Wikipedia has spent 25 years proving a quiet truth: Public-service information doesn’t need headlines, urgency, or virality — it needs accuracy, transparency, and care. That’s not a side project to journalism. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/afte... #Journalism #Wikipedia #PublicKnowledge

A weekly local news product that promises not to waste your time shouldn’t feel radical — but here we are. L.A. Reported is betting that clarity, restraint, and respect for readers still matter. That’s not nostalgia. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/l-a-... #Journalism #LocalNews #Trust

Digg’s public launch isn’t just a nostalgia play. It’s an experiment in whether intentional design, real moderation, and community norms can still matter in a platform economy dominated by scale and algorithms. 🔗 techcrunch.com/2026/01/14/d... #Tech #PublicDiscourse #PlatformGovernance

Newsrooms are taking comments seriously again — and that’s a good thing. Moderated, intentional comment spaces can rebuild trust and surface community knowledge. Democracy needs dialogue, not just distribution. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/news... #Journalism #PublicDiscourse

Apple reportedly bringing Google’s Gemini into Siri is a big AI moment — and a big power moment. Two tech giants shaping how people ask questions, get answers, and make decisions. Convenient? Yes. Neutral? Never. We need transparency and real guardrails. 🔗 www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

“What metrics matter?” is the right question This piece shows how chasing the wrong numbers can quietly reshape journalism away from public service and toward platform logic. If we value trust and civic impact, we need metrics that actually measure them. restructurednews.substack.com/p/what-metri...

A startup is clipping public meetings for TikTok, hoping humor will pull people into local democracy. That might work — but only if engagement leads somewhere. Clips can spark interest. Accountability still needs context. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/high... #LocalNews #Democracy

If you’ve ever struggled to cancel a New York Times subscription, you’re not alone — and you might be owed compensation. Even great journalism doesn’t excuse dark patterns. Consumer fairness is part of media credibility. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/have... #Journalism #ConsumerRights

Gina Chua’s take on AI and the news industry is refreshingly clear-eyed: AI isn’t creating journalism’s crisis — it’s accelerating it. Without rules on extraction, compensation, and accountability, tech will keep winning and reporting will keep losing. 🔗 niemanreports.org/gina-chua-ai...

Documented is launching a training program to help newsrooms better serve immigrant audiences. This is what public-interest journalism looks like: language access, trust-building, and reporting shaped with communities — not just about them. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/docu... #Journalism

Nieman Lab warns that publishers are heading into 2026 squeezed from both sides: AI platforms extracting value, and creators capturing audiences directly. Creators aren’t the problem. A system that undervalues reporting is. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/publ... #Journalism #AI #MediaPolicy

Teens aren’t apathetic about news — they’re overwhelmed and distrustful. New research shows the problem isn’t young people. It’s an information ecosystem built for engagement, not understanding. News literacy isn’t optional anymore. 🔗 newslit.org/news-and-res... #NewsLiteracy #Journalism

The BBC says it will stay on X to help counter global misinformation. Public-interest journalism can’t just retreat and hope for the best. But let’s be honest: fighting misinformation inside hostile platforms is a stopgap. 🔗 www.theguardian.com/media/2026/j... #Journalism #Misinformation

AI summaries are coming to Gmail, per Nieman Lab. Helpful? Maybe. Neutral? Definitely not. When platforms summarize our messages, they also shape what we notice — and what we miss. Users need transparency, consent, and real control. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/ai-s... #AI #Privacy #DigitalRights

Digiday’s timeline of publisher–AI deals shows how fast journalism has moved from resistance to negotiation. Some outlets get paid. Many get left behind. And the rules are being written in private contracts, not public policy. 🔗 digiday.com/media/a-time... #Journalism #AI #MediaPolicy

Digiday’s profile of Cloudflare’s Matthew Prince shows how web infrastructure companies are now acting as de facto defenders of journalism. That’s useful — but also a warning. Public-interest journalism shouldn’t rely on corporate gatekeepers to survive. 🔗 digiday.com/media/the-ac... #Journalism

