A reminder that there are no boundaries in media. Everyone can offer everything.

Helpful transparency in reporting

With rumors flying about ICE sightings, our reporter Gabrielle Lazor went searching in the North Hills Hilton. 9thstreetjournal.org/2025/11/21/s...

Some fascinating detective work here by DF Lovett on the edits to Jeffrey Epstein's Wikipedia page. open.substack.com/pub/edithist...

Tremendous story by Duke alum @billmccarthy.bsky.social showing how White House stitched together footage from other cities and claimed they were from Chicago factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

Smart and thorough analysis from @ninajankowicz.com: Jim Jordan Claims Google Censored Conservatives. His Own Committee’s Work Shows Otherwise. wiczipedia.substack.com/p/jim-jordan...

Why does Microsoft do this? Every day (???), it sends an "Reaction Daily Digest" email that summarizes the "thumbs-ups" (and, I guess, other emojis) that I have received that day. What value is that email, coming hours after a respondent sent them?

A smart and simple fact-check. To check Trump's claim that the Smithsonian has "nothing about success, nothing about brightness, nothing about the future," PolitiFact fact-checkers simply toured the museums. Pants on Fire. www.politifact.com/factchecks/2...

Hey Chicago! Come and see me Sept. 6 at Printers Row Lit Fest! I'll be discussing lying in politics and misinformation with @barbmcquade.bsky.social‬! -- moderated by the Chicago Tribune's ‪@jake-sheridan.bsky.social‬!

Three news alerts, three different takes

Great lede here from @joshuabenton.com: "Alden Global Capital just can’t understand. Why would any newspaper not want to be the next to pass through its digestive tract?" www.niemanlab.org/2025/08/alde...

Some thoughts on Google’s announcement ending the use of ClaimReview in search:

A lot of people believed Meta's decision to end its support of fact-checkers would lead to a dramatic decline. But that hasn't happened, at least not yet, according to the latest census by the Duke Reporters' Lab. reporterslab.org/2025/06/19/f...

Isn't this the result for, like, everything? Every issue, every question that begins, "Do you support President Trump..."

I was watching a video on Spotify today and I realized… that I was watching a video on Spotify. It has become a platform for music + audiobooks + podcasts + now, podcasts with video. It’s the everything platform.

From @glennkessler.bsky.social, anatomy of a flip-flop: How Trump has changed his claims that he can end the Russian invasion of Ukraine. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

A great fact-check by Grace Abels and some other tremendous actors. www.instagram.com/reel/DJo946k...

I lied to a guy on national TV. So I decided to track him down and say I was sorry. This is the story of my search. www.cjr.org/analysis/pol...

Anybody know how long Trump has been in office? I'd love to see some coverage of that...

Ran into John from @themountaingoats.bsky.social exactly where you'd expect a big rock star on a Saturday night, in the parking lot of Target, where he was shopping for Easter candy. What a smart, wonderful guy. Reminded me why I love the Goats.

“I would like to say one more thing,” Chávez said. “Again to our trans students, we see you and we love you.” 9thstreetjournal.org/2025/03/28/d...

Journalists who use "[timely word]gate" in a headline should be suspended without pay for a week. Today's example: "Signalgate."

Not sure how new this is, but the NYT's Athletic now has a button so you can directly bet on teams. The gap between journalism and gambling keeps narrowing.

My Newswriting students are reading one of my favorite works of student journalism, @carmela.bsky.social's "I watched all 162 crashes at the Can Opener," which then led me to watch way too many YouTube videos. But a fun way to spend an afternoon! 9thstreetjournal.org/2021/04/13/i...

NYT using crowdsourcing for coverage of JFK assassination files.

I always worry when I see an obit for Bill Adair - until I realize it’s not me.

Interesting addition to my Google search results that I haven’t seen before

A student used "literally" in a paper, which gave me an excuse to watch this youtu.be/gYB-dM2Tsd0?...

This is tremendous news. The amazing @edeggans.bsky.social becoming Knight professor at Washington & Lee. columns.wlu.edu/eric-deggans...

If you’re at SXSW, stop by Monday for my conversation about lying in politics with Nina Jankowicz! We’ll discuss Nina’s ordeal, which I recounted in Beyond the Big Lie, the patterns of lying and ideas to curb our lying epidemic. 11:30 a.m. in the Marriott’s Waller Ballroom D.

Interesting discussion at Knight Media Forum about whether to use the term disinformation or lies. I agree with @juliaangwin.com - call them lies.

An important insight from one of the nation's top misinformation researchers.

It would be interesting to track and chart the replication of this, like an infectious disease doctor following the spread of a virus from Patient Zero.

"Flagg is the moistest athlete I've ever seen." Frank Bruni at the Duke-UNC game. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/o...

The Netflix euphemism for "price increase": "update."

The Truth-O-Meter gets all the attention, but the @PolitiFact promise meters are also hugely valuable in holding officials accountable for their campaign pledges. The final report card on 99 Biden promises shows 1/3 kept, 1/3 broken and 1/3 a compromise. www.politifact.com/article/2025...

A few thoughts about Meta's decision to end the Third Party Fact-Checking program in the U.S.: Fact-checkers weren’t censors. They just provided information to Meta, which decided what to do with that information. It chose to demote or delete posts – not the fact-checkers.

Update on @ninajankowicz.com, whose story I tell in Beyond the Big Lie: She has appealed the dismissal of her lawsuit against Fox.

Jimmy Carter, who was famous for promising not to tell a lie when he was president, was so honest that when 60 Minutes asked him in 1980 to grade aspects of his presidency, he gave himself a B- on foreign policy and said he deserved a B or a C on domestic policy.

Pickleball on TV is wildly popular or Amazon Prime is desperate for programming

I talked with @davidcorn.bsky.social about Beyond the Big Lie, why Republicans lie more and how I got comfortable using the word "lie" link.motherjones.com/public/37869...

I was quite proud to be in top 4% of @glennkessler.bsky.social readers - only to discover that @markstencel.bsky.social was in top 2%!

PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year: the Trump/Vance claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield Ohio were eating dogs and cats. www.politifact.com/article/2024...

Durham schools officials wait until late on a Friday to announce unfortunate news that parents will have to supplement bus drivers for at least another month 9thstreetjournal.org/2024/12/13/d...

Odd sponsorship.

The day after Spotify Wrapped: Re-playing all the songs I played over and over during 2024.

I love the New York Times, but I worry that it sometimes is so good that it hurts local journalism. For example, today it gave me, automatically, my local freeze estimates. It’s another reason I have less incentive to check local media.

NYPost continues conflating academic research on disinformation with “government censorship.” (It also bears repeating that government activity on disinformation =/= censorship) That this continues to be a drumbeat for conservative media and the Trump transition is extremely concerning.

"Oh God, it's Mom": With many divided families getting together for Thanksgiving, a look back at the most famous call on C-SPAN's Washington Journal www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q15x...

I’m hopeful that during the new presidency, the many talented editors who choose illustrations for articles will find more creative images than photos of MAGA hats.