas: When Elon Musk bought Twitter and completely destroyed all the things about it that people enjoyed, I made the jump to nascent Bluesky, and it’s been a balm. The hateful trolls are told to kick rocks, and smart and thoughtful voices are rewarded. I found early on that Bluesky people were really enthusiastic about my work, and I was diligent about personally connecting with them — not as a means to an end, but because I was genuinely so touched that they thought I had something to say. They gave me the confidence to keep at it. </div> <div class="conl">Scire: On Bluesky and elsewhere, we’ve seen a lot of frustration with legacy news — and not just cable news outlets like CNN or Fox but The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others. How would you summarize that frustration? Are there complaints you share? Any you tend to disagree with, or think are unfair?</div> <div class="conr">Kabas: People are frustrated with legacy media because it often feels like they’re driving with the parking brake on. In these unprecedented times, readers/viewers want to feel like the people delivering their news are also experiencing it on a human level just like they are. I share these frustrations, especially when the public is being asked not to believe our eyes. All the people who sounded the alarm about Project 2025 and the destruction of a second Trump administration were absolutely right. So where is that story? </div> <div class="conl">Scire: I loved what you <a title="https://depthperceptionbyll.substack.com/p/the-handbasket-marisa-kabas-journalist-writer-interview" href="https://depthperceptionbyll.substack.com/p/the-handbasket-marisa-kabas-journalist-writer-interview" data-outlook-id="0b9eaa19-4b98-48d0-ab30-2061be1544de">told</a> one interviewer last year, when talking about the reader response to <a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/i-figured-out-why-nicole-kidman-and">a post</a> you wrote about trying to figure out how Nicole Kidman and John Boehner ended up in a photo together: “I think older media brands underestimate their audience and think they can’t handle new things. I came up against that a lot in the past when pitching other outlets and trying to conform to a narrow expectation of what readers want. From my experience, they like to be kept on their toes.” You’ve been reporting on disturbing developments at the highest levels of government in recent weeks. How are you thinking about incorporating unexpected and/or lighter work during what looks to be a long period of unnerving and upsetting news for many of your subscribers?</div> <div class="conr">Kabas: Finding a balance is going to be really difficult with this fire hose of life-changing news for millions of people, but I will make a concerted effort to find the Nicole Kidman and John Boehner stories where I can. I know readers will need that relief, as will I. I’ve been working on a Hanukkah romantic comedy screenplay for a while now, and I look forward to going back to that whenever I need a break.</div> <div class="conl">Scire: What’s your favorite part of being an independent journalist? Your least favorite?</div> <div class="conr">Kabas: My favorite part of being an independent journalist is that I’ve been able to get to this point completely at my own pace. There’s so much glorification of hustle culture and working 80 hour weeks, but that’s not me. My least favorite part is that I’m 100% responsible for everything and I have to own that. It can be lonely and isolating and I miss working with a team. But I have so many amazing journalist friends who have helped me with everything from editing to website design, and they’ve helped keep me from losing my mind. Even as an independent journalist, it takes a village. </div> <div class="photocredit">Screenshot via <a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/c/about">The Handbasket</a>.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/an-independent-journalist-doubled-paid-subscriptions-after-scooping-everyone-on-the-federal-funding-freeze/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>What will a conservative National Labor Relations Board mean for news unions?</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/what-will-a-conservative-national-labor-relations-board-mean-for-news-unions/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/what-will-a-conservative-national-labor-relations-board-mean-for-news-unions/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Hanaa' Tameez]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 30 Jan 2025 17:03:22 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Connecticut News Guild]]></category> <category><![CDATA[CWA]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Hamilton Nolan]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Jon Schleuss]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Matt Pearce]]></category> <category><![CDATA[National Labor Relations Board]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Guild]]></category> <category><![CDATA[news unions]]></category> <category><![CDATA[newsroom unions]]></category> <category><![CDATA[NLRB]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]]></category> <category><![CDATA[union organizing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Zack Tanner]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235575</guid> <description><![CDATA[With the Trump-induced shakeups to the National Labor Relations Board earlier this week, journalism’s labor leaders say newsroom unions will likely face even longer processing times for union petitions and labor violation claims, and that the news industry should expect more frequent and drawn out strikes. President Donald Trump’s move to fire National Labor Relations...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[With the Trump-induced shakeups to the National Labor Relations Board earlier this week, journalism’s labor leaders say newsroom unions will likely face even longer processing times for union petitions and labor violation claims, and that the news industry should expect more frequent and drawn out strikes. President Donald Trump’s move to <a href="https://www.law360.com/employment-authority/labor/articles/2284118?nl_pk=a8e7839a-0577-4acb-9899-6e5e12b7a7b0&read_more=1&nlsidx=0&nlaidx=0">fire</a> National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo and board member Gwynne Wilcox late on Monday night has left the NLRB — an independent government agency tasked with mediating between employers and employees — with just two members on a five-seat panel. (Note: Wilcox’s termination is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act, and she is exploring legal action, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/28/gwynne-wilcox-trump-labor-board">The Guardian</a>). Without a quorum, the Board can’t issue decisions on federal cases. A right-ward power shift on the already cash-strapped and short-staffed NLRB will likely make the agency more employer-friendly and union organizing <a href="https://www.law360.com/employment-authority/articles/2287984/unions-to-face-hurdles-organizing-under-trump-nlrb">more difficult</a>, the labor board’s observers say. Workers across industries, including in journalism, will have to be their own best advocates if they can’t expect enforcement of federal laws. <blockquote class="rippedpaper"><div>But first, what does the NLRB do exactly? The NLRB is a “<a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/who-we-are">quasi-judicial</a>” body made up of presidential appointees (confirmed by the Senate) that upholds federal labor laws. It hears and decides cases on labor law violations under the <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/guidance/key-reference-materials/national-labor-relations-act">National Labor Relations Act</a>, administers union elections, investigates unfair labor practice charges (ULP) by employers, workers, and unions, and can help mediate disputes between employers and employees. In the news industry, that has looked like: <a href="https://thenewsguild.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/BDO.02-CA-262640.DBD_.02-CA-262640.NBCUniversal-Final.docx-1.pdf">ruling</a> NBCUniversal couldn’t roll back staff wage increases in 2020; declaring McClatchy couldn’t impose pageview quotas on its journalists while <a href="https://newsguild.org/nlrb-rules-for-idaho-newsguild-pageview-quotas-are-not-allowed/">settling</a> an unfair labor practice charge from the Idaho Statesman News Guild in 2021; and <a href="https://onlabor.org/tracking-attacks-on-the-nlrb-mixed-result-in-dc-agency-wins-elsewhere/">seeking</a> an injunction against the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2024 to stop alleged unfair labor practices while its unionized workers are on strike and trying to negotiate a contract. The agency has 26 field offices across the country that <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/resources/nlrb-process">investigate</a> cases in their corresponding regions. If warranted, the regional office files a complaint and then an administrative law judge hears the case in a regional hearing to make a decision. Either party in the case can appeal the decision to a federal appellate court, which can decide to enforce or overturn the NLRB’s ruling. The NLRB itself can’t enforce its own rulings and its stances usually <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26356886">correlate</a> with those of the ruling party of the time.</div></blockquote> The agency has been <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/bidens-nlrb-restoring-rights/">chronically underfunded</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/17/us-labor-agency-union-activity">understaffed</a> with a <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/union-petitions-filed-with-nlrb-double-since-fy-2021-up-27-since-fy-2023">steadily increasing</a> workload in recent years, which has weakened its impact and reliability. It can take months or even years for the NLRB to issue a decision in a case, leaving workers in limbo. <a href="https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/">Hamilton Nolan</a> is a longtime labor journalist who covers unions, the labor movement, and inequality for In These Times. As a reporter for Gawker in 2015, he was part of the union organizing committee for the Gawker Media union. He said that with a Republican-led NLRB, newsroom unions in disputes with their employers will be less likely to rely on the government as a good-faith referee. “It will be bad in the sense that Trump is breaking the government machinery that oversees the union organizing process,” Nolan said. “Republicans are making it bureaucratically harder to enforce labor law and get new unions certified. But the fact is that this will only be temporary, and it shouldn’t hold any workers back from organizing. We need unions now more than ever.” According to <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">new data</a> from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 14.3 million unionized workers in the United States in 2024, making up just 9.9% of eligible wage and salary workers. That’s a slight decline from <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/union2_01222021.pdf">10.8%</a> in 2020 and <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/union2_01262017.pdf">10.7%</a> in 2016. But according to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonschleuss/">Jon Schleuss</a>, president of The <a href="https://newsguild.org/">NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America,</a> the organization saw a huge wave in media union organizing during the first Trump administration. About 3,400 media workers unionized with The NewsGuild-CWA alone between 2017 and 2020, during Trump’s first presidency. Since 2016, nearly 8,000 media workers from 146 companies have unionized with The NewsGuild-CWA. Schleuss said he expects another wave of organizing during Trump’s second term. “This is a moment when workers, regardless of industry, are going to be trying to reduce the chaos in their lives and especially at work,” Schleuss said. “They’re going to want to form unions, probably at a higher rate.” Several media organizations in recent years have voluntarily recognized unions formed by their newsrooms. Among those are the <a href="https://newsguild.org/the-texas-tribune-guild-formally-recognized-as-a-union/">Texas Tribune</a>, <a href="https://newsguild.org/politico-ee-staffers-win-union-recognition/">Politico</a>, <a href="https://www.nyguild.org/front-page-details/the-atlantics-business-and-technology-workers-win-voluntary-recognition-of-their-union">The Atlantic</a>, <a href="https://newsguild.org/grist-union-wins-voluntary-recognition/">Grist</a>, and <a href="https://newsguild.org/propublica-guild-wins-voluntary-recognition/">ProPublica</a>, to name a few. However news publisher resistance to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 — the federal law that protects employees’ rights to unionize, collectively bargain, and advocate for better working conditions without retaliation — has been part of the story from the beginning. The 1937 Supreme Court ruling in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/301/103/">Associated Press v. Labor Board</a>, for example, declared that the AP had illegally fired journalist Morris Watson in 1935 for his union organizing activity, and that “the publisher of a newspaper has no special immunity from the application of general laws. He has no special privilege to invade the rights and liberties of others.” That type of hostility continues today, Media Guild of the West president <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/mattdpearce.com">Matt Pearce</a> said. “What we’re returning to is a kind of pre-1930s period where employer-labor relations were much more volatile, with more strikes and more disruption to commerce,” Pearce said. “The rules were put in place for a reason. And it’s entirely possible we’re all going to relearn what those reasons were.” <h3 class="subhead">Long wait times</h3> The NLRB has seen a <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/union-petitions-filed-with-nlrb-double-since-fy-2021-up-27-since-fy-2023">steady increase</a> in its workload in recent years; the NLRB received 3,286 union election petitions between October 1, 2023 and September 30, 2024, a 27% increase from the previous year and more than double since 2021. It also received over 21,000 unfair labor practice charges, up 7% from the year before. There are currently over 26,000 open unfair labor practice charges, according to the NLRB’s case search portal. But the agency’s <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/bidens-nlrb-restoring-rights/">chronic underfunding</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/17/us-labor-agency-union-activity">understaffing</a> have handicapped its ability to enforce labor laws in a fair and timely manner, labor leaders say. The NLRB went nine years without a budget increase between 2014 and 2023. The agency’s budget was $299 million in 2024, and requested an increase to $320 million for FY 2025, which the NLRB’s own union has said “<a href="https://x.com/TheNLRBU/status/1767617322473206051">does not come close to providing us with the resources we need to enforce federal labor law</a>.” In 2023, the average processing time for a union petition request for an election was 37 days, while the processing time between a petition filing and the certification of election results was 56 days, according to a 2024 report <a href="https://www.nlrbedge.com/p/nlrb-processing-times-have-dramatically">the agency issued</a>. The average processing time for an unfair labor practice charge to be investigated and disposed (concluded) is 124.2 days (four months), up 50% from the year before. “Sometimes it’s as if there’s no NLRB at all,” Pearce said. “Part of my skeptical reaction is that there’s not going to be much difference, because even if you have a conservative board, it could take a long time for charges to get processed even if you’re going to get rejected by a more employer-friendly, Trump NLRB board.” Regardless of the board’s partisan slant, those long wait times have real-life implications, putting workers and their livelihoods at risk. “If the employer is retaliating