loving this @grok tracker from @indicator.media indicator.media/grok-is-this...

The Upshot is hiring a data graphics/multimedia editor. Come work with us and make weird things that help people understand the world! job-boards.greenhouse.io/thenewyorkti...

We've been tracking nearly 200 lawsuits against the Trump administration over its attempts to leverage federal funding to impose the president's agenda. The most startling pattern: The administration seems entirely undeterred when it loses in court. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

speaking at two #NICAR26 sessions with some wonderful @towcenter.bsky.social colleagues! come say hi!

The world feels quite precarious right now—and sometimes we forget what it feels like to pursue happiness. @alv9n.com digs into a study that asked more than 10,000 people to share their joy. From personal growth to friends and family, here’s our happiness mapped. pudding.cool/2026/02/happ...

When asking AI about the news, readers “know the answers they are getting are not perfect.” They keep asking anyway. @klaudia.bsky.social @aisvarya17.bsky.social www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...

NEW on @indicator.media: I found an AI-generated podcast network that has published 350,000 episodes in the past month. That's 11,000 episodes a day, or about one year's worth of audio content. You'll be shocked to find out it's not generating original material.

Here's the recording! www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsH_...

I just did the dumbest thing of my entire career to prove a much more serious point. I tricked ChatGPT and Google, and made them tell other users I’m a competitive hot-dog-eating world champion People are using this trick on a massive scale to make AI tell you lies. I’ll explain how I did it

A game a game! dialed.gg

Last week I speculated that by the end of the year a majority of “helpful” Community Notes on X could be AI-generated. To monitor this sorry milestone (and rate my forecasting abilities), I decided to build a free dashboard that tracks the share of AI notes. Check it out on @indicator.media

grok is submitting edits to itself on grokipedia. it's not the biggest fan of its own suggestions!

A new survey shows that state Freedom of Information coalitions offer public records request support but a majority of journalists and other requesters are “not sure” what is available. www.muckrock.com/news/archive...

X has taken one more step towards handing Community Notes over to the machines. I understand the motive and don't even think it is net negative from a quality perspective. But for a project meant to bring content moderation into the hands of users, this is the wrong direction of travel.

The Post was foolish enough to unleash a bevy of the world’s most talented multi-disciplinary journalists out there for their competition to scoop up. These are some of the most hard working and skilled people I know. Save this one and reshare it please! 📊

new newsletter out today around the state of the FOIA system today -- take a read, and check out @mirandagreen.bsky.social's look into partisan FOIAs, using data we collect at the Tow Center!

In the past year, Metric Media filed more than 9,000 FOIA requests across all 50 states, according to an investigation by Miranda Green and the @towcenter.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/tow_center/p...

ChatGPT is asked about local news 1 million times per week www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/chat...

🚨New WP "@Grok is this true?" We analyze 1.6M factcheck requests on X (grok & Perplexity) 📌Usage is polarized, Grok users more likely to be Reps 📌BUT Rep posts rated as false more often—even by Grok 📌Bot agreement with factchecks is OK but not great; APIs match fact-checkers osf.io/preprints/ps...

“I think there’s kind of a universal consensus here in Minneapolis that we really would like the streamers to leave” www.cjr.org/analysis/the...

Almost 80% of the world’s biggest news websites now block AI training bots pressgazette.co.uk/platforms/ei...

On Feb. 19, the @towcenter.bsky.social will be hosting a panel exploring how AI-enabled search is transforming news distribution and discovery. Join us! www.eventbrite.com/e/ai-search-...

@aisvarya17.bsky.social and @klaudia.bsky.social: People say they are turning to AI platforms for information-related queries. While these tools are, in theory, capable of responding to queries about the news, they may not necessarily be optimized for those tasks. www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...

🧵 If you’ve worked in a technical role in news for long enough, you likely remember when the “show your work” spirit was everywhere. Newsroom nerds shared code on GitHub, swapped tips on social media and unfurled long blogs guiding others on how to get things done.

If you're one of the hundreds of millions bundled up through this winter chill and storm ... consider your ventilation for all those gas appliances. Latest from me and @to-be-frank.bsky.social 🎁 wapo.st/46emCoj

It’s not a news site. But there’s a lot to learn from how Wikipedia constructs shared knowledge about what’s happening in the world. www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/afte...