A photographer won a payout from a “news” site that used their work — even though the site’s owners couldn’t be identified. That’s a win. But it also shows how easily media operators hide while creators absorb the risk. 🔗 pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/r... #Journalism #Copyright #CreativeLabor

Nieman Lab asks whether Pittsburgh can become a nationally important city without a strong local newspaper. You can’t build democratic power on innovation alone. Without local journalism, accountability disappears — quietly. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/will... #LocalNews #Journalism #Democracy

Netflix and iHeartMedia are betting big on video podcasts. What started as intimate, low-cost conversations is now becoming platform-scale media. More reach, yes. But also more consolidation — and more pressure to trade substance for spectacle. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/b... #Media #Podcasting

The entire New Yorker archive is now fully digitized — more than a century of journalism, culture, and critique preserved and searchable. In a moment of short attention spans and disappearing context, this kind of archival access really matters. www.newyorker.com/news/press-r... #Journalism

AP has launched a new Verify dashboard to help newsrooms track and debunk misinformation in real time. In an AI-driven info ecosystem, verification is no longer a “nice to have.” It’s democratic infrastructure. 🔗 pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/w... #Journalism #FactChecking #MediaTrust

WSJ opinion writers moving to Substack say they want “free expression.” But freedom from editorial oversight isn’t the same as freedom for the public good. Institutions can fail — but accountability still matters. 🔗 www.axios.com/2025/12/15/w... #Media #Journalism #FreeSpeech

The Washington Post is launching an AI-powered podcast, per NPR. Interesting experiment — but AI in news audio raises real questions about labor, transparency, and trust. Accessibility is a win. Opacity is not. 🔗 www.npr.org/2025/12/13/n... #Journalism #AI #MediaEthics

Disney pouring $1B into AI-generated content says a lot: efficiency > artistry, scale > creativity. When one of the world’s biggest cultural producers embraces “slopification,” independent creators and creative labor lose the most. 🔗 www.404media.co/disney-inves... #AIEthics #Culture

A startup is trying to take back the Twitter trademark from Musk — and honestly, the case says more about our broken digital public sphere than about branding rights. 🔗 arstechnica.com/information-... #TechAccountability #DigitalRights

Video podcasts have exploded far beyond their “man cave” origins. More voices = more diversity — but also more noise, more misinformation, and more parasocial dynamics shaping how people understand the world. 🔗 www.newyorker.com/culture/infi... #Media #Culture #Podcasting

AI companies are rolling out new “accountability” frameworks (AAIF) + Anthropic’s MCP to make AI systems easier to integrate. But self-regulation ≠ public-interest governance. 🔗 www.theverge.com/ai-artificia... #AIethics #DigitalRights #TechPolicy

The RSL licensing spec is live — a tool for publishers to tell AI models what they can (and can’t) scrape or train on. A good step. But unless big AI firms respect these rules, consent is still optional and journalism stays extractable. www.theverge.com/news/841222/... #AI #Journalism #DigitalRights

CJR reports that AI “widgets” on news sites are quietly scraping articles + user behavior, feeding external AI systems. Local newsrooms often don’t even know what’s being taken. This isn’t “innovation.” 🔗 www.cjr.org/analysis/loc... #Journalism #AI #DigitalRights

Young adults under 30 are following the news less — but they get more of it from social media, influencers, newsletters. Pew’s 2025 report shows the news-consuming generation is rewriting the rulebook. 🔗 www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2... #MediaJustice #DigitalJournalism #News #Democracy

Big Tech companies have more power than many governments — and new reporting shows they’re using it. Through deep lobbying, secret deals, trade-group influence and media co-optation, they’ve shaped laws, silenced regulation, and weakened media protections. niemanreports.org/big-tech-lob...

