I'm honored to be in this company, and deeply appreciative that @newhousesu.bsky.social chose to recognize a story that calls out the uncomfortable truth in our industry.

Excited to say I'm in great company here, along with @hanaatameez.bsky.social!

Today, Meta's Oversight Board warned that the company's planned global expansion of Community Notes “poses significant human rights risks." www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/meta...

I took a closer look at the ProPublica union’s vote to strike, including their demand for protection from AI-related layoffs. The vote marks the first time a major U.S. newsroom has authorized a strike, at least in part, over AI protections. www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/prop...

NEW: I talked to journalists and researchers about how OSINT was both helpful and hurtful in the aftermath coverage of El Mencho's killing in Mexico. www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/afte...

In the vacuum left by the DOJ's faulty Epstein Files search, journalists and engineers have stepped in to build alternatives for readers. "[When] people feel the government’s not being transparent, it’s even more important for media outlets to provide that service" www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/ai-p...

So proud of Adam and all the work he's done to get this project off the ground! Still so much important work ahead. You can support now by donating or signing up for when grant applications open down the line. necessary.foundation

Trump's outlandish numerical claims — like reducing drug prices by 600% — are a good reminder of the importance of math education as a civic virtue. I wrote about it in the NYT www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/o...

I spoke to @sevendaysvt.bsky.social for their story on a local Vermont pub's undisclosed AI usage. Great details in this one, including this gem: "a supposed link to 'regional reporting' on the topic sent readers to an adults-only porn site." www.sevendaysvt.com/news/media-n...

Read the original reporting by me and @andrewdeck.bsky.social here: www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/news...

The @washingtonpost.com layoffs disproportionately affected union members of color, per data from the @postguild.bsky.social. 50% of Hispanic/Latino guild members,​ 45% of Black members, and​ 43% of Asian members were laid off, compared to 37% of white members. www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/wash...

The New York Times is using LLMs to transcribe and summarize episodes of more than 80 podcasts that are part of the "manosphere." The resulting email digest lands in journalists' inboxes every morning. I spoke with @zachseward.com about the tool for @niemanlab.org www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/how-...

A new bill in the NY state legislature would require news orgs to label any content “substantially composed, authored, or created" with generative AI. It would also require that humans review that content before publication. More details @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/a-ne...

from curiousity at acquisiton to the "democracy dies in darkness" days to "a complexifier for me" to mandates for the opinion section. @laurahazardowen.bsky.social made a timeline of Bezos statements about @washingtonpost.com. www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/some...

I do not make this comparison lightly.

The folks at @niemanreports.org wrote up a panel I was fortunate to moderate on AI and journalism with @niemanfoundation.bsky.social alums @jaemark.co, Uli Köppen and Ron Stodghill. niemanreports.org/ai-research-...

Journalism coops give me — and most of the journalists I know — a lot of hope for the industry. But I've been curious: What's it like to actually work at one? I spent the last few months talking to a bunch of brilliant worker-owners to find out. www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/jour...

NEW: News publishers are limiting Internet Archive access to prevent AI crawlers from using the digital library as a backdoor to their content. @hanaatameez.bsky.social and I confirmed The Guardian and The New York Times have put in place new restrictions. www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/news...

With "Web Guide," Google is testing AI rewrites of meta-descriptions in search. It's just the latest example of Google chipping away at publisher real estate. www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/disc...

I was in London last month for the first in-person JournalismAI Festival hosted by @polislse.bsky.social and the Google News Initiative. I wrote up a few of the highlights for @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/news...

NEW: Last week an arbitrator ruled that Politico management violated key AI terms in its union contract. The decision is a landmark win for the Politico union, which is one of the first to legally challenge the rollout of AI technology in its newsroom. www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/poli...

Last week, Suncoast Searchlight's four reporters wrote a letter to their board. Their editor-in-chief had secretly been using ChatGPT and inserting hallucinated quotes into their drafts. The next day, one of those reporters was fired. My latest for @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/flor...

SCOOP: China's top 2 gay dating apps, Blued and Finka, became unavailable on app stores over the weekend. Apple confirmed to WIRED that it removed the two apps following "an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China." latest with @lmatsakis.bsky.social

✨ Audiences doubt the benefits of AI-generated imagery in news are worth the risks, new study finds. @andrewdeck.bsky.social wrote an article on our latest study in @digitaljournalism.bsky.social 🙏 w Dina Strikovic www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/audi... @aimediademlab.bsky.social @ddc-sdu.bsky.social

NEW: Common Crawl, the massive archiver of the web, has gotten cozy with AI companies and is providing paywalled articles for training data. They’re also lying to publishers who have asked for material to be removed. “The robots are people too,” CC’s exec director told us when we asked about this.

Grateful to the always-fantastic @andrewdeck.bsky.social for writing such a substantial piece building on our recent AI Watchdog work at the Atlantic 🙏

Hundreds of thousands of videos were taken from some of the most popular news publishers on YouTube and used to train AI video models. That includes The New York Times, ABC News, Al Jazeera, Vox Media, and The Wall Street Journal. My latest @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/hund...