against employees – if it’s firing employees illegally or implementing changes to benefits or pay without negotiation – that’s harmful,” Schleuss told me. The dangers of long processing times are already playing out in Connecticut. In August 2024, more than 100 Hearst Connecticut reporters, photographers, editors, and digital producers <a href="https://newsguild.org/newsletter-introducing-connecticuts-whale-union-%F0%9F%90%8B/">formed</a> the Connecticut News Guild. Because Hearst said it would not voluntarily recognize the union, the union had to file a petition for its regional NLRB office to administer an <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/what-we-do/conduct-elections#:~:text=Alternate%20path%20to%20union%20representation,filed%20within%20those%2045%20days.">election</a>. As of this writing, the regional NLRB office still hasn’t set an election date. A union can’t bargain for a contract with an employer until after election results are certified by the NLRB. According to Connecticut News Guild organizing committee member <a href="https://x.com/martha_shan">Martha Shanahan</a>, the No. 1 question she gets from guild members is when the election will be. She can’t give them an answer. “As it drags out longer and longer, people are going to get tired of hearing that,” Shanahan said. “Our election being delayed this long is affecting us because it’s just getting much more likely that we might lose people’s hearts or people might get discouraged,” she added. “Our support is still strong, and we do still feel confident that we’ll win the election when we get there. But every week and month that goes by, it’s just that much more time for people to lose momentum.” Nearly two weeks after the Connecticut News Guild announced its union drive, Hearst Connecticut <a href="https://x.com/CTnewsguild/status/1825588638635134982">terminated</a> digital producer and union organizer Adrian Szkolar. According to the guild, Szkolar posted Hearst’s story about the union to the company’s Facebook pages (as part of his job) and included “<a href="https://newsguild.org/newsletter-major-victory-in-pittsburgh-nlrb-seeks-end-to-strike-support-our-strikers-today/">a statistic that about 85% of the workers had signed union cards … that was not in the piece</a>.” “This was a clear overreaction and an instance of retaliation against a union organizer,” the guild <a href="https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-hearst-ct-media-group-reinstate-adrian-recognize-the-connecticut-news-guild">claimed</a> at the time. “He has had no disciplinary or performance issues. Had this been any other story, he would still have his job.” “It is absolutely false to say that any employee was terminated for their involvement in union organizing activity,” a Hearst Connecticut spokesperson said in a statement. “Hearst Newspapers respects and supports the rights of employees to organize and engage in protected activities. Our personnel decisions are based solely on business and performance-related factors, in compliance with all applicable laws.” The Connecticut News Guild <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/case/01-CA-348517">filed</a> an unfair labor practice charge against Hearst Connecticut on August 19. The regional NLRB office will make the decisions on the Connecticut News Guild’s election and its unfair labor practice charge, but if Hearst Connecticut appeals either or both decisions to the federal board, that could cause further delays, Shanahan said. “How long does someone have to wait before the government enforces the law?” Pearce said. “[The NLRB] can come in later and say that [the company] illegally fired someone and has to pay back wages. But in journalism, that can mean that somebody has moved to an entirely different city because that’s what you have to do to find a new job right now. We’re already living in the world that the employers want.” In Pittsburgh, NLRB decisions have mostly favored the Post-Gazette union, said Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh president <a href="https://x.com/ZackTanner">Zack Tanner</a>. (The <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/03/punches-have-been-thrown-in-the-first-u-s-newspaper-strike-in-two-decades/">union leadership</a> has drawn <a href="https://penncapital-star.com/labor/the-strike-at-the-pittsburgh-post-gazette-is-now-the-longest-in-the-nation-and-its-not-over/">some criticism</a>.) But the lag in processing unfair labor practice charges can be debilitating for workers and their commitment to the labor movement. When journalists at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/01/the-first-newspaper-strike-of-the-digital-age-stretches-into-a-new-year/">narrowly voted</a> to follow their colleagues in printing, distribution, and advertising on strike in October 2022, the first newspaper strike in the digital age began. Nearly two and a half years later, it’s the longest ongoing strike in the United States. “The Post-Gazette certainly felt emboldened to break the law knowing how long it would take the NLRB to be able to put together a case and win these decisions,” Tanner said. “We’re sitting here in 2025 awaiting enforcement orders on complaints that were filed in 2020 or earlier. Members had their pay cut, their health care costs more than tripled in some cases, and they had basic job protections eliminated because of that lawbreaking. Those are actions that test anyone’s resolve to fight and make work life more stressful, and frankly just worse.” <h3 class="subhead">More strikes and strike publications</h3> Some news unions won’t want to — or can’t afford to — wait for the government to intervene on their behalf. Instead, they may opt for collective action, like walking off the job, picketing, running social media campaigns, slowing down work, and striking. There have been 93 strikes by NewsGuild-CWA unions since 2022, including 36 strikes in 2024 alone. One day before Election Day, The New York Times Tech Guild <a href="https://www.nyguild.org/post/new-york-times-tech-guild-votes-yes-to-strike">went on strike</a> for eight days after more than two years of contract negotiations with the company. The NYT Tech Guild <a href="https://www.unionprogress.com/2024/12/19/stunned-by-the-solidarity-new-york-times-tech-workers-make-shocking-114000-donation-to-post-gazette-strikers-just-in-time-for-the-holidays/">donated</a> the remainder of its unused strike funds ($114,000) to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette union’s strike fund. In September, the Law360 union <a href="https://cwa-union.org/news/law360-union-wins-tentative-agreement-ending-ulp-strike">went on strike</a> after the publication laid off employees and reportedly violated its contract by making changes to workers’ healthcare plans. In February 2024, over 200 Tribune Publishing employees (owned by Alden Global Capital) <a href="https://newsguild.org/tribune-publishing-journalists-go-on-24-hour-strike/">walked off the job</a> for 24 hours in protest of the company’s low wages and threat to revoke retirement benefits. But when journalists stop working, everyone suffers, Schleuss said. News goes uncovered and audiences are less informed. To combat this issue in Pittsburgh, the union launched its own publication, the <a href="https://www.unionprogress.com/about-the-pittsburgh-union-progress/">Pittsburgh Union Progress</a>, so its journalists could continue covering their beats and report updates on their own disputes with the Post-Gazette. In its description, the Union Progress vows to stop publication when those disputes are resolved. Law360 similarly launched a strike newsletter <a href="https://www.law360guild.org/">Outlaw360</a>, and the Business Insider union published stories on <a href="https://www.insiderunion.org/business-outsider">Business Outsider</a> during a week-long strike in 2023. “I think it’s bad that we have these prolonged work stoppages to begin with,” Pearce said. “Journalists are looking around and realizing that the NLRB is not going to come save you. If you want something out of your crappy news company, you’re going to have to go fight for it yourself out on the picket line.” Schleuss, Nolan, and Pearce were all in agreement that collective action, particularly strikes, are more effective than legal recourse and will probably become more frequent under current conditions. “You’re going to see more people withholding their labor because journalists have already been beaten down and under attack,” Schleuss said. “They shouldn’t be continually beaten down by their employers who are, in theory, asking them to do [good work] covering our democracy and holding power to account, when at the same time they’re preventing them from having equitable pay or decent family leave or retirement [savings] that they can count on.” <div class="photocredit">Photo of striking Pittsburgh Post-Gazette photojournalist Emily Matthews speaking in August 2024, soon after the National Labor Relations Board filed for a temporary injunction that would return strikers to work, by Alexandra Wimley for the Pittsburgh Union Progress. </div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/what-will-a-conservative-national-labor-relations-board-mean-for-news-unions/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>News for young people by young people: How this new Spanish outlet aims to reach an elusive audience</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/news-for-young-people-by-young-people-how-this-new-spanish-outlet-aims-to-reach-an-elusive-audience/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/news-for-young-people-by-young-people-how-this-new-spanish-outlet-aims-to-reach-an-elusive-audience/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Marina Adami]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 30 Jan 2025 13:53:18 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Gen Z]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Spain]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Watif]]></category> <category><![CDATA[young people]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235668</guid> <description><![CDATA[Young people are the elusive audience many news outlets are vying for. They are moving away from traditional news brands and towards news influencers producing podcasts and short-form video. A new generation of news startups in Southern Europe is trying to change this, with a more informal tone and a focus on explainers and online...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[Young people are the elusive audience many news outlets are vying for. They are moving away from traditional news brands and towards news influencers producing podcasts and short-form video. A new generation of news startups in Southern Europe is trying to change this, with a more informal tone and a focus on explainers and online formats. Italian news publisher <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/how-pioneering-italian-podcaster-leading-innovation-print-focused-media-industry">Chora Media</a> is focusing on podcasts but also on social media content through <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/focus-millions-young-followers-will-media-changing-journalism-italy">Will Media</a>, a startup it bought in 2022. French news influencer Hugo Travers, known online as Hugo Décrypte, has millions of followers on YouTube and TikTok, with an average audience age of 27, Hugo’s own age. Spanish sports news site <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/how-young-sports-news-site-published-crucial-scoop-brought-down-rubiales">Relevo</a> has been publishing ground-breaking scoops with a focus on women and Gen-Z audiences. Now, a new Spanish outlet has entered the chat. Its name is <a href="https://www.watif.es/">Watif,</a> and it began publishing in October as a news brand focused on Substack-based newsletters and video podcasts. It was founded by <a href="https://es.linkedin.com/in/emiliodomenech">Emilio Doménech</a>, a popular journalist and newsletter writer in Spain with over 150,000 followers on X. As Domenéch wrote in an end-of-year post in December, Watif’s goal is to engage young Spaniards who <a href="https://www.watif.es/p/carta-del-fundador">have lost their attention span</a> amid constant competition between algorithms, push notifications and all kinds of apps. Named after the English phrase “What if?” spelt in a Spanish manner, this new outlet aims for a sparser publication schedule than most news organisations, with two newsletters and one video-podcast episode per week, focusing on one “big story” on Tuesday and opinion and culture on Friday. I spoke to Watif cofounder <a href="https://es.linkedin.com/in/marmanrique">Mar Manrique</a>, a young journalist who has published <a href="https://fleetstreet.substack.com/">her own newsletter</a> about journalism and media since 2021 and who’s been involved in the new project from the ideation phase in December 2023. We spoke about how Watif aims to be different from other media outlets in Spain and how it plans to appeal to young people. <div class="conl">Marina Adami: How did you come up with the name?</div> <div class="conr">Mar Manrique: Our co-founder Emilio also comes from a background in newsletters. He was writing <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6Tnav5YFE5cblv2CkBrIfc">La Wikly</a> which is also an English word spelt like a Spanish one. We wanted to continue with that twist, like a wink to the audience he already had. But there’s another reason. When we started talking about this project, I had my own job and he had his. We were always talking about it on WhatsApp, coming up with ideas. And one day, he was on the train, I was coming back home from the gym, and we were talking about the focus that we wanted to have and the topics that we could cover. We were talking about [US journalist] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram">Cleo Abram</a>. She used to be in the Vox video team, and she is now a YouTuber who covers the future of technology with an optimistic spin. We wanted to do something similar to her. Abram <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0-ZZ9pLyWw">sometimes frames</a> her videos like: “What if this happens?” So we were ping-ponging ideas with the “What if?” like, “What if Netflix starts doing something with artificial intelligence in their series?” We wanted to start all our coverage with that “What if” framing. It’s something that came up in one WhatsApp conversation among a million. It was very organic.</div> <div class="conl">Adami: Were you inspired by other projects? </div> <div class="conr">Manrique: Both of us came from our own previous projects, which was super helpful. In Spain, we have <a href="https://elordenmundial.com/">El Orden Mundial</a>, which covers geopolitics and is also produced by a young team. That was an inspiration for us. But we were mostly inspired by YouTubers and new media in the United States because they’re always ahead of what’s happening in Spain. Cleo Abram was a great example. We were also inspired by <a href="https://www.404media.co/">404 Media</a>. They are just a team of four as we are, and they also cover technology. It’s very niche, but we saw their articles and we found them interesting. We were also inspired by the fact they could survive with a subscription base. In Spain, it’s not as common to have that kind of solid subscription base. But El Orden Mundial has 5,000 paid subscribers if I’m not mistaken, and that’s really good. They’ve been working for around eight years, so it’s not that long to be achieving that number.</div> <div class="conl">Adami: Did your own newsletter on media trends inform what you wanted to do with Watif?</div> <div class="conr">Manrique: Maybe. But what I think helped us a lot was trying to understand what the audience wants. I always think of my friend who is not interested in media, who works in the medical or the scientific field. What is that person going to read? What’s interesting about Watif is that we always try to put ourselves in the user’s shoes. I’m not going to write something I wouldn’t read. I’m not going to use technical terms. The user perspective is very super helpful, not only in the coverage of the topics, but also in choosing the formats: video and podcasts are something that the young audiences like, and they are our target audience. Newsletters are a new format and we understand that young people in their 20s maybe don’t read them. But we try to cover all the bases. People are developing new consumer habits.