Newsweek is testing AI-powered “modes” to personalize homepages. Interesting idea — but personalization can easily become narrowing. If AI curates our news, we need transparency & civic-minded design. 🔗 digiday.com/media/newswe... #Journalism #AI

Many journalists think AI poses a big threat — and yet nearly all are using it anyway. For journalism to stay worthy of trust, we can’t treat AI as just another tool — we have to treat it as a responsibility. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/jour... #MediaEquity #AIEthics #Journalism #DigitalMedia

Newsrooms are no longer just dabbling in AI — journalism is becoming part of AI systems. The recent JournalismAI Festival showed how publishers worldwide are testing AI-assisted reporting, personalized articles, deep-fake detection, and more. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/news... #MediaEquity

More people read news — but fewer share it. According to Nieman Lab, “sharing ≠ guaranteed” anymore. If journalism is to matter — even when it’s not trending — we need to build systems that value depth, trust and public-service, not just reach. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/why-... #MediaJustice #News

Big win for newsroom ethics & labor: An arbitrator found Politico violated its union contract when it rolled out AI-powered tools without bargaining or editorial oversight. AI “efficiency” should never mean surrendering accuracy, fairness or human judgment. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/poli...

AI tools like ChatGPT just scraped pay-walled journalism — then denied it when asked. The target? Press Gazette. The tone? Defensive. If we care about honest information, we need transparency, rights-respecting AI design. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/reading/chat... #MediaEquity #AI #Copyright #Journalism

Big news: major publishers (Arena Group, BuzzFeed, USA Today Co., Vox) have joined RSL — a licensing framework so AI companies need to pay for content, not just scrape it. If we want fair journalism in the AI era — we need standards + solidarity + public interest first. digiday.com/media/arena-...

Newsrooms are embracing vertical-video “Watch” tabs — The NYT, The Economist, CNN, Newsday and more are betting on swipeable news in the phone feed. If we want media that serves democracy — not just clicks — we need format diversity, not just format convenience. 🔗 www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/news...

New from The Verge — a sober reminder: LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini are not “thinking machines.” They’re clever language emulators, not minds. If we build our world on AI “answers,” we risk losing the messy, imperfect but real human judgment, context and care. 🔗 www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

The Border Chronicle — started by two veteran border reporters — is doing something rare: meaningful, ground-level journalism from communities along the U.S.–Mexico border. www.cjr.org/feature/the-...

AI-generated “recipe slop” is taking over search & social — and Thanksgiving cooking may never taste the same. If we care about real knowledge, we need to say: algorithms can’t replace human expertise. Let’s support creators, not just clicks. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Major moment for history + archives: AI now (apparently) can read messy old handwriting reliably, opening up thousands of letters & documents for public access. If archives are entering a new age of access, let’s build that access with justice, not just tech. newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...

Big win for public media: NPR’s digital revenue-sharing programs brought in north of $30M in FY2025, with $18M going to stations. If we’re serious about equitable journalism, models like this need to scale—and need to include everyone. 🔗 www.current.org/2025/11/npr-... #MediaJustice #PublicMedia

Watching news still wins: 44% of adults prefer watching vs. 37% reading vs. 19% listening. If we care about equitable access to news, we must ensure reading + listening formats don’t become second-class. 🔗 www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/... #MediaJustice #NewsFormats #DigitalMedia

Nonprofit news outlets: you can sell ads — and still keep your tax-exempt status. Research shows the fear of unrelated business income may be overstated. ✔️ That’s empowering. ⚠️ But transparency and careful strategy still matter. www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/nonp... #MediaJustice #NonprofitJournalism

The new Trans News Initiative is a big deal: over 190 k articles analysed to map how U.S. newsrooms cover trans communities—few stories of resilience or voices of trans people themselves, many framed as controversy or culture-war. 🔗 www.transjournalists.org/introducing-... #MediaJustice

The Atlantic is drawing a hard line: it tracks AI crawlers, asks whether they send readers or subs—and blocks the rest. If we’re serious about equitable media, we need transparency, standards and tools so all outlets can demand fair treatment in the AI age. www.digiday.com/media/inside...

Bloomberg Media is using AI-generated “synthetic characters” to test products and marketing messages. If media is about serving diverse publics, we should ask: who builds these characters and whose responses are being modelled? pressgazette.co.uk/press-gazett... #MediaJustice #AI #AudienceResearch

A cautionary tale for journalism: A “freelancer” published across respected outlets with fabricated interviews and quotes—revealed by The Local. We must demand transparency in bylines, verification in sourcing and fair treatment of writers. thelocal.to/investigatin...