“One of The Associated Press’ top leaders on AI had a blunt message for the publication’s staff: Resistance to AI is ‘futile.’” www.semafor.com/article/03/0...

Media Studies’ Dr. Josh Shepperd is completing the final project of the now-defunct CPB: the official history of US public media. Stay tuned.

“A Complimentary Profile Of Jason Lee That Was Surprisingly Difficult To Publish” defector.com/a-compliment... Why? The journalist asked about Scientology.

You had me at "no grades and took courses from a clown"

From the Status newsletter: "'Stand by Me' will return to theaters March 27 to mark the Rob Reiner-directed Stephen King adaptation’s 40th anniversary, Sony announced."

What do a socialist Western Slope newspaper and a nonprofit that advocates for the Latino community have in common? Both provided starkly different initial accounts than local TV news stations this week about a local man that ICE said it had arrested. coloradomedia.substack.com/p/activist-w...

"Erst stirbt die Zeitung, dann das Land": www.stern.de/politik/ausl...

🧐

I can't get over this number: in 2007, there were 360,000 newspaper jobs. Now, there are 80,000. "My local paper sucked!" Sure. What sucks even more? The void. "I get all my news from the Guardian!" No, the Guardian doesn't report on your town council, your school board, local cops.

Amid the mass layoffs of journalists, The Lever is now hiring. That's thanks to our huge subscriber growth giving us the resources to continue expanding our newsroom. Find the listings on our website - and please pass this on to any good journalists you may know.

This week's news behind the news in Colorado includes an item about a handful of journalists talking DEI in their newsroom at a recent panel at the Denver Press Club: coloradomedia.substack.com/p/colorado-j...

As a GOP candidate for governor is out on the stump and on TV claiming that he knows of pedo rings at the Colorado state Capitol, this Colorado TV newsroom posts this on Facebook about a guy from (checks notes) Alaska without saying what state. Just a stunning lack of awareness and common sense.

“How AI is transforming freelance journalism” www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/how-... “One freelancer said he’s been offering editors access to his Google Docs version histories as evidence that he does the writing himself.”

This study about X's how algorithms are shifting people's politics finds that the platform hid content from news outlets: - "Posts from news organizations appear 15.5 percentage points less often in the [For You] feed, whereas posts from political activists appear 5.9 percentage points more often."

"Lowell High School administrators violated state law when they reassigned the school’s journalism teacher and newspaper adviser ... the transfer was solely based on the educator’s efforts to protect his students’ First Amendment rights" www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/l...

Launched a new newsletter project today for the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont to provide more connective tissue among the higher-ed journalism community, students, and local newsrooms: mailchi.mp/communitynew... #journalism #localnews #academicsky #jschool

From a new newsletter project I launched today: mailchi.mp/communitynew...

"Maryland office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations ... today called on the University of Maryland to drop punitive charges against student journalists Riona Sheikh and Rumasya Drissi, who covered protests against an event featuring Israeli soldiers on campus" www.cair.com/press_releas...

👀 INBOX: "This Thursday, February 19, representatives of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression will be on campus at CU Boulder at a mobile pavilion to inform students and student journalists about their First Amendment rights on a public university campus."

Over on X, a maybe-non-bot user is complaining about the Denver Post's "Despicable, biased 'journalism'" in response to a tweet from the Post's account that links to a (*checks notes*) letter to the editor. 🤦‍♂️

"Colbert Says CBS Pulled Guest Amid FCC Scrutiny" latenighter.com/news/late-sh... "I was told, in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on. And because my network clearly does not want us to talk about this… let’s talk about this.”

This week's news behind the news in Colorado begins with a mystery at a Denver TV station, how the Longmont paper watchdogs an alleged AI 'news' site, the death of pioneering radio legend ‘Dr. Daddio,' Trump backing a TV deal w/ local side effects, & more: coloradomedia.substack.com/p/mystery-at...

There are important things journalism profs should consider from the Cleveland Plain Dealer's editor here, but I'm not sure telling students to "skip much of the rest" beyond "communications law and ethics" will set them up for success in newsrooms #academicsky www.cleveland.com/news/2026/02...