I’ve written for a long time (almost 2 decades) that platform aims are at odds with public interest journalism, and partnerships with them are inevitably compromised. In 2026 that relationship faces the ultimate test, which tech companies will likely fail www.cjr.org/tow_center/b...

SCOOP: 404 Media has obtained material that explains how Tangles and Webloc, two surveillance systems ICE recently purchased, work. One can track phones without a warrant and follow their owners home or to their employer.

This is valuable but not at all surprising to me given the frequency with which @indicator.media finds that it is Chinese advertisers behind scam nudifiers and pornbait ads. see for ex: > indicator.media/p/meta-ran-t... > indicator.media/p/meta-ran-4...

Today's addition is a partnership between OpenAI and TIME centered around fostering AI literacy tow.cjr.org/ai-deals-law...

We’re excited to announce the winners of the 2025 Pudding Cup! Our entry pool was the strongest ever with close to 100 submissions. Show our 3 winners some love 🫶 on this thread, and check out the full details and honorable mentions at the link: pudding.cool/pudding-cup/

my master's project is a winner of @puddingviz.bsky.social's Pudding Cup! thanks so much to one of my favorite sites out there :) check the piece out here: cj-robinson.github.io/trans-model-... and take a look at the other (very cool!) projects that won this year: pudding.cool/pudding-cup/

So about that font news ... gift article: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Porn is being injected into dozens of government websites across the country using malicious PDFs. A separate attack is hijacking govt websites to redirect to penis enlargement scams and animal vagina masturbators. Cool stuff: www.404media.co/porn-is-bein...

i love realizing there's a way to do data viz on a thing you thought you could never do data viz on!!

Announcing a new tool to keep track of disputes and deals between news publishers and AI companies. Read @klaudia.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/analysis/law...

Good morning. I've got a banger new post out today that develops a new method for placing voters on the left-right ideological spectrum, and adds a new, "non-ideological"/affordability axis to usual way we chart & think about US voters (esp swing voters). www.gelliottmorris.com/p/not-just-l...

My new big visualization project is out: The Trans News Initiative, a collaboration between UM's School of Communication, the Trans Journalists Association, and Polygraph (The Pudding): transnewsinitiative.org Here's a piece about it in the Columbia Journalism Review: www.cjr.org/news/visuali...

A national survey found that half of all immigrants in the U.S. say they feel less safe since Trump took office. Still, many say their future remains bright. From NYT National: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/u...

Tracking the spread of bird flu using genetic markers, satellite imagery, property records, and more reminds me of John Snow’s Cholera investigation/map. Howe’s Hens is the modern day Broad Street Pump. Amazing work from @natlash.bsky.social & @chrisalcantara.com. www.propublica.org/article/meth...

New on @indicator.media: The single most active contributor to Community Notes since Sep. 1 is Zesty Walnut Grackle. Zesty is an AI bot, one of eight currently active on X after the platform onboarded them in a bid to boost flagging participation.

How right-wing forces struck a coordinated blow to the BBC. Read Jem Bartholomew. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

The Pudding Cup is back for 2025! We want to see your best non-commercial visual and data-driven projects! 🗓️ Deadline: Friday, December 5, 2025 (free entry) 📢 Winners announced: the week of December 9, 2025 💸 Up to 3 winners each get $1,500 pudding.cool/pudding-cup/

The Authoritarian Stack: how tech billionaires are building a post-democratic America and why Europe is next. My new project is an interactive investigation and open data platform to expose tech authoritarianism and mobilize collective power for democratic alternatives. www.authoritarian-stack.info

This chart kills fascists: 1943 anti-Nazi information booklet, spread by the RAF. 🔴 Allies ⚫️ Axis powers "Many dogs are the death of the hare!"

We at Media Cloud recently hosted a small New(s) Knowledge Symposium to share learning and examples of teams and projects building knowledge from streams of news content. Curious about the event? See @cj-robinson.bsky.social's piece for @columjournreview.bsky.social . www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...

meet the new community note writers on X: www.cjr.org/analysis/x-t...

Trump Shrank Staffing of National Parks. See How Many Are Struggling. More than 90 parks have reported problems like lost revenue and cuts to emergency services. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/u...

When Dhrumil Mehta and C.J. Robinson searched "Is DC safe?", the top Google News result was a White House article. www.cjr.org/analysis/the... @dmil.bsky.social @towcenter.bsky.social