</div> <iframe loading="lazy" title="El deporte en un tiktok, con Antoni Daimiel | WATIF podcast 1x07" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ws5qz-cPKVc" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> <div class="conl">Adami: You also host events. How do you plan them?</div> <div class="conr">Manrique: We recently held one in a cinema in Madrid, so we gave away free popcorn and beers. We understand that creating that community is super important: being together, gathering all these people who come from different backgrounds, paid subscribers but also free subscribers or friends or family or people who are in the media. That was the third event that we held, and it’s great to see the same faces coming back, so they like what we are doing. Emilio, with his previous project, had a discord channel where people were chatting about elections and political events that happened in the United States. There was also a layer of gamification. If you were interacting a lot, you could be like the “President of the United States” on the channel. People were very eager to talk there. We wanted to use that online experience and move it to real life.</div> <div class="conl">Adami: How many people are coming to your events?</div> <div class="conr">Manrique: Right now, around 80 people. On 12 December, we had one in Barcelona, which I was super excited about because it’s my home town. We also have a WhatsApp community for our Watif paid subscribers. It’s not just a broadcast channel. Our audience can message us back. We can talk about the events that we are hosting. One time Emilio was trying a panettone he bought, and he was like, “This is delicious.” So it can be informative, you can comment something like, “I’m super surprised about what happened today.” And then we can also establish more personal relationships.</div> <div class="conl">Adami: How do you divide responsibilities between your team of four? Do you work with external contributors?</div> <div class="conr">Manrique: Emilio is the founder, so he takes care of the financial aspect of the company. I’m the product director, so I control everything regarding the formats, like our newsletters, podcasts and social media. It’s having that bird’s eye perspective to understand everything and to be sure that everything is cohesive. I’m always repeating that. <a href="https://x.com/Boskic1">Bosco Bárcena</a> is the content director and <a href="https://es.linkedin.com/in/marinaenrich">Marina Enrich</a>, who works part-time, leads our strategy on social media. Sometimes, though, official titles are too much for a four-person team. It’s really small, so everyone does everything. We also have an external collaborator, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlesplanas/">Carles Planas Bou</a>. He comes from El Periódico and covers technology. And then we have <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/olga-llorente-jim%C3%A9nez-0b287a224/">Olga Llorente</a>, our student intern. We work remotely: Emilio and Marina are in Madrid, Bosco is in Pamplona, and I’m in Barcelona. So we are always messaging each other.</div> <div class="conl">Adami: Are you planning on hiring more people?</div> <div class="conr">Manrique: The first step would be to have someone who could help us with the commercial side. It would be useful to have someone with that knowledge, especially when talking with brands because right now we are the ones doing it. At some point, we could have more collaborators, not only Carles but other people who specialise in topics we don’t cover.</div> <div class="conl">Adami: How did you choose which topics to focus on?</div> <div class="conr">Manrique: We try to stay out of the things traditional media are covering and we try to put a different point of view on the table. When we choose the topics that we are covering, it’s really important to put ourselves in the user’s shoes. It must be something that we are curious about and interested in. Something we want to understand. People are tired of the political news cycle in Spain. It’s non-stop. It’s four big things a day. It’s crazy. And that’s something that doesn’t benefit news consumption. People are overwhelmed. We are in a very uncertain moment. No one knows what is going to happen, but we have to make decisions, and it’s hard. So having this new outlet that covers the future, and we try to do it in a positive way, is something that we thought was necessary and that we didn’t see in the Spanish media landscape. For me, it’s really important to also emphasise that we are young people and that we are covering things that matter to us as well.</div> <div class="conl">Adami: Some new media companies have recently experienced issues after investing too much into social media only to have algorithms change and shift away from news. How will you protect yourselves from something similar happening to you?</div> <div class="conr">Manrique: That’s why we are in so many places. We are doing live events. We have a newsletter. We also have a podcast. And yes, we are on social media. We try to benefit from social media in terms of traffic and visibility. But right now we are not worried about this. And I don’t know if there is a time when we will be worried about it. For example, people are now going like crazy from X to Bluesky. For us, that’s okay: if people are migrating to Bluesky, they’ll be able to find us there.</div> <div class="conl">Adami: Which is your main platform right now?</div> <div class="conr">Manrique: Our most successful platform is the newsletter. That’s because, when we started, we used the audience that came from La Wikly. So we have 16,000 subscribers there and that is working well. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQJFiIqTq2knbgRnt3C1Nfy1LvLJgHQyG">YouTube</a> and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0cH3B8JfKEebaevvGjsdTg">Spotify</a> channels for video podcasts are new. We’ve published 10 episodes, and those are growing more progressively. We are excited because companies are starting to see Watif as a platform to share future-minded news. Social media is gaining traction. We see the number of followers growing every week, and several clips have gone viral. In January we will reevaluate our strategy and see if we are okay with what we are doing. We are in the mindset of trying things, seeing how they work, and then recalculating if this is the correct path, or if we should change it.</div> <div class="conl">Adami: What would your pitch be to a young Spanish person who doesn’t know what to read and thinks that news is irrelevant?</div> <div class="conr">Manrique: We would say what we say in our <a href="https://www.watif.es/about">About page</a>: we explore trends that are happening now, and we want to understand how they can impact our future. I would also mention the topics we have been talking about, like <a href="https://www.watif.es/p/la-brecha-que-nos-separa?utm_source=publication-search">the differences in the internet bubbles</a> of girls and boys. That’s something that everyone can relate to because it’s something that happens any time you are scrolling on Instagram. We also talk about science, on issues like <a href="https://www.watif.es/p/el-camino-hasta-imprimir-un-organo?utm_source=publication-search">artificial organs</a>. I would talk to this person about the variety of topics that we cover. The most important thing is that we try to understand them. If I’m pitching to a young audience, it’s because I’m also a young person who knows what they are consuming and what they’re worried about. The essence is something we share with them: the uncertainty, the problems that we all are facing. Marina and I are 26, Emilio is 34. Bosco is 36. Olga is 21.</div> <div class="conl">Adami: Can you explain how you’ve structured your subscription model and why? For example, all your content is free to consume, and subscribers pay for extras, right?</div> <div class="conr">Manrique: It didn’t make sense to charge for more content because people don’t have time to read it. I also hear people saying, ‘Oh my god, I can’t keep up with all the newsletters that I have.’ It didn’t make sense to add another layer to that. So we are trying to create other benefits in our subscription model, and those benefits have to do with the community. We have <a href="https://www.watif.es/subscribe?utm_source=home-sitemap">three tiers</a>. The first one is free: you can receive our newsletters but don’t have any extra benefits and you have to pay for the entire amount for the events. For the second tier, which is €6 a month or €60 per year, you get a discount and prioritised entry for our live events, access to our WhatsApp community and the chance to participate in El Club, which are online events with Emilio and a guest speaker. With the third tier, which is €120 per year, you have free access to our live events, as well as regular meetings with the team and a yearly gift. The focus of all those benefits is on the community and not on the content because people are overwhelmed. They don’t want more content, so it didn’t make sense. We understand the community is something a bit more private, something exclusive, and we want to keep it that way.</div> <div class="conl">Adami: How many paid subscribers do you have?</div> <div class="conr">Manrique: In the first two months since launching our new newsletter project, we’ve added 2,000 new free readers to our newsletters, growing from 14,000 to 16,000 free subscribers. What stands out is the high conversion rate among these 2,000 new readers, which has been a key focus, resulting in a significant portion of our 270 paid subscribers. While some of our paid subscribers also come from Emilio’s loyal audience, the strong performance among new readers highlights the success of our approach in converting a fresh audience. We also understand that we have to diversify our income streams. We started with a financial investment. We raised a round, like a startup. We are also trying to collaborate with brands aligned with our values. For example, we are recording our video podcast in a Spanish sustainable restaurant, where all the dishes are sustainable. They liked our message about the future, so they allowed us to record there. And we plan to start consulting, and try to organise other events with brands.</div> <div class="conl">Adami: Are you foreseeing publishing sponsored content as well?</div> <div class="conr">Manrique: Emilio had some partnerships for La Wikly, and we wanted to do something like that. We are in conversations with brands. We are interested in anything related to culture, streaming platforms, travel, and maybe technology.</div> <div class="conl">Adami: Are you using AI in any capacity, or do you have any plans to do so?</div> <div class="conr">Manrique: At first, we didn’t want to do it, but it’s something helpful to reduce costs. Right now, we are producing all the images that go with the newsletter with artificial intelligence. We are also in conversations with an illustrator, and we wanted her to do the illustrations for every newsletter. But we still don’t have the budget, so we are keeping it small, and then trying to change that so that someone human can do the illustrations for us. We’re also using NotebookLM as a tool for the research of our articles.</div> <div class="ednote">This <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/news-young-people-young-people-how-new-spanish-outlet-aims-reach-elusive-audience">conversation</a> was originally published by the <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/">Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.</a> <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/people/marina-adami">Marina Adami</a> works at the Reuters Institute as a digital journalist.</div> <div class="photocredit">Photo of the Watif team — from left: Mar Manrique, Marina Enrich, Bosco Bárcena, and Emilio Doménech — courtesy of Watif.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/news-for-young-people-by-young-people-how-this-new-spanish-outlet-aims-to-reach-an-elusive-audience/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>How young Kenyans turned to news influencers when protesters stormed the country’s parliament</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/how-young-kenyans-turned-to-news-influencers-when-protesters-stormed-the-countrys-parliament/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/how-young-kenyans-turned-to-news-influencers-when-protesters-stormed-the-countrys-parliament/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Maurice Oniang'o]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 29 Jan 2025 17:44:02 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Kenya]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235553</guid> <description><![CDATA[On June 25, 2024, Kenya experienced a pivotal moment: young Kenyans protesting a controversial financial bill that proposed higher taxes stormed the national parliament. These unprecedented protests took a tragic turn when police opened fire on the demonstrators, leaving at least 23 dead and dozens injured. This violent climax followed weeks of widespread protests in major...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[On June 25, 2024, Kenya experienced a pivotal moment: young Kenyans protesting a controversial financial bill that proposed higher taxes stormed the national parliament. These unprecedented protests took a tragic turn when police opened fire on the demonstrators, leaving <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/world/africa/kenya-protest-photos.html?unlocked_article_code=1.o04.HODb.-v3xfrsP45Wx&smid=url-share">at least 23 dead and dozens injured</a>. This violent climax followed weeks of widespread protests in major towns across the country, driven by youth mobilizing through social media platforms. Beyond the political discourse, this moment signaled a broader shift in Kenya’s sociopolitical landscape and highlighted a profound transformation in how news is consumed. A <a href="https://odipodev.medium.com/kenya-changed-forever-on-june-25th-here-is-how-we-consumed-the-news-as-it-happened-478d33a3ac97">recent study</a> conducted by <a href="https://www.odipodev.com/">Odipo Dev</a>, a data analytics and research firm, revealed how structural and cultural shifts in digital media created a fragmented yet dynamic information environment, reshaping the role of traditional journalism in the public sphere. According to the study, platforms like Instagram and TikTok have become the most precious battlegrounds for attention, with alternative outlets such as the <a href="https://nairobigossipclub.co.ke/">Nairobi Gossip Club (NGC)</a> emerging as the leading news distributors during the protests and overshadowing traditional media giants like <a href="https://www.nationmedia.com/">Nation Media Group</a> and <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/">Standard Media Group</a>. The study revealed that NGC dominated digital engagement, amassing over 15 million video views and post interactions on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/NairobiGossips/">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/nairobi_gossip_club/?hl=en">Instagram</a>.<a href="https://www.facebook.com/CitizenTVKe/"> Citizen TV Kenya</a> followed, with slightly more than 10 million interactions. Legacy outlets such as <a href="https://www.facebook.com/NTVKenya/">NTV Kenya</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/standardkenya/">The Standard</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/KTNNewsKenya/">KTN News Kenya</a>, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/nation/">Nation</a> trailed behind, each garnering fewer than 10 million. According to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/norbert-mburu-aaa9081a4/?originalSubdomain=ke">Norbert Mburu</a>, a researcher involved in the study, NGC’s success is no accident. “These platforms resonate with a digitally savvy audience, delivering content that feels immediate, relatable, and culturally relevant,” Mburu said. He added that social media algorithms play a pivotal role, holding what he described as the ultimate editorial power. “These algorithms prioritize what people want to see, propelling alternative outlets like NGC to the forefront,” Mburu said. The “For You” tab popularized by TikTok has been adopted by other platforms and has further transformed news discovery, making it more incidental and deeply personalized. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/denis-galava-phd-835b7635/?originalSubdomain=ke">Dr. Denis Galava</a>, a media scholar and practitioner, said the rise of digital platforms has reshaped how young Kenyans engage with news. “Young people conduct much of their lives on digital platforms,” Dr. Galava noted. “It’s natural for them to consume news there, where they feel most comfortable.” <h3 class="subhead">Why this shift matters</h3> The shift reflects a broader challenge for traditional media outlets, which often struggle to match the immediacy and interactivity of social media. This trend underscores a broader challenge for traditional media outlets, which often struggle to compete with the immediacy and interactivity of social media. The <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2024-06/DNR%202024%20Final%20lo-res-compressed.pdf">Digital News Report 2024</a> found that social media use for news in Kenya surged to 77%, up from the previous year. YouTube grew to 59%, while TikTok climbed to 36%, with the platform particularly resonating among younger users. More than a third of Kenyans now turn to TikTok for news, mirroring a global trend where 23% of 18- to 24-year-olds rely on the platform for news. <iframe id="datawrapper-chart-fXC8z" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" title="Top social, messaging, and video networks" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/fXC8z/3/" height="495" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" aria-label="Table" data-external="1"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();</script> This shift is closely tied to the growing role of video as a preferred source of online news, particularly for younger audiences. According to the report, most video consumption occurs <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2024/dnr-executive-summary">on social media platforms (72%)</a>, compared to publisher websites (22%). This dynamic complicates efforts to monetise content and build direct connections with audiences. During the protests, platforms like Instagram and TikTok became vital tools for young Kenyans to access real-time updates, videos, and commentary. Unlike legacy media, which is bound by schedules and slower editorial processes, social media delivered on-demand content that resonated with a generation prioritising speed, convenience, and direct engagement. According to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/echenze/">Emmanuel Chenze</a>, Chief Operating Officer at <a href="https://x.com/AfUncensored">Africa Uncensored</a>, young Kenyans are prioritising content that is readily available and in formats that align with their lifestyles, a different dynamic from older generations, who typically rely on TV or print media. “Nairobi Gossip Club and similar platforms provide instant news cards, videos, and interactive formats that mainstream outlets often overlook,” Chenze explained. He added that most of these new media platforms and influencers have built communities through their active comment sections and relatable personas, “leaving legacy media struggling to keep up.” By catering to an audience accustomed to consuming content on demand, they have built communities that trust and engage with their posts. “Audiences have changed,” Chenze said and noted that the likes of NGC are simply responding to these needs. “Legacy media has been slow to adapt, prioritizing traditional agenda-setting over addressing what people want.” <h3 class="subhead">Are influencers a double-edged sword?</h3> Digital influencers played a central role in shaping the conversations around the protests. According to the study by Odipo Dev, individuals such as <a href="https://www.instagram.com/murugi.munyi/">Murugi Munyi</a>,<a href="https://x.com/KhalifKairo"> Khalif Kairo</a>, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/ericomondi/">Eric Omondi</a> engaged their followers with real-time commentary, often matching the engagement levels of mainstream outlets. Their ability to present information in relatable, digestible formats amplified their reach. According to Mburu, the unique connection influencers have with their audience is a significant factor in their success. “They deliver information in a way that feels personal and intimate,” Mburu explained. This is something traditional news outlets struggle to replicate. The rise of influencers as news sources poses many challenges for the public sphere. Unlike journalists, influencers are not bound by editorial principles. “Their posts often blur the lines between opinion and fact,” noted Dr. Galava, highlighting a key concern in an era already plagued by misinformation. However, Chenze countered that while mainstream media in Kenya may have editorial policies and principles, adherence varies widely across outlets. “The following is a whole different matter, though. Some do, some don’t,” he said, pointing to inconsistencies in how these standards are upheld. The dual role influencers played both as entertainers and news disseminators further blurred these lines. During the protests, influencers went beyond merely reporting the events. They actively participated as protesters themselves. Many hosted live discussions on platforms like X, TikTok and Instagram. They provided real-time updates to their audiences and undertook civic education on contentious issues. This approach helped shape how audiences understood the events and how they responded to them. Dr. Galava sees influencers as a double-edged sword. While they democratize information, he thinks their lack of adherence to journalistic standards poses risks. “Misinformation thrives where there’s broken trust,” Dr. Galava explained. “It’s up to journalists to navigate this terrain, offering clarity and deeper understanding amid the noise.” Intriguingly, Chenze argues that there is room for collaboration between influencers and journalists to ensure accurate and balanced reporting. By combining the influencers’ ability to engage large, targeted audiences with the journalistic standards of accuracy and verification, this partnership could bridge the gap between the speed of social media and the need for factual reporting. It could also help create more informed, engaged audiences by delivering real-time news with the necessary context and credibility. “When influencers and journalists work together, they can create compelling, credible content that resonates with younger audiences,” Chenze said. <h3 class="subhead">Why legacy media are struggling</h3> Legacy media in Kenya has struggled to keep pace with these changes. While outlets like Nation and The Standard boast significant resources, they often lag in audience engagement online. Mburu attributes this to structural inaction. “Traditional outlets are competing not just with other news producers but with everything else that captures attention online, from Netflix to TikTok,” he said. Financial pressures, reduced advertising revenue and shifts in audience preferences have also made the problem worse for traditional media. This leaves legacy media grappling with declining revenues and the challenge of monetizing their digital offerings. “For decades, mainstream outlets focused on politics, but younger audiences have lives outside of that. They’re seeking content that reflects their realities, not just political headlines,” Chenze said. This transformation is also rooted in cultural shifts. For young Kenyans, news is not just information; it’s a form of entertainment and identity. “The news is a meme,” observed Mburu. “For many young people, their first encounter with current events is likely a short, engaging video on TikTok or an Instagram story.” The preference for bite-sized, visually appealing content challenges traditional notions of journalism. “Gen Z doesn’t view the news as something exclusively produced by journalists,” said Dr. Galava. “They trust influencers and alternative media as much as, if not more than, traditional outlets.” Additionally, platforms like TikTok and Instagram are redefining what constitutes newsworthy content. Stories are often selected and framed based on their potential to go viral rather than their intrinsic importance. This has created an environment where sensationalism and clickbait thrive, sometimes at the expense of depth and accuracy. “Kenyans love gossip and drama,” Mburu said. “Platforms like NGC tap into this cultural preference, packaging news in a way that’s both entertaining and easily shareable.” <h3 class="subhead">"Aura for aura"</h3> As Kenya’s youth increasingly turn to alternative media for news, fact-checkers face mounting challenges in combating misinformation. For instance, at the height of the protests in June, Kenyans on X started a trend whereby they countered any information they perceived as propaganda from government entities such as the presidency and police with their own fabricated versions, calling it "aura for aura." In most cases, these fabricated satirical posts gained more engagement than the original information from the government. The "aura for aura" posts were not confined to X as they found their way to other platforms like Instagram and Facebook, where audiences had no context like X users who understood that it was propaganda to counter what they had perceived as propaganda from the government. <a href="https://africacheck.org/who-we-are/our-team/makinia-juma">Makinia Juma</a>, a deputy editor for Africa Check in Kenya, notes that in June and July, they witnessed a rise in misinformation being spread on the different platforms in the country. She noted that the "aura for aura" posts went viral because they played into people’s emotions at the time. “People were angry and quick to believe anything critical of the government,” she said. “Even short, misleading videos gained traction because the public had lost trust in traditional institutions,” she added that verifying and debunking such content became immensely difficult. At the time, edited graphics, manipulated videos, and false captions were the main form of misinformation spread across social media platforms. “AI wasn’t a big player yet, but we saw out-of-context photos and videos spreading rapidly,” Juma noted. “These edits were professional, making it harder to flag and remove them across platforms like TikTok and Facebook.” Fact-checkers, she said, have had to adapt to new trends. “We’ve developed platform-specific techniques, like brief, engaging TikTok videos to counter misinformation,” she said. “Gen Z audiences want concise explanations. If it’s not clear in a few seconds, they move on.” <a href="https://x.com/AfricaCheck">Africa Check</a> has also leaned on preemptive strategies known as "pre-bunking." Before a major event they analyse past trends in misinformation and educate the public about the common tactics used in spreading misinformation on the subject. “This helps people critically evaluate information as it surfaces,” Juma said. <h3 class="subhead">The future of fact-checkers</h3> For fact-checkers, collaboration with social media platforms is crucial in the fight against misinformation and disinformation. “TikTok introduced features for flagging misinformation during elections, and tools like Facebook’s backend analytics help us identify viral falsehoods in real-time,” Juma said. However, challenges persist. “Platforms like X are resistant to fact-checking initiatives, and misinformation spreads unchecked, eroding public trust.” Juma added that they are also actively working on media literacy across the country. She argued that fact-checking alone is not enough. “We’re targeting secondary schools and community radio stations to teach young people to identify false information,” she said. She added that the evolving landscape of alternative media demands journalists, educators, and tech companies to work together. “Fact-checking must evolve alongside these platforms,” she said. “It’s not just about debunking. It’s about building a culture where truth matters.” Even as fact-checkers and organizations such as Africa Check strive to combat misinformation, Meta’s recent decision to discontinue its third-party fact-checking program in favor of a community-driven notes system, inspired by a similar feature on X, which places the responsibility of identifying and contextualizing misleading content on users. Juma noted that this shift has significant potential consequences for misinformation control. “The reliance on community-driven moderation may not be as effective in regions where misinformation is politically motivated and spreads rapidly.” She pointed out that in Kenya, where social media platforms have millions of users, unchecked disinformation could surge, particularly during critical periods such as elections. “The effectiveness of community Notes depends on active and informed user participation,” Juma added. “In areas with limited digital literacy or high levels of coordinated disinformation campaigns, this system may be susceptible to exploitation, allowing false narratives to go unchecked and disinformers to get their way.” <h3 class="subhead">From memes to abductions</h3> Along the same lines as the "aura for aura" mantra, Kenyan social media has been flooded with AI-generated photos and videos depicting national leaders in controversial or compromising situations. Among the most circulated are AI-generated images of President William Ruto <a href="https://x.com/CopShakur/status/1878003292967420109/photo/1">lying in state </a>or lying <a href="https://x.com/bonifacemwangi/status/1870406997814005809/photo/1">dead in a casket</a>. Additionally, Kenyans have <a href="https://x.com/Kibet_bull/status/1862767638012633333">created viral silhouettes</a> highlighting the president’s perceived shortcomings. In response, the president’s communications team has countered with <a href="https://x.com/OleItumbi/status/1857102650044547112">their own silhouettes</a>, showcasing the government’s progress in delivering on its promises. However, these creative expressions have taken a darker turn. Several young individuals who shared these AI-generated images and critical silhouettes have reportedly been abducted by suspected state security officers. The police deny any involvement. While some of the abducted individuals have been released following public outcry, others remain unaccounted for. According to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (<a href="https://x.com/HakiKNCHR">KNCHR</a>), between June and December 2024, <a href="https://www.knchr.org/Articles/ArtMID/2432/ArticleID/1213/Statement-on-the-Recent-Surge-of-AbductionsEnforced-Disappearances-in-Kenya">there were 82 reported cases of abductions and enforced disappearances</a>, with 29 individuals still missing. <h3 class="subhead">Why vernacular digital media is thriving</h3> Vernacular media outlets are also carving out a significant space in Kenya’s evolving digital media landscape. According to the study, vernacular outlets now account for 10% of total interactions on Facebook and Instagram, a testament to their growing influence among audiences seeking localized content. While traditionally overshadowed by mainstream English-speaking outlets, vernacular stations like<a href="https://www.facebook.com/Kameme101/"> Kameme FM</a>,<a href="https://www.facebook.com/InooroTV"> Inooro TV</a>,<a href="https://www.facebook.com/RamogiTVKe"> Ramogi TV,</a> and others are now competing on equal footing in digital spaces. By addressing culturally specific issues and speaking directly to their communities, vernacular media has become a trusted and relatable source of news and entertainment. Dr. Galava concurs with the study’s findings and added that the growing online presence of vernacular stations is a welcome development, as it fosters inclusivity and ensures that diverse communities across Kenya have access to news and information in their native languages. “They serve as a bridge between local communities and the broader national discourse,” he said. “Their