At its annual iPhonepalooza today, Apple announced a new feature aimed at making it easier to know where an image came from or whether it’s been edited — the sort of provenance data that could be useful in detecting images altered by AI. First rumored last month, Apple Reference Image will work with the camera...

In 2024, Meta shuttered CrowdTangle, a tool used to track how content spread across Facebook and Instagram. The portal was an essential tool for journalists, fact-checkers, and researchers, who used it for more than a decade to monitor viral content — and the spread of misinformation. CrowdTangle’s end came slowly. Meta disinvested in the tool over...

The Beehiiv Media Collective will add the longtime CBS News travel editor Peter Greenberg, former IndieWire editor-in-chief Dana Harris-Bridson, and tech and politics reporter David Covucci to its ranks. The collective now includes about 30 journalists that’ve gone independent. Greenberg will launch The Upgrade on September 15, “bringing his investigative approach to the process and...

On Adam Ganucheau’s first day at Mississippi Today a decade ago, there was no Wi-Fi, and he used an upside-down cardboard box as a desk. These days, things look a little different. What was once a fledgling nonprofit newsroom is now a Pulitzer-winning powerhouse and one of three newsrooms that make up the Deep South...

Congratulations/regrets — today we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the birth of today’s internet. I suppose there are numerous candidates for that title. The debut of the iPhone in 2007? The launch of Google AdSense in 2003? The first YouTube video in 2005? All worthy nominees. But for me, it’s the debut of Facebook’s News...

As local and national news outlets continue to disappear across the U.S., I’d always thought that the military newspaper Stars and Stripes offered one model for a partial solution: government financial support. But this approach only works if those who believe in the free press — including elected officials — offer unconditional support. Defense Secretary...

FOIAball uses public records to report on college football and pulled in 7,500 subscribers in its first year. Of those, 420 pay $70 a year or $7 a month. Sarah talked to FOIAball proprietor David Covucci this week about his business and what he’s learned about how to get people to pay up. This is...

The nonprofit National Trust for Local News is acquiring the Vermont Community Newspaper Group in a deal that will close this month, the Trust announced Thursday. The deal, which will add five weekly newspapers covering more than a dozen northern Vermont communities to the Trust’s portfolio, expands the nonprofit’s footprint to a fourth state, joining...

He’s doing it again: Donald Trump has decided that Lake Ontario is actually Lake America. This follows his similar declaration last year that the Gulf of Mexico was actually the Gulf of America. (How long until we learn that the Rockies are actually the American Mountains?) Trump’s power over what the federal government calls bodies...

On Wednesday, the Trump administration threw its support behind OpenAI, backing the AI giant in its ongoing litigation with The New York Times. The Department of Justice voiced its support through a statement of interest (SOI) filed with the Manhattan judge overseeing the case, which includes a dozen other plaintiffs, including daily papers owned by...

A year ago, a spirited and public-records-powered newsletter needed a mascot. Sleuthy the Seal — born of a “fortuitous misunderstanding” — was created. Journalist and newsletter founder David Covucci promised his wife he’d get the plucky mascot tattooed if he could hit 500 subscribers with the solo venture. The football helmet-wearing seal quickly had a...

News creators are increasingly where people get their news (check out Hanaa’s ongoing series of interviews with news creators from around the world) and a new study from the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University takes a deep dive into New Jersey’s local news influencers. Using a combination of AI tools, custom code,...

In October 2007, The New York Times ran a story about an unusual new news startup named — at least according to the Times copy desk — “Pro Publica.” “The plan is to do long-term projects, uncovering misdeeds in government, business and organizations,” Richard Pérez-Peña wrote. “Nothing quite like it has been attempted, and despite...

The state of California has passed a bill that could generate as much as $40 million for California newsrooms each year. Assembly Bill 2222, known as the Community Newsroom Employment and Workforce Sustainability Act, creates refundable tax credits for the state’s news outlets based on the number of journalists they employ. After passing the State Senate...

Any good op-ed can spark a public conversation, but most won’t start a debate over the nature of opinion writing itself. Last week, a Wall Street Journal piece by the billionaire financier Stanley Druckenmiller pulled it off. The op-ed itself is about whether the Treasury Department should continue trying to lower long-term bond yields. (Druckenmiller...

When MS NOW — known until last year as MSNBC — celebrated its 30th anniversary last month, Status reported that the focus was “as much about the future as the past.” Natalie Korach described early conversations about the network’s planned subscription product, which she wrote would be “centered around community, giving them access to their...

Every day the fact-checking team for one of India’s largest news organizations works to debunk a slew of false and misleading images circulating across social media. For the six-person team at India Today, that might include addressing an AI-generated archival photograph of a politician, a clip of deadly flooding ripped from its original context, or...

Whether you’re a reporter or an editor, your inbox has probably seen an influx of pitches, increasingly written with artificial intelligence. They’re likely bad, irrelevant, and annoyingly clogging up your email. But one publication is over it. If you want to write for The Food Section, you’ll have to pick up the phone. “We’re switching...

Last month at the National Sports Card Convention in Chicago, creator Brandon Pereira, who posts as Coach Koe, met a kid named Dominic. Dominic had spent the summer washing garbage cans to earn money to come to the convention and buy cards for his collection. He and Coach Koe browsed the offerings at the convention...

It was in 1964 that Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, asked to define obscenity for the purposes of law, wrote his famous heuristic: “I know it when I see it.” But when it comes to AI-generated content, we may think we know it when we see it — but our methods are far from perfect....

An animated phone vibrates on a blackened screen as ominous piano music tinkles in the background. When you click, speech bubbles appear. “It’s Thanasis Koukakis,” the person on the other end says. “I’m borrowing a phone…Just don’t try to reach out to me for now. Texts, calls, try to avoid it.” This is the opening...

If a news outlet announces a website launch, you might think it’s safe to assume it’s a news website that’s launching. But that’s not what Chicago Public Media has in mind for chicago.com. Chicago Public Media is already the parent nonprofit of two existing news sites, WBEZ and, since 2022, the Chicago Sun-Times. For chicago.com,...

Hey Siri, how much is the news worth to an AI assistant? The answer, according to a report by Alexandra Bruell in The Wall Street Journal, starts at $100 million. Apple has approached publishers to use their news and up-to-date information in the revamped Siri AI, sources told the Journal. The company has reportedly discussed...

On August 11, 2023, local law enforcement seized electronics and reporting materials from the Marion County Record in a raid that provoked a national outcry over the blatant press freedom violation in small-town Kansas. The raid led to multiple federal lawsuits against the county government, public officials, and the city, accusing them of retaliating against...

On January 1, 2024, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck Japan’s Noto Peninsula, killing more than 700 people. In the days that followed, AI-generated images of the wreckage circulated widely and fake philanthropic websites scammed people out of donations. False claims that people were trapped under rubble diverted rescue efforts away from the places that needed...

On Monday, the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) dropped new proposed revisions to its code of ethics — the first revision to one of the most-cited media ethics standards in the country since 2014. As any Nieman Lab reader knows, journalism has seen drastic changes since 2014. One major shift in the last 12 years?...

Journalism exists to tell people what’s happening and give them what they need to understand it. That mission does not bend to budget or format. A story about a school board vote and a story about housing prices are both doing an essential job, just at different depths. The assumption underlying both types of stories...

More than 800 USA Today Co. employees are calling on the company to dissolve its recently announced partnership with Palantir, according to a joint statement from 31 unionized newsrooms published Monday. “While USA Today Co. CEO Mike Reed championed this partnership as a way to drive revenue, we believe it threatens to undermine trust in...

USA Today Co. has made a deal with software company Palantir to analyze and monetize user behavior, the company announced on Thursday. In its Q2 earnings call Thursday morning, USA Today Co. chairman and CEO Mike Reed told investors he expects the partnership to “strengthen how we collect, connect and activate audience data to drive...

Elon Musk launched Grokipedia last October as an anti-woke, AI-powered Wikipedia. It is, Renée DiResta wrote for The Atlantic at the time, part of “an escalating campaign to discredit Wikipedia and reshape what counts as a reliable source of basic information in the age of AI.” Grokipedia allows humans to suggest edits, but Columbia’s Tow...