As Trump silences Voice of America, Russia and China seize the opportunity to reshape Africa’s news ecosystem
▪ Experts warn that the president’s decision to shut down the U.S. international broadcaster is leaving a void that authoritarian regimes are trying to fill.
How to leak to a journalist
▪ Planning to leak? Read these tips first.
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.”
In 2011, NPR executives “drafted a secret plan for the worst” ➚
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.”
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
After years of exploring a sale, The Skimm is acquired by Ziff Davis ➚
Report for America’s parent organization will “sunset” its in-house editorial projects to focus on funding local journalism ➚
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.
The New York Times picks up the shuttered FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracking work ➚
Wired’s un-paywalling of stories built on public data is a reminder of its role in the information ecosystem
▪ Trump’s wholesale destruction of the information-generating sectors of the federal government will have implications that go far beyond .gov domains.
New York Times bundles give European publishers a subscription boost
▪ “There’s no reason to think this shouldn’t work in most markets where subscription-based payment is already well advanced.”
Trump guts the 83-year-old Voice of America ➚
A pipeline company is suing Greenpeace for $300 million. A pay-to-play newspaper is accused of tainting the jury pool
▪ Though Central ND News promises to “fill the void in community news after years of decline in local reporting by legacy media” with “100% original reporting,” no staff are listed on the site and few stories have bylines.