If you're a member of @ire.org, today is a big day: the launch of the new www.ire.org! Please kick the tires, tell us what works & doesn't. An upgraded resources section is in progress. Submit feedback here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... If you're not an IRE member, today is a great day to join.

Small multiples FTW!

Looking forward to chatting about how data journalism actually happens! Join us on Thursday if you can. 📊

Today I want to share with you a statement by former federal judge Mark L. Wolf explaining why he resigned from the federal bench in early November. I found it sobering and troubling. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/winner-of-this-weeks-joseph-welch

Trump’s job approval rating has fallen five percentage points to 36%, the lowest of his second term, while disapproval has risen to 60%, per @gallup.com news.gallup.com/poll/699221/...

“There are a lot of reasons I run,” @nxthompson.bsky.social writes. “I like to remember that I’m still alive, and that I survived my cancer. But really I run because of my father.” Running “reminds me of my father, and gives me a way to avoid becoming my father.”

Worth paying attention to: community-driven media that breaks the traditional models for journalism and is really impactful in the process.

The people who build strategy from real, surprising insights gained from talking to real, human people will beat the people who build strategy from synthetic data. You can’t learn a defining insight from a probabilistic prediction.

💰Ready to launch an impactful and financially sustainable newsroom?  Join the free online course “Launching Nonprofit Newsrooms: Practical Strategies for Funding and Growth.” Learn strategies to build revenue and grow a sustainable newsroom. 🖱️https://f.mtr.cool/owqgwgyvko #Journalism #News

“The Defense Department has confiscated the badges of the Pentagon reporters from virtually every major media organization in America,” the Pentagon Press Association said

Are you interested in local journalism research? Next Friday we are having a free online webinar bringing together a premium selection of UK-based industry leaders, policymakers, journalists, and academics to explore how research can shape the future of local media. Check the link for more!

Former cop Jeffrey Kriv has pleaded guilty to lying under oath and forging reports to get out of speeding/other tickets. And with his credibility at issue, prosecutors now have dropped 92 cases where he had been an arresting officer, @propublica.org found. www.propublica.org/article/chic...

Chicago prosecutors have dropped nearly 100 pending cases against people accused of drunk and dangerous driving and other traffic offenses. Why? The ex-Chicago cop involved in their arrests lied and forged records to dodge his own traffic offenses. www.propublica.org/article/chic...

Switzerland just voted to create a new electronic ID card (the Swiss introduced physical ones in 1955). It's stored locally on your device, you personally approve requests for your data, and is designed to prevent profiling. Contrast to, for example, Britain's centralized proposal.

For smaller newsrooms, it's not enough to just hand over some data- there needs to be a capacity to make effective use of it for impactful stories, says @cephillips.bsky.social #datajconf

Removing friction points is part of the process of enabling data journalism - eg. by offering reporting recipes or regular 'office hours' for tech support, says @cephillips.bsky.social #datajconf

Glad to see this work by Sammy Sussman in The NYT and very glad @shcohen.bsky.social and @biglocalnews.bsky.social could contribute! www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/u...

We're back after a lovely lunch, and our second keynote is underway! Marc Lavallee, on Finding your AI Frontier #datajconf

Getting gas late tonight and I am reminded of the time I wrote a story at The Detroit News in the 1990s that talked about how soon, remote pay gas stations would be commonplace. 🙂

Exclusive: An internal planning road map obtained by The Post shows the strategy behind ICE’s breakneck expansion, a chaotic effort that has already triggered lawsuits and accusations of cruelty. wapo.st/41FWkck

“Inside California’s new police records database” - Spend a few minutes watching an interview with Cheryl Phillips (@cephillips.bsky.social) on KTVU Fox 2 (@ktvufox2.bsky.social) to hear more about the new database. www.ktvu.com/video/1686149 #AI #UCBerkeley #Stanford #localnews

#ddj #datajournalism Hiring two data journalists umd.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/UMCP/job/Uni...

scoop: @charterworks, the media startup co-founded by WSJ alum @delaney, has sold to @sfstandard. Behind the deal is Michael Moritz, the SF billionaire who placed early bets on Google and PayPal and is now investing in news. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/b...