If it happened at your local hospital, police department, or school you’d want know the details right? To what extent is a local news outlet a similar kind of institution of public trust? coloradomedia.substack.com/p/mystery-at...

any conversation about AI that attempts to separate the tech itself from its harms to labor, the economy, and the environment, is just not an honest conversation and that’s why a lot of people get mad. 🤷

You thought the TV news drama in Denver was just about 9NEWS and FOX31 right now? Well, the news director, assistant news director, and digital director at Denver7 *all* just went vamoose. Notably, it is *not* part of a restructure.

"Another legal issue related to the search and the Privacy Protection Act is an untested First Amendment question: whether ordinary news-gathering activity can constitutionally be turned into a criminal offense by a statute." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/u...

"These students face a fight behind the closed doors of conduct hearings, and the outcome of these battles determines how colleges and universities decide who is a journalist and what journalism on their campus can look like." www.thefire.org/news/secret-...

"It has been more than three years since Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun last sat down for an interview with The Huntington News, and numerous requests from News staff to interview the president about university and world events have gone unfulfilled." huntnewsnu.com/91157/primar...

NEW: FCC Chair Brendan Carr announces his support for the acquisition of TEGNA (parent company of 9NEWS) by Nexstar (parent of Fox31) hours after President Trump said the deal will “help knock out the Fake News.”

This. As I've been arguing for decades now in prose and on film, we are now living in a time when human beings are worth less. Some of us have more and feel empowered, but most are betrayed. And society is firmly structured for such.

This week's "Inside the News in Colorado" newsletter offers an example of how this deal could change Colorado journalism by contrasting the *very different ways* 9NEWS and FOX31 covered a recent announcement by a government official: coloradomedia.substack.com/p/colorado-l... (2nd item down)

"Journalism is a fundamental right in the United States, and it needs to be firmly protected at the school level. However, Bakersfield College continues to withhold information and create obstacles, prioritizing its public image over student safety" www.therip.com/features/202...

This week's newsletter's lead item looks at policy around Colorado newspapers and legal notices: coloradomedia.substack.com/p/colorado-l... "This has been a problem really for a while, but it’s come to the fore as print costs have gone up,” said Tim Regan-Porter of the state Press Association.

If someone created a program that could scrape your latest Substack newsletter for unreads and then re-send the newsletter *just* to those, I would pay more per month for it than an AI tool.

“the greatest danger posed by AI isn’t fake images themselves, it’s the collapse of trust in real evidence. Seeing is no longer believing — and our institutions are unprepared for it.” www.poynter.org/commentary/2...

Student journalists push back as censorship tightens on campus: www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/stud...

American local news headline in 2026

I never wrote about it in an article. But I can confirm during my early reporting gathering that I saw his PR website up, and I repeatedly asked Gazette management about Samuelson’s PR work mentioned on his website. None of my numerous messages were returned. And then the site was scrubbed.

"In Minneapolis, journalism students are learning to report under pressure amid an immigration surge": www.poynter.org/educators-st... "Professors are teaching students how to pack bullet wounds, assess risk and decide when to cover marches and vigils"

Colorado’s version of the FBI has determined that the famed journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson took his own life in his Aspen-area home more than 20 years ago.

👀 "Did Pressure From Journalists Prompt an Anschutz-Owned Newspaper To Publish a Disclosure, Albeit a Weak One?" coloradotimesrecorder.com/2026/01/did-...

“Just two years after Gavin Newsom brokered a $250 million deal with Google and Meta for them to help preserve the local newspapers that their business models have destroyed, Newsom himself is now dismantling the deal.” sfist.com/2026/01/28/g...

"...a California court found this week that San Francisco’s Lowell High School violated the state’s New Voices law when they reassigned the school’s journalism adviser solely because of his students’ reporting." splc.org/2026/01/cour...

Not *too* surprising. Could see this happening elsewhere. "The three newspapers will now operate under the ownership of the Lexington Area Chamber of Commerce." www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/lexi...

"A UAF student is out on bail after tearing up and eating another student's AI-generated art" alaskapublic.org/news/alaska-...

Six months after the messy collapse of Boulder Weekly, a triumvirate of Colorado media professionals are in the process of reviving the three-decade-old alternative print publication. coloradomedia.substack.com/p/boulder-we...

“The Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has completed its comprehensive case review into the 2005 death of author and journalist Dr. Hunter S. Thompson and has affirmed the original determination of suicide.” cbi.colorado.gov/news-article...