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
By Jordan Teicher
▪ 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 database ➚
Wired’s un-paywalling of stories built on public data is a reminder of its role in the information ecosystem
By Joshua Benton
▪ 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
By Hanaa' Tameez
▪ “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
By Miranda Green
▪ 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.
Local newsrooms are using AI to listen in on public meetings
By Andrew Deck
▪ Chalkbeat and Midcoast Villager have already published stories with sources and leads pulled from AI transcriptions.
You can learn a conference’s worth of data journalism through these NICAR tipsheets
By Joshua Benton
▪ From AI to OSINT, maps to the sports section, it’s a data journalism jubilee.
Ruth Marcus left The Washington Post after they killed her column. The New Yorker just published it in full. ➚
“More alarming by the day”: New York Times investigations editor on the legal threats faced by news publishers
By Sarah Scire
▪ “The rhetoric and actions that Trump and his allies take at a national level are being mimicked across the country at a much smaller level. Whether they’re Trump supporters or not, they’re taking cues from the President of the United States.”
A public media collaboration on statehouse reporting moves forward in North Carolina ➚
How Trump’s cuts are crippling journalism beyond the United States
By Gretel Kahn
▪ According to a USAID factsheet now taken offline, the agency funded training and support for 6,200 journalists and assisted 707 outlets.
AI search engines fail to produce accurate citations in over 60% of tests, according to new Tow Center study ➚
This AI tool could give newsrooms “eyes and ears where they don’t have them”
By Neel Dhanesha
▪ Roganbot, created by two journalists, is the testbed for “visibility tools” that help keep tabs on the internet.
Politico Pro wants subscribers doing “deep research” on its site, not on ChatGPT
By Joshua Benton
▪ A good news organization sits atop valuable archives. Why not use them to give readers answers to their questions?
News unions are grappling with generative AI. Our new study shows what they’re most concerned about
By Mike Ananny
▪ We find six areas where news media unions are focusing their generative AI attention and concern — and two where they’re not.
OptOut News, an aggregation app for independent news, has shut down ➚
FiveThirtyEight is shutting down as part of broader cuts at ABC and Disney
By Laura Hazard Owen
▪ Though Nate Silver left in 2023, FiveThirtyEight still offered election forecasts, a presidential approval tracker, and other tools.