digital presence ensures that marginalized voices are not left out of the conversation.” <h3 class="subhead">“A tool for influence”</h3> “Kenya’s media has historically been a tool for influence rather than public interest,” said Dr. Galava. This legacy complicates efforts to adapt to the digital age, where trust and engagement are paramount. Dr. Galava explained that the origins of Kenyan media were deeply entwined with political and commercial motives. “From its inception, media in Kenya wasn’t founded as a public-interest enterprise,” he said. “Whether it was the Standard started by colonial businessmen or the Nation launched by Aga Khan, these outlets were established to serve the interests of their owners, be it as a bargaining tool with governments or as a platform for advancing specific agendas.” This historical baggage has led to a public perception that media institutions prioritize power and profit over the people. “Journalists and audiences often ascribe noble goals like freedom of speech and public interest to the media,” he noted. “But these ideals don’t align with the media’s founding principles, which were rooted in influence and control.” The digital age has further exposed these tensions. Legacy media, once reliant on advertising and government support, now competes with digital platforms and influencers who are unburdened by the same financial or regulatory constraints. “The economic model for journalism in Kenya has always been problematic,” Dr. Galava said. “Media houses were designed to influence rather than serve, and now they struggle to pivot to models that prioritise audience engagement and trust.” He stressed the importance of rethinking traditional revenue streams and added that advertising alone cannot sustain legacy media in a world where younger audiences turn to TikTok or Instagram for news. “Media houses must innovate, finding new ways to monetise digital content while maintaining credibility,” he said. To survive, legacy media must also confront the issue of trust. “Rebuilding that trust requires a shift in focus, from amplifying the voices of the powerful to genuinely engaging with the public’s concerns,” Dr. Galava said. Despite these challenges, he believes that the digital era offers opportunities for smaller, more nimble newsrooms. “I see a future where we have smaller, specialized media houses that cater directly to niche audiences,” he said. “The first truly digital newsroom in Kenya will emerge, and it will succeed by prioritizing relevance and connection over scale.” <h3 class="subhead">What’s next for Kenya’s digital media</h3> Looking ahead, the role of traditional media in Kenya will depend on its ability to adapt. Dr. Galava argued that legacy outlets need to focus on their core strengths: credibility and in-depth analysis. “The media should become explainers, helping audiences make sense of complex issues,” he said. For Chenze, there’s huge potential for innovation. “Artificial intelligence and data analytics can help outlets understand audience preferences and tailor content accordingly,” he said. But he cautioned against technological overreliance, stressing that credibility and meaningful connections with audiences remain the foundation of effective journalism. “At the end of the day, it’s about trust and relevance,” he said Mburu, on the other hand, noted that this is a pivotal opportunity for the media to reaffirm its value by keeping people in power in check and helping audiences objectively make sense of their world: “Objectivity has never been more necessary.” At the same time, he emphasized that social media platforms and alternative media will continue playing a critical role in Kenya’s socio political discourse, as young people push for issues such as the fight against corruption and as the country approaches its next election cycle. “Your next president could be determined by TikTok challenges and X Spaces.” <div class="ednote">This story was <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/how-young-kenyans-turned-news-influencers-when-protesters-stormed-countrys-parliament">originally published</a> by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. <a href="https://twitter.com/@moniango">Maurice Oniang'o</a> is a freelance multimedia journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Nairobi, Kenya.</div> <div class="photocredit">Photo of protestors reacting during a demonstration against Kenya's proposed finance bill in Nairobi in June 2024 by Monicah Mwangi/Reuters.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/how-young-kenyans-turned-to-news-influencers-when-protesters-stormed-the-countrys-parliament/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Are you being tailed? Tips for reporters concerned about physical surveillance</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/are-you-being-tailed-tips-for-reporters-concerned-about-physical-surveillance/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/are-you-being-tailed-tips-for-reporters-concerned-about-physical-surveillance/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Laura Dixon]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 29 Jan 2025 17:02:16 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235563</guid> <description><![CDATA[It’s a cold winter’s day in the city of London: a chill wind funnels through the skyscrapers, sunlight glints off the windows, city workers pull their scarves up tight. I’m among a group of journalists from the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe, here for an exercise in journalist surveillance — to see if reporters who...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[It’s a cold winter’s day in the city of London: a chill wind funnels through the skyscrapers, sunlight glints off the windows, city workers pull their scarves up tight. I’m among a group of journalists from the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe, here for an exercise in journalist surveillance — to see if reporters who know they are being followed can spot those who are following them. We are paired up and told to follow a prescribed route from the offices of Bloomberg to a nearby metro station. From there, we will ride a couple of stops to St. Paul’s Cathedral, then carry on by foot to a nearby mall, where we have to linger for at least 60 seconds. We’re traveling less than a mile but have five waymarkers to clock. We know, for sure, that we are being followed: the actors charged with stalking us that day were sent a photo of us that morning. They know what we are wearing and who we are with. They even know the route. Our job is to see if we can notice them and clock their identifiable features, all without their knowing we have spotted them. (If they see us clock them, we’re out — because in a real-life situation, you don’t want to make eye contact with the person who is trailing you.) It doesn’t sound too hard for a group of 16 or so journalists — among the group are award-winning investigative reporters working for well-known outlets, others are freelance journalists and editors. Some have had hostile environment training before, others have been trained in security techniques. Get a group of journalists together and you’d expect a few might have a talent for spotting small details, or to have gone undercover at some point themselves. As a profession, you’d hope reporters would be good at reading people, situations, scenarios. So how many do you think spotted the spotters? None. “I thought: ‘It’s a guy or a man, I had that in my head,” says one of the reporters, a woman, who was also being trailed by a woman. My partner and I had spied a few people taking photos in unphotogenic locations — on a nondescript street, outside the tube station — or people who looked a bit suspicious. But we were sure we’d nailed it when two young men followed us onto the train platform and took the same train heading west. Since we were in the last carriage, we got a good view of them leaving the train at the same time as us, dawdling along the platform. So good was our vantage point — and their blind spot — that I even took a photo. But it turned out they were two other reporters, doing exactly the same exercise. Worse still, I knew one of them, but hadn’t seen his face. So certain were we in having spotted our tail that we stopped looking for anyone else. Our real tail — a film producer — dressed in a checkered coat and beanie hat, had happily been following us undetected, undisturbed. She pointed out how my green coat had made me easier to spot. She was wearing what she always wears — and as a result, blended in perfectly. She’d even thought she might bring her dog, since no one ever suspects people walking their dogs might be on a surveillance job. One pair was surprised that a young man with a long scarf who looked like he was headed straight to an investment bank was following them. Another that it was an older, grungier spotter who you’d never cast as an MI6 agent in a blockbuster film. As they all came to meet us after, we were taught one of the day’s key lessons — don’t assume you know what the person trailing you might look like. <h3 class="subhead">Spotting a Tail</h3> Among the reporters taking part in the walk is one who fears their latest work may have led to them being put under surveillance. He suspects he was spied upon in the past, and says, given the subjects he investigates, it’s always a concern. “I’m taking all the training I can,” he says. Another knows she has been under surveillance before: She thought she’d never need this kind of training but learned the hard way that even in democracies there can be those who want to track your movements, see who you are meeting. Running the project today is Frank Smyth, the executive director of Global Journalists Security, which provides hostile environment training and security advice for media workers. As reporters, he says, we need to “think about security in everything you do. There’s a fine line between being aware and being paranoid.” In the walk-through situation, we were following a prescribed route, but really many of us tread the same paths repeatedly on our way between work and home. From the nearest train or tube station to our favorite cafes, from the route to the office to the way we walk our children to school — it would not take long for a surveillance team to know your key routes, times, and destinations. Changing your route is one key way to make it harder to surveil you, says Smyth, who also advises reporters who fear they could come under surveillance to develop “<a href="https://cpj.org/2023/07/situational-awareness-a-guide-for-journalists/">situational awareness.</a>” “Every woman in the room has a pronounced sense of situational awareness — you know if you walk by yourselves in a certain area at night, you learn to be aware of your surroundings,” he explains. Reporters at risk should adopt the same attitude when going about their work, and even their daily lives when working on sensitive projects. “If you think of an attack cycle, there are hard and soft targets: you want to make yourself a harder target,” he adds. “Their job is to find out who your sources are. Where you live… Don’t make it easy for them.” While all reporters should be aware of the risks of digital and mobile surveillance, he says, it’s still important to consider the various ways physical surveillance can work. From static surveillance — at someone’s home or workplace — to surveillance on the go. “On foot, public transport, combined, be aware of people and vehicles,” he says. “The reasons for surveillance might be to gather information or learn about your contacts — that was the goal of [<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/harvey-weinsteins-army-of-spies">Harvey] Weinstein</a>, or it could be to intimidate contacts, destroy evidence, even to carry out reconnaissance before an attack, abduction, or kidnapping,” he says. “When journalists are murdered there’s usually evidence they were being surveilled beforehand.” This was the case for Ján Kuciak, an investigative reporter who was killed alongside his fiancee in Slovakia in 2018, an <a href="https://cpj.org/2019/02/slovakia-jan-kuciak-murder-journalist-safety-anniversary/">official inquiry</a> found that he had been under surveillance before he was murdered, alongside a number of other reporters. One <a href="https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/14/surveillance-states-monitoring-of-journalists-goes-unchecked-in-central-south-east-europe/">2023 investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network,</a> based on a survey of reporters in 15 countries in central and southeast Europe, found that “despite new spyware like Pegasus that targets mobile phones, ‘traditional’ types of surveillance, such as wiretapping or physical monitoring, are still the most popular methods being used.” Among those orchestrating the surveillance, according to the report, are “state authorities trying to find out about journalists’ sources or uncover compromising material.” While its findings were based on all forms of surveillance of journalists, the <a href="https://rm.coe.int/annual-report-2024-platform-for-the-safety-of-journalists-web-pdf/1680aeb373">2024 Council of Europe report on press freedom in Europe warned that</a> “surveillance removes the necessary protection of journalists’ confidential sources, intimidates journalists, and can deter them from investigating sensitive stories.” <h3 class="subhead">Tips for Journalists</h3> Advice for what a reporter should do if they feel they are under physical surveillance varies, and “that discussion is different if you are in London, D.C., or Moscow,” notes Smyth, but in general he says never confront somebody who you think is following you, and avoid eye contact. “If you are in Syria in the early 2000s and you make eye contact, they are going to abduct you right away,” he explains. “You don’t want to make eye contact.” If you have a sense you are being followed, he adds, try “scanning” your environment, rather than searching, but casually, so you can’t be detected. “The phone is a good prop, but if you are obvious they will find out.” Making sure you are not walking around in a quiet, dark, or isolated area is important, and as much as possible making sure you are not alone. “Think about who you are with. It’s much harder to kidnap two people,” Smyth points out. “If you think you are being followed, go into a safe space — a shop or a café,” he said. “In the field, you will have a sense of panic. You’ll have time to breathe, and to see if someone behind you has had to make a stop, too.” Some final tips from Smyth: <ul> <li>Perform your own route analysis — review the map of where you need to go — and try and avoid constantly looking down at the map on your phone.</li> <li>Notice the abnormal. Be aware if you see the same person one, two, or three times.</li> <li>Become situationally aware: try and notice if you feel eyes on you, Be alert — but don’t look like you are alert.</li> <li>Gaze, don’t stare if you suspect you are being followed — this will give you time to act before they notice you, giving you an opportunity to analyze the threat.</li> <li>Vary your routes to make yourself a harder target.</li> <li>If you are sure you are being followed, get off the street. Use Signal to confer with colleagues.</li> <li>Note descriptions of anyone you think may be following you: their gender, race, height, age, weight, hair color, clothing style, and distinguishing features. If the person you think is following you is in a car, note the make or model.</li> </ul> <div class="ednote">This piece was originally <a href="https://gijn.org/stories/reporter-security-tips-physical-surveillance/">published</a> by the Global Investigative Journalism Network. <a href="https://gijn.org/about/staff-member/laura-dixon/">Laura Dixon</a> is an associate editor at GIJN.</div> <div class="photocredit">Photo of the London Underground by <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/people-standing-and-walking-on-stairs-in-mall-mVhd5QVlDWw">Anna Dziubinska</a>.