Hello #IRE25! I'll be presenting tomorrow on a panel about localizing data for investigative reporting. @cephillips.bsky.social, Samantha Sunne and Nicole Lewis are all on the panel as well! Not to be missed. schedules.ire.org/ire-2025/ind...

“… it seemed that the news industry was in fact sitting on a treasure trove that the tech companies would need to pay for to keep scaling up their models: fresh, human-authored data.” @nickdiakopoulos.bsky.social’s primer on model collapse:

And yes, this is effectively me trying to get the world to care about prompt injection by trying out a new term for a subset of the problem! I hope this captures the risk to end users in a more visceral way - particularly important now that people are mixing and matching MCP servers themselves

If you use "AI agents" (LLMs calling tools in a loop) you need to be aware of the Lethal Trifecta Combine access to private data, exposure to untrusted content and the ability to externally communicate and an attacker can trick the system into stealing your data simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/16/...

A DOGEr with no government or contracting experience used an LLM to identify contracts for cancelation — or “munching,” in his terms — at the VA. It did not go well. We have the scoop: www.propublica.org/article/trum...

This is bleak reading

Product development is built on a foundation of trust - A conversation with Elite Truong, VP of Product Strategy rjionline.org/news/product...

NEW: The rate of sepsis in Houston surged 63% after Texas banned abortion. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where hospital leaders empowered doctors to intervene before patients’ conditions worsened, it rose just 29%.

A big day for Big Local News - so glad we could be a part of this Pulitzer Prize work with The Balimore Banner and The New York Times Investigative Reporting Fellowship! biglocalnews.org/content/news...

Yay! @pickoffwhite.bsky.social @berkeleyjournalism.bsky.social

So the CDC is going to stop collecting data on "motor vehicle crashes, falls, alcohol, adverse drug effects, aircraft incidents, work-related injuries " but will step up collection and amplification of self-reported "vaccine injuries." www.reuters.com/business/hea...

"The reporting speaks for itself. The truth speaks for itself." mississippitoday.org/2025/04/04/a...

We're thrilled to share that Big Local News has received a $3.9 million grant from the Knight Foundation to help strengthen the infrastructure that supports local journalism nationwide. biglocalnews.org/content/news...

New at Media Nation: Bob McChesney was a media thinker whose idealism could have led to a better world.

Before I joined @propublica.org, I spent five years working in population research. Many of my former colleagues were funded through NIH grants. Some of those grants have been terminated. Would appreciate you sharing this with your colleagues and groups.

Today I lost an NIH grant training clinicians to do research about intimate partner violence with perinatal women. More women are murdered in the perinatal period than die of obstetric complications. I didn't just lose a grant. We lost an entire cohort of people building careers to prevent that.

County hospitals tried to hide how much nursing home Medicaid money they diverted. IndyStar sued, and now we know: More than $2.5 billion intended for care at nursing homes kept by public hospitals. Meanwhile, Indiana ranks near the bottom for nursing home care. www.indystar.com/story/news/i...

one of many reasons I subscribe to Wired and you should too

More sunshine week highlights: freepressokc.com/government-t...

The site in December 2024: web.archive.org/web/20241212...

Thank you to all our wonderful members who joined us at #NICAR25 in Minneapolis! We hope you learned a lot and are feeling inspired to do great journalism in your community.

The coolest thing I’ve seen today is that a bunch of volunteer public health professionals and developers have restored the CDC website from before January 20th 2025. This differs from an archive in that they want to rebuild the links between pages and replicate the full website.

if this interests you, do drop by and say hi & learn from the incredible @cephillips.bsky.social, the wildly skilled @chrisamico.bsky.social and our wonderful moderator @markhorvit.bsky.social! 🔗 schedules.ire.org/nicar-2025/i...

This is a great way to get involved with data rescue.

Bezos' changes to 'Washington Post' lead to more cancellations www.npr.org/2025/02/28/n...

Not happy about Bezos' editorial board directive, but there is still important journalism going on in the newsroom: