As crazy as it seems, we’re only a couple of months away from entering the third year of the coronavirus pandemic, and newsrooms across the country remain in flux amid the threat of variants and breakthrough cases. And hybrid models involving a mix of remote and office work appears to be the new reality for today's news publishers. A recent survey states only 9% of news organizations plan to force all their employees to return to the office as they did pre-pandemic. more

McClatchy has begun experimenting with publishing transitional real estate stories with artificial intelligence software. And, it's hardly the first news organization to explore the benefits of automated journalism, which in theory can free up journalists from more mundane tasks — if it doesn’t cost them their jobs. more

There is a sudden swell of optimism about the state of journalism in Chicago, where local journalists are about to answer a question I posed on these pages several years ago: Why can’t newspapers create a business model similar to public radio stations? more

There are few moments tougher in journalism than having to reach out to friends and relatives caught up in a tragic event. In modern times, it often means messaging people on social media with requests for comments or permission to use their photos and videos in your reporting. more

Many newsrooms across the country have begun to analyze and make changes to their political coverage, thanks to Trump's impact on American politics. His brazen falsehoods and wild conspiracy theories caught journalists completely off guard during the 2016 election and beyond, a fact he exploited to spread his message. more

This month, I thought I’d share some cool new features and thoughtful changes I came across in my digital travels in recent months that may just be what your newsroom is looking for. more

After winning on “Jeopardy!” for the third straight night back in April, Kelly Donohue banged three fingers against his chest to quietly celebrate his victory. But to a group of former contestants, that simple gesture was definitely, maybe, possibly a white power symbol. more

The light at the end of the pandemic tunnel continues to get brighter. Everyday more and more people get vaccinated, while most of the nastier metrics of COVID-19 continue to decline. The coronavirus pandemic has been both a boon for journalism and the most disruptive event in more than 100 years. more

On the day I’m sitting down to write this column, the center story on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer (where I work) is a long enterprise piece exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic has made it harder for struggling workers across the region fighting for stronger work protections. more

Even in the age of social media, The New York Times boasted a few years back that they receive hundreds of letters a day, spread across the gamut of society, all addressed to the same person: “To the Editor.” Newspapers have been publishing letters to the editors for nearly 300 years, allowing readers a safe space to vent and opine about the news of the day. more

Donald Trump is no longer the president, and gone with him are some of the journalistic headaches that came with the most powerful man on Earth freely lying as easily and often as he blinked. Unfortunately, a majority of Republicans in Congress often went along with Trump’s lies, even going so far as to vote to throw out legitimate election results in two states... more

Ordinarily, when it snows in Washington D.C, hundreds of kids shuffle up Capitol Hill and tumble down the west side of the U.S. Capitol, long known to residents of Washington, D.C. as one of the best places for sledding. Unfortunately, when several inches of snow dropped on the nation’s Capitol at the end of January, there wasn’t a sled in sight anywhere near the Capitol. more

The former president of the United States called us “fake news” and the “enemy of the people.” Talk radio hosts falsely parrot claims of “liberal media bias.” Right-wing media figures have flooded the public square with misinformation on everything from the outcome of the election to the effectiveness of wearing a face mask. more

It’s nice when a newsroom experiment pays off in unexpected ways. In Arizona, ProPublica teamed up with the Arizona Daily Star to sponsor a story by Amy Silverman that looked into why the state’s Division of Developmental Disabilities turned down thousands of people who sought assistance. more

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, a loud and long-overdue reckoning with institutional racism has been happening in newsrooms across the country. At the Philadelphia Inquirer, where I … more

Raise your hand if you have Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus world map in your bookmarks? For reporters covering the coronavirus pandemic (and let’s face it, most of us are in … more

This year’s Pulitzer Prizes have come and gone, a nice reminder of the types of stories the industry spent time tackling before we were forced to live and breathe coronavirus. But a couple … more