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/are-you-being-tailed-tips-for-reporters-concerned-about-physical-surveillance/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>White House will reserve front-row seats in press briefings for influencers, podcasters, and others in “new media”</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/white-house-will-reserve-front-row-seats-in-press-briefings-for-influencers-podcasters-and-others-in-new-media/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/white-house-will-reserve-front-row-seats-in-press-briefings-for-influencers-podcasters-and-others-in-new-media/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sarah Scire]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 29 Jan 2025 00:49:57 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Link post]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235512</guid> <description><![CDATA[When she took the podium for the first time on Tuesday afternoon, Karoline Leavitt became the youngest White House press secretary in history. The 27-year-old New Hampshire native is the sixth working mother in a row to hold the post. In the 45-minute-long briefing, Leavitt was repeatedly pressed to answer questions about a controversial freeze on...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[When she took the podium for the first time on Tuesday afternoon, <a href="https://x.com/PressSec">Karoline Leavitt</a> became the youngest White House press secretary in history. The 27-year-old New Hampshire native is <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-leavitt-white-house-first-press-briefing-5ba5ff116e18c29b04c934a24a8983d1">the sixth working mother in a row</a> to hold the post. In the 45-minute-long briefing, Leavitt was repeatedly pressed to answer questions about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/27/white-house-pauses-federal-grants/">a controversial freeze on all federal grants</a>, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy48j7yxl08o">firing of career civil servants</a> and watchdog <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/us/politics/trump-inspectors-general-fired.html">inspectors general</a>, and (much) more. Before she took questions, however, Leavitt announced several changes to the White House briefings designed to “bring in more voices.” Her opening statement referenced Trump’s campaign strategy that frequently prioritized <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/arts/donald-trump-podcasts-men.html">podcasters</a>, <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/11/two-thirds-of-news-influencers-are-men-and-most-have-never-worked-for-a-news-organization/">social media stars</a>, and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/10/26/trump-podcast-campaign-2024-elections-00185619">other outside voices</a> over <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/4932702-trump-harris-media-interviews/">mainstream media</a>: <blockquote>In keeping with the revolutionary media approach that President Trump deployed during the campaign, the Trump White House will speak to all media outlets and personalities — not just the legacy media who are seated in this room. According to <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/651977/americans-trust-media-remains-trend-low.aspx">recent polling from Gallup</a>, Americans’ trust in mass media has fallen to a record low. Millions of Americans, especially young people, have turned from traditional television outlets and newspapers to consume their news from podcasts, blogs, social media, and other independent outlets. It’s essential to our team that we share President Trump’s message everywhere and adapt this White House to the new media landscape in 2025.</blockquote> Leavitt said the front row in the briefing room — typically occupied by staff — would be reserved for “new media” members moving forward. She invited “independent journalists, podcasters, social media influencers, and content creators” <a href="https://whitehouse.gov/newmedia">to apply for credentials online</a>. “Whether you are a TikTok content creator, a blogger, a podcaster … if you are producing legitimate news content, no matter the medium, you will be allowed to apply for press credentials to this White House,” Leavitt said. “As long as you are creating news-related content of the day and you’re a legitimate independent journalist, you’re welcome to cover this White House.” “Americans are consuming their news media from various different platforms, especially young people,” Leavitt pointed out later. (She is <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/11/two-thirds-of-news-influencers-are-men-and-most-have-never-worked-for-a-news-organization/">not wrong</a> <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/06/the-differences-seem-to-be-growing-a-look-at-the-rising-generation-of-news-consumers/">about that</a>, as Nieman Lab readers well know.) She took her first questions from Axios co-founder <a href="https://x.com/mikeallen">Mike Allen</a> and <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/author/matthew-boyle/">Matthew Boyle</a> of Breitbart News. Neither strikes me as an “outsider” in D.C. but the move did reverse <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/28/trump-briefing-room-media-00200996">a tradition to call on the Associated Press</a> for the first question. Allen asked if the president saw “anything fishy” about <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/deepseek-is-upending-wall-streets-big-ai-power-trade-0e649925">AI company DeepSeek</a> and Boyle asked about the “new media” policies. You can see the full briefing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJOgsQQYDY4">here</a>. <div class="photocredit">Screenshot via White House YouTube channel.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/white-house-will-reserve-front-row-seats-in-press-briefings-for-influencers-podcasters-and-others-in-new-media/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>3</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Why a centuries-old local newspaper in New Hampshire launched a journalism fund</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/why-a-centuries-old-local-newspaper-in-new-hampshire-launched-a-journalism-fund/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/why-a-centuries-old-local-newspaper-in-new-hampshire-launched-a-journalism-fund/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sophie Culpepper]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 28 Jan 2025 19:56:48 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fundraising]]></category> <category><![CDATA[hybrid model]]></category> <category><![CDATA[journalism fund]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Keene Sentinel]]></category> <category><![CDATA[local news]]></category> <category><![CDATA[philanthropy]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235480</guid> <description><![CDATA[Imagine you’re the team behind a locally-owned legacy newspaper serving a small New England town and the surrounding region. Say that for more than two centuries — 225 years — your publication has stayed in business to deliver news to and for this community, supported primarily by print advertising. Having reached such a milestone as...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[Imagine you’re the team behind a locally-owned legacy newspaper serving a small New England town and the surrounding region. Say that for more than two centuries — 225 years — your publication has stayed in business to deliver news to and for this community, supported primarily by print advertising. Having reached such a milestone as a quasquibicentennial, no small feat for a local newspaper in the 21st century, you’re thinking about the changes that might be necessary to keep the lights on for years to come. This was the situation of the New Hampshire-based <a href="https://www.sentinelsource.com">Keene Sentinel</a>. In a <a href="https://www.sentinelsource.com/commemorative/from-the-publisher/article_3e2f9057-4b20-588f-804e-ad7def7977dc.html">commemorative note</a>, publisher and owner Tom Ewing noted that “only four other news organization[s] in the country, and none in New Hampshire, have reached a 225th year of continuous publication under the same name.” In recent years, leaders at the Sentinel became convinced that surviving the next 100 (or 225) years will require additional community support. So the Sentinel began weighing three concrete options: Converting to a nonprofit; establishing an endowment; or embracing a hybrid model — partnering with a fiscal sponsor to create a nonprofit arm that can accept tax-deductible donations, expanding its capacity for accepting philanthropic support while remaining a for-profit organization. <a href="https://www.sltrib.com">The Salt Lake Tribune</a> prompted a number of other legacy newspapers to consider going nonprofit — first when it <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/11/meet-the-salt-lake-tribune-501c3-the-irs-has-granted-nonprofit-status-to-a-daily-newspaper-for-the-first-time/">proved it was possible</a> to attain 501(c)(3) status as a legacy newspaper, then when it proved that model could achieve <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/11/now-nonprofit-the-salt-lake-tribune-has-achieved-something-rare-for-a-local-newspaper-financial-sustainability/">financial sustainability</a> and even <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/09/the-salt-lake-tribune-profitable-and-growing-seeks-to-rid-itself-of-that-necessary-evil-the-paywall/">growth</a>. Other local news outlets, like younger, digital-first <a href="https://coloradosun.com">The Colorado Sun</a>, have since <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/09/the-colorado-sun-a-pioneering-for-profit-nonprofit-hybrid-moves-toward-a-fully-nonprofit-model/">followed suit</a>. Ultimately, however, The Keene Sentinel landed on the third hybrid option, and established <a href="https://www.sentinelsource.com/support/">The Keene Sentinel Local Journalism Fund</a>, which <a href="https://www.sentinelsource.com/news/local/sentinel-to-launch-new-fundraising-effort-community-advisory-board/article_8f6d1080-cc50-11ef-a8a5-4fa2617bb554.html">launched</a> this month. (Among other legacy news outlets that have gone this route: <a href="https://postandcourierfund.com/donate/">The Post and Courier</a> in South Carolina.) Alongside the fund, the Sentinel is building its first community advisory board. Both initiatives are being spearheaded by former Sentinel president <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrenceleonardwilliams/">Terry Williams</a>, who retired in 2023 but who continues to help steer strategy as a consultant. Williams sees the fund and community advisory board as complementary, calling the advisory board a “key component” of building a successful fundraising campaign. Williams envisions its members both as potential direct contributors and as Sentinel ambassadors. The Sentinel’s decision-making process, and hopes for the hybrid model, may be helpful to other local news outlets considering a similar evolution. <div class="storybreak-simple"></div> The Sentinel ultimately opted against a full nonprofit conversion for two primary reasons, Williams told me. First, the team “thought it would be wrong to be competing for dollars in an aggressive sort of way” with other local nonprofits — especially because the Sentinel covers many of those nonprofits. “We’re sensitive to the fact that I think it would be more challenging for us editorially to be covering nonprofits that are in the same arena as we are in terms of fundraising,” Williams said. While establishing a fund still involves making local appeals, Williams called it “probably the least harmful approach.” “We’re being relatively strategic about it,” Williams explained. The campaign is mostly targeting “specific donors who are what I would describe as extremely supportive of the Sentinel.” “We’re not looking at a huge net here; we’re looking at a smaller group of folks that we think…somewhat understand the importance of local journalism in the mix of the community,” Williams said, adding that the Sentinel also plans to pursue national grants and philanthropy. The hybrid model, in short, felt like “a more proper balance for a small community like ours.” Second, the Sentinel worried about limits around political activity accompanying nonprofit status. The Sentinel has been <a href="https://dankennedy.net/tag/keene-sentinel/">described</a> as “one of New England’s feistier independent daily newspapers” and it wants the freedom to stay that way. Specifically, Williams said, the Sentinel’s publisher didn’t want the newspaper to have to stop publishing editorials in support of political candidates. Establishing an endowment, meanwhile, “just seemed out of reach,” Williams said. The Sentinel would have had to raise a large sum (in the millions) and extract only 4-5% per year. That approach brought up some of the same concerns about competing with local nonprofits. “To get to the millions of dollar level that you would need to have in order to kick out meaningful contributions [from an endowment] to the newsroom, we’d be battling with the hospital and others that are trying to either expand or improve and things of that nature,” Williams said. Instead, the Sentinel opted to emulate a closer neighbor, <a href="https://www.berkshireeagle.com/donate/">The Berkshire Eagle</a>, by launching a journalism fund. (The Sentinel’s fund is fiscally sponsored by the nonprofit Report for America.) As Williams sees it, this fund offers the best of both worlds; it gives the Sentinel a centralized, more formal hub for tax-deductible donations, but doesn’t put reliance on philanthropy at the center, the way he thinks a full nonprofit conversion would have. This year, the fund’s first, the Sentinel has a “modest” fundraising goal: $75,000. In 2026, they’ll raise the goalposts to $100,000, and again to $125,000 in 2027. The Sentinel’s editorial operating budget is currently <a href="https://www.sentinelsource.com/support/">about $1 million</a>. The biggest source of revenue at the newspaper is print and digital subscriptions, followed by revenue from events, digital advertising, and niche publications (which are grouped together) and print advertising. The Sentinel only began fundraising — which covers just 4% of the Sentinel’s newsroom budget (including national grants) — during the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2020/10/29/coronavirus-driven-downturn-hits-newspapers-hard-as-tv-news-thrives/">pandemic-driven advertising slump</a>. Williams described the philanthropic learning curve as steep and the newspaper’s first fundraising efforts as somewhat “ad-hoc.” With the launch of the new nonprofit arm, on top of that 4%, the Sentinel hopes the fund alone can cover about 8% of newsroom operating costs this year, and reach 13% by 2027. In the long term, “ultimately, getting to 20% of the newsroom operating costs would be a huge accomplishment and would go a long way toward the sustainability of the operation,” Williams said. “But that’s not going to happen overnight.” Williams couldn’t comment on whether the Sentinel is breaking even and said profitability is not the most important measure of success to the Sentinel’s owner. Ewing “views the newspaper as a community service, not as a profit producing operation or profit-driven operation,” Williams said. “I think we are very fortunate to have ownership like that.” The Keene Sentinel has a relatively large staff — about <a href="https://www.sentinelsource.com/contact/staff/">17 journalists</a> — for a community of its size. The city of Keene has about 23,000 residents and the Sentinel also covers the broader Monadnock Region, which has a population around 85,000. “I feel like [publisher Ewing] has drawn a line in the sand that you can’t go below a certain number and really do your job,” Williams said. Even with enviable mission-driven local ownership, Williams noted, “we have to be on a more sustainable path than we’re currently on, or this won’t work.” <div class="storybreak-simple"></div> So how does the community advisory board fit in with the fundraising endeavor? First, well, Williams hopes the board members will be supporters themselves. He also believes creating “ambassadors” for the newspaper will benefit the fundraising campaign, and the newspaper itself. The board — which will start with roughly 25 members serving three-year terms — will meet two or three times a year with Sentinel