Launched quietly last month to a small section of users, AI Mode basically turns Google into a chatbot, able to answer long, detailed questions powered by the company’s Gemini 2.0 chatbot and the company’s all-powerful search index.  It's a future that has the potential to rock the status quo of search traffic worldwide.  So, how should newsrooms prepare? more

There’s no point beating around the bush — social media is terrible.  Not too long ago, news organizations viewed Facebook, Twitter and other platforms as a digital bridge to the future, a way to transform their 20th-century business model of printing information on paper into a 21st-century business operation.  How times have changed …  more

AI in journalism has shifted from a disruptive threat to a practical tool, helping reporters work smarter without replacing them. While early fears of automation taking over newsrooms have faded, AI-powered tools are proving invaluable for tasks like transcription, data analysis, and investigative research. The challenge now is how journalists can harness AI’s potential while ensuring accuracy, credibility, and public trust in their reporting. more

Mike Luckovich hasn’t felt the need to pull any punches during his three decades of drawing political cartoons for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist admits even he’s a bit apprehensive as Donald Trump reoccupies the White House. He spoke with Editor & Publisher about his approach to drawing Trump, the difficulty finding an online audience for local cartoons and the current state of the profession. more

Recent polling shows voters who follow the news the least drift toward outlets like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. In the spirit of giving, here are a few humble suggestions from E&P columnist Rob Tornoe for publishers, editors and reporters at news organizations looking to win over some of these readers and hopefully pay the bills in 2025 and beyond. more

X, a platform once beloved by journalists, has become borderline unusable for a group that had been among its most devoted addicts. Since no one platform seems ready to replace X for journalists, E&P columnist Rob Tornoe offers a handful of suggestions that might improve your experience. more

As the 2024 election cycle heats up, a new buzzword is making waves in media circles: “sanewashing.” The term refers to how some media outlets sanitize Donald Trump’s often incoherent and erratic remarks, presenting them as more polished and conventional political discourse. Critics argue that by reshaping Trump’s rambling responses into digestible news bites, journalists unintentionally protect him from scrutiny, failing to fully expose the chaotic nature of his statements. This phenomenon, which has sparked widespread discussion, highlights the ongoing challenge of how the press covers politicians whose rhetoric increasingly defies the norms of political communication. more

You can always learn something from a copy editor. In this column, E&P columnist Rob Tornoe seeks knowledge from Bob Yearick, columnist and author of “The War on Words,” and some copy editors about the low-hanging fruit of the English language, which writers often trip over in the mad dash to meet a deadline. more

Over the past few months, news organizations have grappled with changes at Google that have led to a dramatic drop in organic search traffic. Publishers have been forced to navigate what appears to be seismic shifts in how Google doles out traffic, with the integration of artificial intelligence (which remains unintelligent and error-prone) causing panic attacks across the industry. more

In recent months, the amount of organic search traffic Google has been sending to publishers has fallen off a cliff. Newsrooms nationwide — from Boston to Seattle, from the Jersey Shore to Southern California — have watched their formerly reliable search traffic numbers and page rankings plummet. The big question is — why? Well, it’s complicated. more

It’s tricky business trying to cover an election fairly when many on one side of the political divide seem ready to tear down all the rules to obtain power. It’s also important to remember that most of our country’s press is made up of smaller newsrooms that cover their communities but rely on wire services like The Associated Press for the bulk of their coverage of the presidential race and national politics in general. So, how is the AP approaching its coverage of democracy and the threat Trump and his supporters pose? more

The pace at which generative AI is overtaking the tech world is causing a wave of anxiety to ripple through the world of journalism. What is the advice from Will Oremus, who covers AI and technology for The Washington Post, and other tech experts? Proceed with caution. more

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

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

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