The latest episode of the Small Press, Big Ideas podcast featured Help Desk Product Director @leahbecerra.com and RJI Executive Director @randypicht.bsky.social talking about our new project!

xAI’s chatbot Grok is spreading misinformation about the Bondi Beach shooting.

The first edition of our monthly newsletter sends Tuesday, Dec. 16! Don't miss out, sign up for Help Desk Monthly today: https://mailchi.mp/newsmediahelpdesk.org/monthly-newsletter-sign-up 

🚀 News Media Help Desk is live!

After more than a decade working in newsrooms, I've seen firsthand the passion and resilience of journalists. I've also seen the immense pressure they face, often with limited time and resources. That's why I've spent the last nine months building something I truly believe the news industry needs.

I can't wait to share this project publicly next week! Check the 🧵 to learn more about @newsmediahelpdesk.org's mission to support local media news organizations.

the listener-member model that public radio has turned to after decades of government underfunding conflicts with its goal to reflect and serve all Americans. spoke with @lauragarbes.bsky.social about her book LISTENERS LIKE WHO? www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/fund...

Northern Lights in Columbia, Mo.

Kansas county agrees to pay $3 million and apologize over a police raid on a small-town weekly newspaper in August 2023. The paper’s editor told The AP he’s hoping the size of the payment is enough to discourage similar actions against news organizations in the future.

Happy Halloween and you’re welcome for the perfect playlist

My very healthy reaction to not getting in to the Sydney Marathon for 2026 was entering the lottery for Chicago and Berlin

I love how much love there is for @bsky.app at #NPASummit

AWS Outage #itwasdns

AI is ruining Pinterest

I used an anonymous survey to ask my students how they were doing this morning. They said: TIRED SLEEPY unmotivated melancholic slow exhausted 💀 excited hopeful So this is just a reminder to check in on your people. They may need some support.

Today is the first day of the semester at Mizzou! I’ll be teaching the School of Journalism’s Multimedia Planning and Design class. My students will learn about digital news design, they'll code (HTML, CSS, Javascript) and they'll learn how to make intentional UI/UX decisions that serve audiences.

🙃 www.404media.co/age-verifica...

Bluesky has chosen to block access in the state rather than risk potential fines of up to $10,000 per violation. www.wired.com/story/bluesk...

Do you work for a news organization? If so, I want to hear from you! 🫵 Tell me about your favorite digital tools that help your media outlet succeed. And tell me how you go about picking new tools. Reply to this post or fill out this (very short!) survey: missouri.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Raise your hand if you were practically raised by Corporation for Public Broadcasting content ✋ Today, the corporation announced its closure.

🚩🚩🚩

Today, @freedom.press uncovers a Google vulnerability that was exploited to de-index legitimate news stories from search results. Read our article: Censorship Whac-A-Mole: Google search exploited to scrub articles on San Francisco tech exec

The Trump White House is pressing Missouri Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional map, which was just redrawn three years ago. Story via @missouriindependent.com

As worldwide search traffic to news publishers keeps falling, AI summaries are now live on Google Discover. "This is not a test," TechCrunch reports.

The US government has added the DNA of approximately 133,000 migrant children and teens to a criminal database, which critics say could mean police treat them like suspects “indefinitely.” www.wired.com/story/dhs-an...

Just like they said they were going to in project 2025 www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/c...

FEMA Didn’t Answer Thousands of Calls From Flood Survivors, Documents Show - NYT www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/c...

Many Americans received an email from the Social Security Administration applauding the megabill's passage. Experts say it was misleading.

Texas summer camp says 27 dead after catastrophic flooding

Who else got this propaganda?

BIG news out of Massachusetts. Governor Healey will effectively end the practice of tenant-paid broker fees.

Consumer-grade AI tools have supercharged a Russian-aligned disinformation campaign known by many names including Operation Overload and Matryoshka.

NEW: People are being involuntarily committed to psychiatric care facilities — and even ending up arrested or jailed — after becoming fixated on ChatGPT and other chatbots and spiraling into psychosis. futurism.com/commitment-j...

Lee Enterprises has agreed to pay $9.5 million to subscribers alleging privacy violations and is now facing three invasion-of-privacy lawsuits from current or former employees.

I just found out about journalism.wtf. I love it and I want every journalist — and aspiring journalist — to know about it. So 👏 click 👏 this 👏 link!

Weirdly big internet outage happening in the U.S. right now

This is such a great news product

#JournalismJobs @ajc.com is hiring a Senior Politics Editor who will guide a team of experienced journalists covering Georgia politics at both the state and federal levels. www.journalismjobs.com/1690758-seni...

The @chicago.suntimes.com on the AI-generated book list, which included false books, that was printed in a summer section: "AI didn’t submit the stories, or send them out to partners, or put them in print. People did. At every step in the process, people made choices to allow this to happen."

Feel like there's a revenue opportunity here for local news publishers and other journalism outlets not leaning on AI for writing.

Yes! 👏

Just going to let the headline on this @mujschool.bsky.social write-up speak for itself... #MIZ

Sesame Street has signed a new distribution deal with Netflix, as well as a separate deal with PBS. Important: You won't need a Netflix account to see new episodes.

'They Sometimes Worry That I’m Dead Already:' Deep-Sea Fishers Fight for Wi-Fi Distant-water fishers are out on the ocean for up to 10 months at a time, with no contact to the outside world. 🔗 www.404media.co/they-sometim...

Inside Higher Ed has been collecting and cross-checking data to track exactly how many international students — and at which institutions — have been detained by the federal government and had visas revoked. The data isn’t likely complete, but it’s still staggering.

The Verge's hed + dek combo for the Spotify outage is *chef's kiss*

A federal judge has ordered the White House to restore The Associated Press’ full access to cover presidential events: “The Constitution requires no less.”

Always an angle and not a better product www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/t...

The flight attendants @propublica.org interviewed are concerned about being able to treat passengers humanely — and to keep them safe. “They never taught us anything regarding the immigration flights,” one said. “They didn’t tell us these people were going to be shackled, wrists to fucking ankles.”

The @mujschool.bsky.social Statehouse Reporting Program is so awesome. Now, it's exciting to see it connected to newsrooms at colleges and universities across the country.