staff to give “candid commentary” on how well the Sentinel is meeting its mission. “The folks that I’ve lined up to do this, I think, will be not bashful in sharing their opinion about that,” Williams said. He’s begun by approaching people he knows to be “friends of the Sentinel.” He especially wanted to recruit “some key people that were well-respected in the community” who are, in many cases, already “quiet donors to a variety of things” that are important to local civic life. He’s opened up recruitment further to some Sentinel readers, and thinks there’s some self-selection for people who value and understand the importance of local news, “whether they think we’re doing a good job or not.” Williams has also done “some direct outreach to younger folks, because a lot of our readers look a lot like me, and a lot of our advisory board members look a lot like me.” He’s tried to recruit at least four or five younger board members; these members may interact with the Sentinel to an extent, but “they’re not legacy readers,” he said. They will bring critical perspective for the advisory board, whose members “will want to know not only if we’re meeting our mission, but are we serving as diverse a community as we can?” To mold effective Sentinel ambassadors, Williams sees it as crucial to “expose them to some of the best work that local journalists are doing.” That’s why Williams and the Sentinel team opted to fly a pair of Texas journalists, <a href="https://www.uvaldeleadernews.com">Uvalde Leader-News</a> managing editor <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghann-garcia-1ab82471/">Meghann Garcia</a> and assistant managing editor <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissafederspill/">Melissa Federspill</a>, to New Hampshire for an event launching the journalism fund and advisory board. (Garcia and Federspill <a href="https://www.uvaldeleadernews.com/articles/teacher-reyes-recalls-gunmans-attempts-to-elicit-reaction/">reported</a> <a href="https://www.uvaldeleadernews.com/articles/security-audit-reveals-faulty-latch-at-school/">on</a> and oversaw coverage of the 2022 school shooting in their community, <a href="https://www.uvaldeleadernews.com/articles/mena-recalls-robb-shooting/">and</a> <a href="https://www.uvaldeleadernews.com/articles/radiating-grief-exacerbates-aftermath-mistakes/">its</a> <a href="https://www.uvaldeleadernews.com/articles/publishers-note/">aftermath</a>.) About 70 people ended up attending the <a href="https://sentinelsource.secondstreetapp.com/api/message_contents/4743317/136/43580D59-9523-42FC-8AFC-39770C0E7C39">launch</a> on a brutally cold night. Williams described the event as deeply moving. “[The Uvalde Leader-News reporters] just poured their hearts and souls into coverage of this,” he said. “I was really proud to have them tell this story. It’s not our story, but it’s an amazing journalism story, and I think people were impacted by it, and felt and got that message.” Williams envisions at least one event like this per year as a part of the Sentinel’s fundraising campaign. Introducing advisory board members and other community members to the work that goes into local journalism, he hopes, will help them understand its value — and move them to support it in their own backyard. “We as an industry do a crappy job” of explaining how local journalists do their work, Williams added. “We bury it.” But when you tell that story, as Garcia and Federspill did, “people start to really realize the importance of local news, and then they start to wonder, well, what the hell happens if this goes away?” <div class="photocredit">Adobe Stock</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/why-a-centuries-old-local-newspaper-in-new-hampshire-launched-a-journalism-fund/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Weak assumptions, bad habits: Sarah Alvarez on pushing journalism beyond “sloppy work”</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/weak-assumptions-bad-habits-sarah-alvarez-on-pushing-journalism-beyond-sloppy-work/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/weak-assumptions-bad-habits-sarah-alvarez-on-pushing-journalism-beyond-sloppy-work/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Richard Tofel]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 28 Jan 2025 13:08:35 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Outlier Media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sarah Alvarez]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235414</guid> <description><![CDATA[Early this month, Sarah Alvarez, founder of Detroit’s Outlier Media and author of the newsletter Understated, was named the new James B. Steele Chair in Journalism Innovation at Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication. Sarah is a friend, and I was a board member at Outlier until last year. She is also, in my view, one of the...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[Early this month, Sarah Alvarez, founder of Detroit’s <a href="https://outliermedia.org/">Outlier Media</a> and author of the newsletter <a href="https://www.understated.blog/">Understated</a>, was <a href="https://klein.temple.edu/news/2025/01/sarah-alvarez-named-temple-universitys-james-b-steele-chair-journalism-innovation">named</a> the new James B. Steele Chair in Journalism Innovation at Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication. Sarah is a friend, and I was a board member at Outlier until last year. She is also, in my view, one of the most original thinkers in our field, and I wanted to hear what’s on her mind at this turning point in her own career. Our conversation, which occurred earlier this month, has been edited for length and clarity. <div class="conl">Tofel: One sort of smaller question: Outlier during your time there has done a number of mergers. What do you feel like you learned more generally from those?</div> <div class="conr">Alvarez: So much. It’s mostly a good idea, even the merger that didn’t work out for us. We merged with MuckRock <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/01/text-for-housing-data-service-outlier-media-and-muckrock-combine-to-close-more-information-gaps-around-the-country/">for a short period of time</a> right before the pandemic, and it didn’t work out in the long term, but it saved our ass in the short term. One thing I have learned is that resource sharing is not as hard as people think it is. It makes a lot of sense, especially when resources are scarce, as they are in nonprofit news. Mergers can also make sense because keeping talented people in work that they’re good at, and they like doing, is easier with mergers when we’re talking about smaller organizations, and especially local organizations where you have a smaller talent pool. I think people should continue to do them, being clear-eyed about what the purpose is.</div> <h3 class="subhead">On Outlier, and hard work</h3> <div class="conl">Tofel: Anything else you wish I had asked you?</div> <div class="conr">Alvarez: I do think it’s important to say I feel pretty good about the instincts that Outlier was built on. The idea that finding out what people’s information needs are is so important and should be the first thing that you do. At the same time, those early information needs assessments were not great, and I’m really happy that we now have the <a href="https://outliermedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/0617_out_SurveyDMACS_Wave19Toplines.pdf">University of Michigan doing them for us with a really big sample</a>, where we can rely on that information. I don’t think that the assumptions that Outlier was built on were weak. I think they were good assumptions, and we tested them a lot, but we still had a lot of work to do in order to prove ourselves and to test those assumptions, and then to deliver the kind of quality product that we needed to do. And that took a long time, and does take a long time. So it’s difficult to balance the urgency that I think news organizations need to operate with, and the care that we also need to operate with, if we want to build something better than what came before. That’s the tension that I’ve always tried to hold, and what I want to keep doing, and that’s really hard. So as critical as I am of news organizations and the way that we do this work, I do know that these things are really difficult.</div> <div class="ednote"><a href="https://twitter.com/dicktofel">Richard Tofel</a> was founding general manager (and first employee) of ProPublica, and was its president from 2013 until January 2022. This post <a href="https://dicktofel.substack.com/p/listening-to-innovate-a-conversation">originally appeared</a> on Second Rough Draft, his newsletter about journalism — subscribe <a href="https://dicktofel.substack.com/">here</a>.</div> <div class="photocredit">Broom photo from Adobe Stock. Photo of Sarah Alvarez by Cyndi Elledge.</div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/weak-assumptions-bad-habits-sarah-alvarez-on-pushing-journalism-beyond-sloppy-work/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Inside a network of AI-generated newsletters targeting “small town America”</title> <link>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/inside-a-network-of-ai-generated-newsletters-targeting-small-town-america/</link> <comments>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/inside-a-network-of-ai-generated-newsletters-targeting-small-town-america/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Andrew Deck]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 27 Jan 2025 18:44:41 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured Art]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Regular post]]></category> <category><![CDATA[aggregation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[AI]]></category> <category><![CDATA[automation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[generative AI]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Good Daily]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Good Day Fort Collins]]></category> <category><![CDATA[local news]]></category> <category><![CDATA[news deserts]]></category> <category><![CDATA[newsletters]]></category> <category><![CDATA[The Bentonville Bulletin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[The Macon Melody]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=235430</guid> <description><![CDATA[On first glance, Good Day Fort Collins appears to be a standard local news round-up. One recent edition of the newsletter includes short blurbs and links to over a dozen stories about the mid-size Colorado city — a restaurant opening, a record-breaking snowfall, a leadership shake-up at a local hospital. The newsletter attributes the stories...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[On first glance, Good Day Fort Collins appears to be a standard local news round-up. One <a href="https://gooddayfortcollins.com/local-news/editions/1-09-2025">recent edition</a> of the newsletter includes short blurbs and links to over a dozen stories about the mid-size Colorado city — a restaurant opening, a record-breaking snowfall, a leadership shake-up at a local hospital. The newsletter attributes the stories to longtime Fort Collins news outlets, like <a href="https://www.coloradoan.com/">The Coloradoan</a> and the <a href="https://www.reporterherald.com/">Loveland Reporter-Herald</a>. Further down is a spread of events happening across the city, including an upcoming polar plunge and a figure-drawing class. “I’m a senior citizen here in Fort Collins, and this newsletter is like a lifeline. I don’t have the attention span these days to read the paper, and Facebook is a mess,” reads one testimonial on the sign-up page from “Matthew K., retiree.” “I use Good Day Fort Collins to keep one foot in the town I grew up in, and my friends and family continue to live in,” says “Michael H., expat.” Google those quotes, though, and you’ll find the same names and testimonials supporting hundreds of other local newsletters across the U.S. “Matthew K.” also lives in <a href="https://gooddayqueencreek.com/">Queen Creek, Arkansas</a>; and <a href="https://gooddaypostfalls.com/">Post Falls, Idaho</a>; and <a href="https://dailymarysville.com/">Marysville, Washington</a>; and <a href="https://dailydenton.com/">Denton, Texas</a>. “Michael H.” grew up in each of these towns, and many more. It turns out Good Day Fort Collins is just one in a network of AI-generated newsletters operating in 355 cities and towns across the U.S. Not only do these hundreds of newsletters share the same exact seven testimonials, they also share the same branding, the same copy on their about pages, and the same stated mission: “to make local news more accessible and highlight extraordinary people in our community.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.35.52 AM-700x583.png" alt="" width="700" height="583" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-235441" srcset="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.35.52 AM-700x583.png 700w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.35.52 AM-990x825.png 990w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.35.52 AM-768x640.png 768w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.35.52 AM-1536x1279.png 1536w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.35.52 AM-100x83.png 100w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.35.52 AM-160x133.png 160w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.35.52 AM-260x217.png 260w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.35.52 AM-360x300.png 360w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.35.52 AM-480x400.png 480w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.35.52 AM-600x500.png 600w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.35.52 AM.png 1844w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /> You wouldn’t know any of that as a subscriber. Separate website domains and distinct newsletter names make it difficult to connect the dots. There is <a href="https://gooddayrocksprings.com/">Good Day Rock Springs</a>, <a href="https://dailybentonville.com/">Daily Bentonville</a>, <a href="https://todayinvirginiabeach.com/">Today in Virginia Beach</a>, and <a href="https://pittsburghmorning.com/">Pittsburgh Morning News</a>, to name just a few. Nothing in the newsletter copy discloses that they are part of a national network or that the article curation and summary blurbs are generated using large language models (LLMs). The newsletters do all name the same founder and editor: Matthew Henderson. Beyond an editor contact email, there is no information in the newsletters about Henderson, his operating location, or the company behind the newsletters. The email used for website domain registrations is tied to a <a href="https://gooddaynews.org/">blank website</a>. Only after making a $5 reader donation to Good Day Fort Collins was I able to trace the charge, and the website ownership, to Good Daily Inc. The company doesn’t have an online presence but is incorporated in both Delaware and New York. Considering how little Henderson shares about himself or his company in his newsletters, I was surprised that he was a real person, and that he responded to my email. Henderson is a serial internet startup founder and software engineer whose past companies include the on-demand blog-writing service <a href="https://www.hiscribble.com/">Scribble</a> and the journalist email database <a href="https://presshunt.co/">Press Hunt</a>. Good Daily is currently a one-man operation, Henderson says. Though AI use is not disclosed to Good Daily subscribers, in an interview Henderson didn’t shy away from the fact that each newsletter is produced using near full automation. “Our goal is to use automation and technology everywhere we possibly can without sacrificing product quality for our readers,” he told me in an email, explaining that he built the back-end technology that outputs the hundreds of newsletter editions every day. These automated agents “read the news” in every town where Good Daily operates, curate the most relevant stories, summarize them, edit and approve the copy, format it into a newsletter, and publish. Henderson declined to share any more specifics about his use of LLMs, calling it proprietary. “At a high level, [the system] operates much like an editorial team,” he