The Wayback Machine’s snapshots of news homepages have dropped off in recent months. Our analysis shows that since May 16, the number of captures available for 100 top news sites declined by 87%. @hanaatameez.bsky.social and I report for @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/the-...

Deepfakes of broadcast journalists are spreading across social media. Many of them are ads selling cryptocurrencies, gambling apps, and snake oil medicines. Meanwhile, social media companies like Meta profit off the ad dollars. My latest @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/scam...

In college, I'd always walk past an unremarkable store in Beijing that sold a variety of trendy, but tacky, toys. That store has turned into Pop Mart, the $45-billion Chinese toy empire behind Labubu, the biggest global fad of 2025. This is my big story/pilgrimage trip to explain how they got here

NEW from me for @wired.com's politics issue: I have spent SO much time fascinated by the "network state"--privatized cities in special economic zones (SEZs) where the normal rules and regulations don't apply. www.wired.com/story/tech-b...

"I’ve had people tell me they're afraid to go on the air, and after 40 years on the air, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that." A new report from @newsisout.bsky.social asks how local LGBTQ+ news outlets are weathering the second Trump administration. www.niemanlab.org/2025/09/loca...

Great to chat with NYU’s Ethics & Journalism Initiative about my reporting! We talked about AI "bias detectors,” automated fact-checking, and navigating both the hype and fear cycles on my beat. ethicsandjournalism.org/2025/09/18/n...

For @thenation.com: I reviewed @karenhao.bsky.social’s Empire of AI and took a closer look at her argument that OpenAI’s "scaling laws" echo the expansionist ideologies of European empires. www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Scoop: Business Insider informed its staff this week that they are allowed to use ChatGPT to generate first drafts of their stories, while also indicating the newsroom will not disclose such A.I. use to readers. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/business-i...

A third of jobs related to race, diversity, and equality that were created in U.S. newsrooms since 2020 are gone as of this summer. 
 @hanaatameez.bsky.social with a months-long investigation and new data on American journalism's turn away from DEI initiatives. www.niemanlab.org/2025/09/from...

I'm proud to share a new project that @alexreisner.bsky.social and I launched at @theatlantic.com today! It's called AI Watchdog, and it's our new home for all of the investigations into training data sets, such as LibGen, Books3, and OpenSubtitles. www.theatlantic.com/category/ai-...

In France, reporters are getting a cut of revenue from AI licensing deals. Among others, Le Monde has agreed to redistribute 25% of its deals with OpenAI and Perplexity. I took a closer look at these union agreements and asked why they haven't crossed the Atlantic. www.niemanlab.org/2025/09/in-f...

NEW in @columjournreview.bsky.social: Why AI models are bad at fact-checking photos www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...

A new report from @centerforlocalnews.bsky.social asks what it takes for small local newsrooms to build an AI chatbot. Researchers helped four newsrooms launch experimental chatbots in under a month. But only one has committed to running theirs beyond the program. www.niemanlab.org/2025/08/loca...

Quite the line in this excellent @niemanlab.org piece: "These stations are not just media outlets; they are cultural infrastructure." www.niemanlab.org/2025/08/how-...

Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper by circulation, has sued Perplexity for copyright infringement. The filing claims that Perplexity accessed 119,467 articles on Yomiuri’s site between February and June of this year. www.niemanlab.org/2025/08/japa...

In a July arbitration hearing, Politico's top editors testified that two recent AI experiments don't need to meet journalistic editorial standards. Union members alleged those experiments violated AI guidelines in their contract. My latest @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2025/08/poli...

A new study by Muck Rack recorded over 1 million citations output by major generative AI models. Journalistic content was cited in 27% of responses, a number that jumped to 49% when those responses required "a level of recency." www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/gene...

In January, I uncovered a network of AI-generated newsletters, called Good Daily, that was targeting hundreds of small towns and cities across the U.S. This week, the newsletter company 6AM City announced it had bought Good Daily and brought its founder on board. www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/good...

If you are involved in trying to make nonprofit news sustainable, I wrote and reported this story for you! So much news that deserves our attention right now, but I hope you'll spend some time with my Houston Landing retrospective for @niemanlab.org (1/3) www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/what...

Today, Dow Jones launched a French version of its newswire using custom-built machine translation. It's part of a larger push to bring "real-time," AI-powered translations to the newswire, including services in Korean and Japanese. My latest for @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/a-pr...

A New report maps a “severe” shortage of local journalists in the U.S.: www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/new-... I looked at the details for @niemanlab.org The report "finds that more than 1,000 counties — one out of three in the nation — do not have the equivalent of even one full-time local journalist."

Law360 is requiring all stories pass through an AI "bias indicator" before publication. The new policy came weeks after an executive from its parent company, LexisNexis, accused the newsroom of liberal bias in its Trump admin coverage. My latest for @niemanlab.org www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/law3...

A new policy at Law360, the legal news service owned by LexisNexis, requires that every story pass through an AI-powered “bias” detection tool before publication. www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/law3...