Plus: How newsrooms are using generative AI, what makes news seem authentic on social media, and how to bridge the divide between academics and journalists.
“We’ve learned, especially in the last few cycles, that it’s not necessarily possible or a good idea to let [the electoral] process play out in silence.”
The Center for Community News at the University of Vermont is leading “the first nationally coordinated effort to strengthen university-led election coverage.”
Led by risk-averse corporate owners, dozens of the biggest U.S. newspapers have decided their editorials should express opinions on everything except who should be president.
In our package: Digital news outlets reimagine the crime beat; TikTok creators balance ethics and money; public radio stations see more true crime in their future; AI might reshape court reporting.
Testify’s groundbreaking investigations in Cleveland show the power of computational methods in courthouse reporting. Why, then, are its stories so hard to replicate?
“Sometimes as journalists, we move around with an attitude that the community is just not going to [understand] us….I think that’s a huge obstacle to being able to do this better.”
Plus: How newsrooms are using generative AI, what makes news seem authentic on social media, and how to bridge the divide between academics and journalists.
“We’ve learned, especially in the last few cycles, that it’s not necessarily possible or a good idea to let [the electoral] process play out in silence.”
“David Clinch, a revenue consultant for Media Growth Partners, a media advisory firm, said he thought news organizations would see another uptick in customers, but that it would be more muted than in the first Trump administration, because some readers have become fed up with or exhausted by mainstream news coverage.”
“The federal government can intersect with any part of the journalism process — from how stories get reported to the platforms they’re distributed on to the business models that pay the bills. What does Project 2025 have in mind for an institution it doesn’t seem to have much affection for?”
“Will there be another ‘Trump bump’ of viewers and subscribers, or will the opposite happen?…As Kristen Welker asked on NBC’s overnight coverage, ‘Will he go after his political rivals, legally? What specifically does that look like?’…Will news organizations have the resources to defend against legal, digital and physical threats?”
“Two of the largest of the prediction exchanges, crypto-fueled, offshore Polymarket which sells contracts to overseas bettors and U.S.-based Kalshi which serves U.S. residents, together ended up with a purse of about $450 million as of Tuesday evening, according to data from the companies.”
“Voting rolls are public records, and ways to more readily access them are not new. But during a time of intense division, political violence, or even the broader threat of data being used to dox or harass anyone, sites like VoteRef turn a vital part of the democratic process—simply voting—into a security and privacy threat.”
“As I was preparing to write this story, I visited some of the most vile corners of the internet. I’ve monitored these spaces for years, and yet this time, I was struck by how little distance there was between them and what X has become. It is impossible to ignore: The difference between X and a known hateful site such as Gab are people like myself….We are the human shield of respectability that keeps Musk’s disastrous $44 billion investment from being little more than an algorithmically powered Stormfront.”
“Already, there is chatter among some observers that the heightened mass outrage and interest of Trump’s first term—which drove eyeballs and subscriptions to organizations producing hard-hitting journalism, and energized the journalism itself—won’t be repeated this time; that exhaustion and apathy might reign instead. If that is indeed to be the case, then it will pose some very sharp questions for the business of news—or rather, intensify questions we’re already grappling with.”
“The changes would allow for ‘greater scrutiny in the public interest’ of deals that include the purchase of U.K. online news publications and news magazines ‘that might adversely impact accurate reporting, freedom of expression and media plurality.'”
“Matt Rogerson, director of global public policy and platform strategy at the FT and former Guardian Media Group director of public policy, argued that Google’s “social contract” with publishers — through which it provided value to the industry by sending traffic to their sites — has been broken.”
“Are there political levers the former president could pull to target media companies he doesn’t like? Yes. But harassment campaigns and lawsuits that drain companies of time, money, resources and trust are much easier and can be just as punitive.”
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.