In the 1980s, many cash-flush news organizations employed a public editor specifically to build and foster trust between readers and journalists. These days, just two news organizations in the United States — NPR and PBS — still appear to employ a public editor. So, is it time for more news organizations to consider hiring ombudspersons to help rebuild trust in the media — one community at a time? more

AI is now powering an upheaval of the search economy that could devastate news publishers desperately needing good news. For the first time since it became the world’s largest search engine in 2000, Google’s dominance in the search market is facing a serious threat. One of the challengers, Perplexity, shoots back short, AI-generated responses to direct questions. Is it perfect? No. Is it pretty useful? Of course. But it comes at a terrible cost to publishers. more

Are AI-powered chatbots covered under fair use laws, or are they stealing copyrighted content at the expense of the newsrooms that paid to produce it? Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, has been partnering with Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal on legislation that would help news organizations grapple with quick-moving changes in the tech world. more

When I was asked to write some predictions for the upcoming year in journalism, the name Clifford Stoll immediately began ping-ponging around my brain. Stoll, an astronomer, systems manager and professor, wrote an infamous column in Newsweek in 1995 where he predicted the internet would have no impact on newspapers and called the then-emerging worldwide web a “trendy and oversold community.” more

Are we all going to be replaced by computers? There's an understandable fear of artificial intelligence in journalism, with computers quickly able to do many of the basic writing tasks that until recently were the exclusive domain of us humans. Here are some AI-powered tools that can benefit reporters and editors right now, while we all still have jobs. more

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I miss Twitter. I hate X. But despite all the terrible changes to the platform, I’m still posting, reading, scrolling, liking and bookmarking. I am far from alone in the world of journalism. What’s wrong with us? Anyway, if you haven’t left X yet and plan to remain until the lights get turned off, here are a couple of ways you might be able to improve your experience slightly... more

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Ginger Meggs is an institution in Australia, where the beloved comic strip has run in newspapers nationwide for over 100 years. But that relationship between generations of Australians and the newspapers that have long published the comic strip was instantly severed when the two major chains decided to eliminate all comic strips. Cartoonists and syndication companies in the United States are keenly aware of what happened in Australia and what it could portend for comic strips here. more

Puzzles and games have always been central to the newspaper experience, but no media company has had as much success mining that obsession digitally as The New York Times. Games are so popular at the Times they’ve become one of four main pillars bundled to keep subscribers paying each month, along with The Athletic, Cooking and Wirecutter, their consumer review website. more

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In the wake of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the United States, founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison agreed that securing and growing a free press was essential to the country’s future. So in 1792, then-President George Washington signed into law a sweeping act that created the postal service and subsidized the delivery of newspapers. This lesson of government support of the news industry is extremely relevant today, as communities across the country continue to lose local news sources at an alarming rate. more

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It’s easy to understand why some news organizations would make it difficult to cancel subscriptions. Churn is churn; even angry readers with a subscription still hand over their hard-earned money. But, there is a real price to pay for displaying such short-sighted contempt for your readers. more

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