Nieman Foundation at Harvard
HOME
          
LATEST STORY
How to leak to a journalist
ABOUT                    SUBSCRIBE
How to leak to a journalist
Planning to leak? Read these tips first.
By Laura Hazard Owen
Can Bluesky’s AT Protocol build the decentralized social media ecosystem the Fediverse aspires to?
The odds are against it, but it’s the most likely candidate to “save social media from billionaire capture” so far.
By Joshua Benton
A Hungarian investigative news site finds YouTube success with an “old-fashioned” documentary
“In a bizarre way, the government propaganda also helped create some buzz around the film.”
By Sarah Scire
ProPublica wanted to find more sources in the federal government. So it brought a truck.
“It’s funny how you can know nothing about something like LED billboard trucks and then suddenly become an expert in them.”
By Neel Dhanesha
Far fewer Americans are hearing about Trump’s attacks on the media this time around, report finds
It’s not because they’re tuned out entirely. About 40% of Americans say they’re paying more attention to political news with Trump in the White House for a second time.
By Sarah Scire
How can we reach beyond the local news choir? Spotlight PA’s founding editor has ideas
In the wake of the 2024 election, where “democracy” was not a top issue for most voters, local news messaging focused on democracy may not suffice to build the broad coalition essential to give local news in the U.S. a sustainable future.
By Sophie Culpepper
Robert W. McChesney, America’s leading left-wing critic of corporate media, has died
After studying the early days of radio, McChesney developed a holistic critique of media structures that exposed how open they were to manipulation by those in power.
By Joshua Benton
“Some hard and important lessons”: One of the most promising local news nonprofits looks back — and ahead
The National Trust for Local News is a nonprofit organization with a mission so important even its harshest critics want it to succeed.
By Sarah Scire and Sophie Culpepper
Jeffrey Goldberg got the push notification of all push notifications — and a hell of a story
His inclusion on a high-level Signal chat about American war plans highlights how the Trump administration is operating — and how much of a threat it is to a free press.
By Joshua Benton
There’s another reason the L.A. Times’ AI-generated opinion ratings are bad (this one doesn’t involve the Klan)
At a time of increasing polarization and rigid ideologies, the L.A. Times has decided it wants to make its opinion pieces less persuasive to readers by increasing the cost of changing your mind.
By Joshua Benton
The NBA’s next big insider may be an outsider
While insiders typically work for established media companies like ESPN, Jake Fischer operates out of his Brooklyn apartment and publishes scoops behind a paywall on Substack. It’s not even his own Substack.
By Jordan Teicher
How to leak to a journalist
Planning to leak? Read these tips first.
By Laura Hazard Owen
Can Bluesky’s AT Protocol build the decentralized social media ecosystem the Fediverse aspires to?
The odds are against it, but it’s the most likely candidate to “save social media from billionaire capture” so far.
A Hungarian investigative news site finds YouTube success with an “old-fashioned” documentary
“In a bizarre way, the government propaganda also helped create some buzz around the film.”
What We’re Reading
New York Times / Lauren Hirsch, Maggie Haberman, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Karen Weise, and Sapna Maheshwari
Amazon put in a last-minute bid to acquire TikTok, sources say
“Amazon would be the most high-profile bidder for the company, which has also attracted interest from the billionaire Frank McCourt as well as Jesse Tinsley, the founder of the payroll firm Employer.com.”
CBS News / Jennifer Jacobs and Sara Cook
Trump is expected to finalize who he wants to buy TikTok today
“The administration is finalizing plans for potential investors that could include Blackstone and Oracle, as well as a long list of other investors that will likely involve blue chip private equity firms, venture capital firms, and major investors in the technology industry…over the weekend, Mr. Trump said of TikTok, ‘We have a lot of potential buyers. There’s a lot of interest in TikTok. The decision is going to be my decision.'”
Press Gazette / Bron Maher
U.K. newspaper chain Newsquest now employs 36 “AI-assisted reporters”
“The reporters use an Al-powered CMS to rewrite press releases into stories, and are tasked with checking the facts and quotes are correct in the output…[an executive] added the Al-assisted reporters helped because ‘we’ve got a lot more space to fill in those newspapers now, because there’s not many adverts in them.'”
PressProgress / Luke LeBrun
Canada’s top TV network cancelled a weekly fact-checking segment after conservatives complained
“[Fact-checker Rachel] Gilmore says she received no criticism or negative feedback from CTV on the quality of her work and was told that the decision to cancel the segment was made purely to avoid the ‘distraction’ created by her online ‘troll base.'”
Wikimedia Foundation / Birgit Mueller
A swarm of AI crawlers have increased Wikipedia’s bandwidth by 50% since January
“This increase is not coming from human readers, but largely from automated programs that scrape the Wikimedia Commons image catalog of openly licensed images to feed images to AI models. Our infrastructure is built to sustain sudden traffic spikes from humans during high-interest events, but the amount of traffic generated by scraper bots is unprecedented and presents growing risks and costs.”
The Wall Street Journal / Ben Glickman and Lauren Thomas
Elon Musk’s merger of Twitter with his AI company broke Wall Street’s usual rules
“‘It’s funny money,’ said Andrew Verstein, professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, Law School. ‘It’s like using Monopoly money to buy Pokémon cards.'”
Los Angeles Times / Stephen Battaglio
NBC gets custody of Steve Kornacki in its divorce from MSNBC
“The popular data maven has signed a deal with NBC that will expand his presence across the network’s news and sports divisions…Kornacki, 45, will continue to be NBC’s go-to expert for statistical analysis of polls and election results and during major sporting events, including Triple Crown horse racing, the Olympics and the NFL.”
The Verge / Sheena Vasani
Runway says its latest AI video model can generate consistent scenes and people
“Al-generated videos can struggle with maintaining consistent storytelling, but Runway claims on X that the new model, Gen-4, should allow users more ‘continuity and control’ while telling stories…As an example, the startup released a video of a woman maintaining her appearance in different shots and contexts across a variety of lighting conditions.”
The New York Times / Benjamin Mullin
Meet the Pods: After NBC, Chuck Todd is launching a podcast and YouTube network
“He also said he was working with an adviser from a major financial firm to build or acquire a company focused on community news…he said he was excited to ‘sing for his supper’ on the podcast and eager to find a business solution to a problem that had vexed investors for decades: the collapse of local news.”
Digiday / Sara Guaglione
Publishers still guessing how Google’s latest algorithm update will reshape search
“Last year’s core updates threw publishers for a loop. A core update in March 2024 aimed at cleaning up spam and low-quality content in Google search results hit news publishers hard, with many seeing their sites’ search visibility fall. Another change to Google’s algorithm at the end of the year decimated publishers’ product review sites.”
Nieman Lab is a project to try to help figure out where the news is headed in the Internet age. Sign up for The Digest, our daily email with all the freshest future-of-journalism news.