said. Currently, Good Daily is operating in 47 states with a focus on “small town America.” One of the smallest towns is Rock Springs, Wyoming, which has a population of just over 20,000. “Local news should be local. The problem is, at this point, there are economic challenges keeping that from happening. Smaller communities rarely can support enough staff to run a traditional news organization,” said Henderson, who currently runs Good Daily from New York City. “I see technology, and LLMs specifically, as our best shot to fix this.” In fact, Henderson sees his automated newsletter as boosting the work of struggling local news outlets. “The summary is designed to prompt the reader to go read the human’s content…it’s just AI’s job to promote that,” he said. “Local news providers appreciate our work promoting their best local content for free, and often seek out ways for us to promote even more of their content.” Henderson’s rosy view of his impact on local news publishing was not shared by several outlets I spoke to that are regularly aggregated by Good Daily. “His claim is, frankly, horseshit. The suggestion that he’s helping news deserts is absurd,” said Rodney Gibbs, the head of audience and product at the <a href="https://www.nationaltrustforlocalnews.org/about">National Trust for Local News (NTLN)</a>. The nonprofit <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/09/the-national-trust-for-local-news-keeps-buying-local-newspapers-heres-what-theyve-learned/">owns 65 local newspapers</a> across Georgia, Maine, and Colorado, several of which are regularly aggregated by Good Daily newsletters. Gibbs points out that, in order to operate, AI newsletters rely on human labor at existing local news publishers. Generally, I found, Good Daily links to the handful of operating newsrooms in any given town, including legacy daily newspapers, radio stations, and independent digital outlets. Websites for local news broadcasters were the most common source. In each case, Good Daily could compete with these outlets for local advertising. “Consider the Georgia markets he’s targeting — most already have multiple, established news sources that he is recycling as fodder for his newsletters,” said Gibbs. Henderson’s <a href="https://dailymacon.com/">Daily Macon</a>, for example, regularly aggregates half a dozen different publications, including <a href="https://middlegatimes.com/" target="_blank">The Middle Georgia Times</a>, the website for <a href="https://www.41nbc.com/" target="_blank">NBC affiliate WMGT</a>, and <a href="https://maconmelody.com/" target="_blank">The Macon Melody</a>, NTLN’s own digital outlet, which it launched last summer. Over the past 90 days, referrals from Daily Macon totaled four engaged sessions, according to Gibbs. “That puts it at the very bottom of our referral sources. It’s clear that Daily Macon is not a meaningful traffic driver,” he said. (In its advertiser media kit, Daily Macon says it has <a href="https://dailymacon.com/advertisers/regional/media-kit">13,300 subscribers</a> in Georgia and a 26% click-to-open rate.) <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.45.33 AM-700x606.png" alt="Daily Macon newsletter aggregation of The Macon Melody, AI generated newsletter" width="700" height="606" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-235450" srcset="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.45.33 AM-700x606.png 700w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.45.33 AM-990x858.png 990w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.45.33 AM-768x665.png 768w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.45.33 AM-1536x1331.png 1536w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.45.33 AM-100x87.png 100w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.45.33 AM-160x139.png 160w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.45.33 AM-260x225.png 260w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.45.33 AM-360x312.png 360w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.45.33 AM-480x416.png 480w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.45.33 AM-600x520.png 600w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.45.33 AM.png 1854w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /> Gibbs takes issue with more than Good Daily’s referral numbers. “From fabricated testimonials on his websites to the absence of contact information and zero transparency about his information-gathering process including AI usage, his approach completely undermines the principles of trustworthy journalism,” he said. Journalists in other states have also taken note of Good Daily, at times when a local edition started appearing in their own inboxes. “I was signed up for Daily Bentonville without my consent. I immediately unsubscribed after doing a Google search and seeing that the same ‘testimonials’ — allegedly from local readers in my community appeared on dozens of other city newsletter pages,” said Sam Hoisington, the founder and editor of <a href="https://bentonvillebulletin.com/">The Bentonville Bulletin</a>, an independent digital news outlet in Northwest Arkansas. “I don’t necessarily have a problem with aggregation or AI usage, but I do have a problem with dishonesty.” Henderson denied his newsletter testimonials are fabricated, instead calling the names “anonymized” and the quotes “sanitized amalgamations of some of our favorite (and most common) testimonials.” <h3 class="subhead">Promises and profits</h3> Good Daily makes money from its newsletters in a few ways. For one, readers can contribute to the newsletters directly. A reader donation page offers $5/month and $50/year tiers, with a promised birthday shout out for contributors (though it’s worth noting, Nieman Lab’s faux birthday wasn’t shouted out after a test $5 contribution). “Producing this free daily newsletter for the Fort Collins community is not an easy job,” reads the call to action. “We are dedicated to keeping Good Day Fort Collins free forever — like local news should be. But that is not without challenge!” Henderson has successfully courted both national and local advertisers. I found hundreds of Good Daily newsletters that were sponsored by <a href="https://www.morningbrew.com/">Morning Brew</a>, the Axel Springer–owned newsletter company headquartered in New York. A spokesperson for Morning Brew confirmed that a third-party vendor had recently run a digital ad campaign that included Good Daily. “After reviewing these newsletters we’ve ended the program with our third-party vendor that included Good Daily,” the spokesperson said, “as this is not the type of newsletter production that we would like to be associated with.” Other national advertisers, including the wellness company Hims and the Android smartphone company Mode Mobile, similarly told me their sponsorships had been placed by a contracted ad buyer. Local advertisers I spoke to were more likely to have reached out directly to place their ads. Cameron Kawato, a managing partner at Anzel Legal in Fort Collins, said his firm began advertising with Good Day Fort Collins in December 2024. “I learned about it because I was subscribed and receiving the publications. I don’t know how I got subscribed, and what is weird is [it sent to] an email I don’t really use,” Kawato told me. Still, the local Fort Collins audience seemed like a fit and the firm paid around $150 for the first six months of ad placements. According to analytics on an advertiser portal, one of their ads had 12,850 views, the other just over 26,000 views. Several readers I spoke to echoed Kawato, saying they had no memory of signing up for their Good Daily newsletter but that at some point last year it started appearing in their inboxes. Henderson denies ever buying or using local email address lists, instead claiming the most likely explanation is that the readers’ friends, family members, or colleagues signed them up. “We obviously encourage our most engaged readers to share and invite others to the newsletter. Some take their own liberties in how they do that,” he said. “We have comprehensive list pruning processes to ensure that only opted-in, engaged readers receive emails from us.” Henderson claims Good Daily has primarily grown its newsletter subscription base organically. The business began early last year, after he launched a “<5-minute TLDR” to keep him and his grandparents in the loop with the latest news from their hometown of Great Falls, Montana. “I wanted news from multiple sources, and nothing that isn’t relevant to the town. Local papers publish mostly regional and national news nowadays, which I prefer to get elsewhere,” he said. Henderson says referrals were his biggest traffic driver, and the proof of concept pushed him to launch newsletters in surrounding towns in Montana, including <a href="https://gooddayhelena.com/">Helena</a> and <a href="https://gooddaybillings.com/">Billings</a>. Over the past year, he expanded to the West Coast, then the South, and most recently to the East Coast. Aside from the story summaries and news sources, the newsletters in each town are mirror copies of one another. Henderson says the company now has hundreds of thousands of subscribers across its newsletters. One screenshot of the company’s analytics dashboard Henderson shared with me puts the number at 407,752. These figures, however, contradict audience numbers listed on advertiser pages. Each contact form says “our content reaches hundreds of thousands” of people from that respective state, every month. That includes the contact form for Good Day Rock Springs, which claims to reach “hundreds of thousands of Wyomingites.” The current population of Wyoming is just over 580,000, which would mean Good Daily’s content currently reaches over a third of the state’s residents. Henderson says the statement doesn’t specify that reach is strictly through “organic newsletter impressions,” and that he is experimenting with promoting advertisers outside the newsletter as well. “[I] supplement that with other sources: paid media, placements in other local media sites, organic search traffic, organic social.” He said he plans to change the contact form copy next month. The peculiarities with Good Daily don’t stop there. Henderson has launched a “give back” program in roughly half of the markets he’s operating in, more than 150 towns and cities. Readers can vote each day for one local nonprofit on the newsletter websites. At the end of the year, each newsletter promises to “<a href="https://gooddayfortcollins.com/community/nonprofits">donate 10% of our advertising profits</a>” to the organization with the most votes. The <a href="https://dailyspokanenews.com/community/nonprofits">Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture</a> in Washington won the 2024 reader competition for <a href="https://dailyspokanenews.com/community/nonprofits">Daily Spokane</a>. “News to us,” said Marit Fisher, the museum’s chief marketing officer. “None of us here have ever heard of this newsletter.” Neither had anyone at Loaves & Fishes Community Services in Illinois, the winner of the 2024 reader competition for <a href="https://dailynaperville.com/">Daily Naperville</a>, which said it had not entered itself into the competition. Other local nonprofits I spoke to, however, had actually led voting campaigns. “Once we knew about the voting competition last year we encouraged people to subscribe to the newsletter and vote for us,” said Cheryl Campbell, the executive director of <a href="https://www.csrckids.org/">Children’s Speech & Reading Center,</a> the winner of the 2024 competition for Good Day Fort Collins. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.49.43 AM-700x548.png" alt="Nonprofit voting for Good Day Fort Collins" width="700" height="548" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-235452" srcset="https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.49.43 AM-700x548.png 700w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.49.43 AM-990x774.png 990w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.49.43 AM-768x601.png 768w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.49.43 AM-1536x1201.png 1536w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.49.43 AM-100x78.png 100w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.49.43 AM-160x125.png 160w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.49.43 AM-260x203.png 260w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.49.43 AM-360x282.png 360w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.49.43 AM-480x375.png 480w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.49.43 AM-600x469.png 600w, https://www.niemanlab.org/images/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-11.49.43 AM.png 1864w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /> A notification on the Good Day Fort Collins voting portal announced the Center as the winner and asked them to reach out to collect their prize. Despite their subscription campaign, the Center hadn’t seen the notification and hadn’t heard directly from Good Day Fort Collins. Campbell only reached out after I notified her. “I did hear back from the editor, but they said that they didn’t know what the ‘prize’ would be, that they’d had a rough year financially.” Henderson emphasized that winning nonprofits are entitled to 10% of advertising profits, not revenue. “Our books are not yet finalized, so we do not know how much our contributions will be in each market,” he said, clarifying that profit in any one market this year would likely be “very small.” “For markets where we end up not earning a profit, we’ll be working directly with the winners to design creative packages (generous amounts of advertising credits, etc.) to support them this year,” he said. <h3 class="subhead">“The only local news I get”</h3> Good Daily is not the first to experiment with AI-generated news for local, or even hyperlocal, audiences. Last fall, I <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/08/ai-reporters-are-covering-events-in-northwest-arkansas-for-okaynwa/">reported on OkayNWA</a>, a site in Northwest Arkansas that scrapes social media posts to output its own AI-generated local events coverage. <a href="https://hoodline.com/">Hoodline</a> has been publishing AI-generated content through its 40-city local news network, including stories <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/06/whats-in-a-byline-for-hoodlines-ai-generated-local-news-everything-and-nothing/">bylined by fake reporters</a>. Local news even appears to be in the sightline of major AI companies, like OpenAI. Earlier this month, Axios announced a <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/openai-will-fund-four-axios-local-newsrooms-as-part-of-a-broader-partnership-focused-on-juicing-local-news/">new partnership with OpenAI</a>, which will fund the launch of four new city-specific newsletters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Kansas City, Missouri; Boulder, Colorado; and Huntsville, Alabama. Far from fully automated, Axios plans to hire journalists in each city to manage these newsletters, who will have access to OpenAI tools. Good Daily currently produces no original reporting, but Henderson does not rule out that possibility and considers his use of automation a model for the future of rural news. “If we can solve the hardest challenges — technology, growth, monetization — small teams (even one-person teams) could run profitable local news operations in every town across the country,” he said. For the moment, the 350-plus local news teams are still operated by the same person. Most readers are still in the dark about who that person is. A thread on the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/FortCollins/comments/1h90bpj/good_day_fort_collins_emails/">Fort Collins, Colorado subreddit</a> includes over a dozen residents asking about the newsletter and speculating about how it got ahold of their email addresses. Some were more than happy to receive it. “It’s the only instance I can think of where spam seems to actually provide value,” reads one comment. “I haven’t unsubscribed yet because it’s the only local news I get,” reads another. ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/inside-a-network-of-ai-generated-newsletters-targeting-small-town-america/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> </channel> </rss>