Congress fights to keep AM radio in cars
▪ The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act is being deliberated in both houses of Congress.
Going back to the well: CNN.com, the most popular news site in the U.S., is putting up a paywall
▪ It has a much better chance of success than CNN+ ever did. But it still has to convince people its work is distinctive enough to break out the credit card.
The New York Times redesigns its app to highlight a universe beyond just news
▪ It’s the first major redesign since the app launched in 2008.
You might discover a conspiracy theory on social media — but you’re more likely to believe it if you hear it from a friend
▪ Partisanship, conspiratorial thinking, and IRL connections make for a potent mix — on both the left and the right.
Why does the Wichita Beacon keep losing reporters?
▪ The Kansas City Beacon seemed to be a nonprofit news success story. So what’s going wrong in Wichita?
Pivot to video 2.0, Reddit’s rise, and what comes after pageviews: Our notes from ONA 2024
▪ In the age of “meeting the reader where they are,” mission-driven news orgs say they’re looking beyond the pageview — plus other lessons from ONA 2024.
The National Trust for Local News keeps buying local newspapers. Here’s what they’ve learned.
▪ “What we’re trying to solve for is not necessarily a business model problem. We’re trying to solve for an ownership incentive problem.”
What would Project 2025 do for (or to) journalism?
▪ From defunding NPR and PBS to kicking reporters out of the White House, it’s an array of conservative priorities and Trumpian retreads.
Google Discover is sending U.S. news publishers much more traffic. (Social? Still falling.)
▪ Traffic from Google Discover now exceeds traffic from Google Search for some publishers, but what works there is a bit of a guessing game.
With help from Denmark’s Zetland, Finland will get a member-supported news outlet in 2025
▪ “It feels more like a partner and a support than Zetland coming to the Finnish market.”
A courts reporter wrote about a few trials. Then an AI decided he was actually the culprit.
▪ For one German reporter, the statistical underpinnings of a large language model meant his many bylines were wrongly warped into a lengthy rap sheet.
Local journalists try new methods to reach, serve, and build trust with audiences
▪ “If you’re not reaching the people that you want to reach, then what’s the point of doing the work?”
We know why journalists leave the profession. A new study looks at why they stay
▪ “The day-to-day work of news, journalists reminded us, was the opportunity to learn for a living.”
$4 for one week? $7? $10? The Washington Post tests “flexible payments” ➚
The Puente News Collaborative expands to report on the entire U.S.–Mexico border
▪ “If you look beyond the wall, you really see these two vibrant communities that are involved in each other’s lives and the integration between them.”
An AI chatbot helped Americans who believe in conspiracy theories “exit the rabbit hole”
▪ “It still works even for people who strongly distrust AI.”
Documentary filmmakers publish new AI ethics guidelines. Are news broadcasters next?
▪ The Archival Producers Alliance’s new generative AI guardrails put audience transparency first.
Mobile newsrooms help drive citizen journalism in North Macedonia and beyond
▪ “With each region we visited, the audience from that region grew, and they have continued to follow us to this day.”
The California Google deal could leave out news startups and the smallest publishers
▪ “We don’t know whether or how this nonprofit and its fund will operate, and likely won’t for some months (nonprofit governance is many things, but fast is not one of them).”
With an expansion on the way, Ken Doctor’s Lookout thinks it has some answers to the local news crisis
▪ After finding success — and a Pulitzer Prize — in Santa Cruz, Lookout aims to replicate its model in Oregon. “All of these playbooks are at least partially written. You sometimes hear people say, ‘Nobody’s figured it out yet.’ But this is all about execution.”