Category Archives: Journalism

RJI→ What makes local journalism local?

2024-03-14 Lawmakers’ well-meaning attempts to support journalism can stumble when definitions limit the help to legacy newspapers When I began my journalism career, local news seemed to be thriving. I received my first paid journalism position in 2004: cop …›

RJI→ Vote: 2024 RJI Student Innovation Competition

2024-03-14 For this year’s challenge, student teams across the country were asked to implement an innovative idea to help a newsroom measure the impact of their news coverage for their community. The impact measurements should not revolve around traditiona …›

RJI→ Introducing the Local News Go Bag Toolkit

2024-03-13  This resource provides news outlets with a set of tools and templates to begin preparing and refining their emergency coverage Today I am launching the Local News Go Bag Toolkit.  This resource provides news outlets with a set of tool …›

RJI→ Introducing the Community Sports Reporting toolkit

2024-03-11 The Community Sports Reporting toolkit and playbook are now available to all news outlets and individuals The Community Sports Reporting toolkit and playbook are now available to all news outlets and individuals to utilize. The project combines a c …›

RJI→ Introducing the Pop-up Community Newsroom Toolkit

2024-03-07 A tool for inspiring small newsrooms to strengthen ties with local experts and collaboratively produce in-depth local journalism Are you frustrated with in-depth reporting ideas languishing in a spreadsheet, leaving your community’s most crit …›

BuzzMachine→ Reflections in the ‘woke’ mirror

2024-02-24 Regarding the supposed furor over #WokeGemini… If we saw generative AI as a creative tool, then I’d say imagining the founding of America with women & Black people at the table and the Catholic Church headed by Black women and Native Am …›

BuzzMachine→ Is it time to give up on old news?

2024-01-24 I am coming to a conclusion I have avoided for my last three decades working on the internet and news: It may finally be time to give up on old journalism and its legacy industry.  I say this with no joy, no satisfaction at having tried to get …›

BuzzMachine→ Make Bell Labs an internet museum

2024-01-18 I wrote an op-ed for NJ.com and the Star-Ledger in New Jersey proposing that the soon-empty Bell Labs should become a Museum and School of the Internet. Here, for those outside the Garden State, is the text: Bell Labs, the historic headwaters …›

BuzzMachine→ In the echo chamber

2024-01-11 Well, that was surreal. I testified in a hearing about AI and the future of journalism held by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. Here is my written testimony and here’s the Reader’s Digest version in my opening …›

BuzzMachine→ Journalism and AI

2024-01-09 Here are are my written remarks for a hearing on AI and the future of journalism for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, on January 10, 2024. I have been a journalist for fifty years and a journalism profess …›

BuzzMachine→ A journalism of belief and belonging

2024-01-03 I increasingly come to see that we are not in a crisis of information and disinformation or even of misguided beliefs, but instead of belonging. I wonder how to reimagine journalism to address this plight. Belonging is a good. The danger is in& …›

BuzzMachine→ Artificial general bullshit

2023-11-19 I began writing this as a report from a useful conference on AI that I just attended, where experts and representatives of concerned sectors of society had serious discussion about the risks, benefits, and governance of the technology. But, of …›

BuzzMachine→ Gibberish from the machine

2023-09-22 I’m honored that Germany’s Stern asked me to write about AI and journalism for a 75th anniversary edition. Here’s a version prior to final editing and trimming for print and translation. And I learned a new word: Kauderwelsch (“The va …›

BuzzMachine→ A generation later: What have we learned?

2023-09-11 The date sneaked up on me this year, attacking from behind. Every year on 9/11 I reflect, grateful that I survived the attack. This year, though, I find myself angry. Some of that might be my own loss: my father to COVID this year; my imminent une …›

BuzzMachine→ Moving on

2023-09-06 I have news: I am leaving CUNY’s Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the end of this term. Technically I’m retiring, though if you know me you know I will never retire. I’m looking at some things to do next and I’m open to others. Mor …›

BuzzMachine→ Copyright and AI and journalism

2023-09-02 The US Copyright Office just put out a call for comment on copyright and artificial intelligence. It is a thoughtful document based on listening sessions already held, with thirty-four questions on rights regarding inclusion in learning sets, tr …›

BuzzMachine→ A few unpopular opinions about AI

2023-08-21 In a conversation with Jason Howell for his upcoming AI podcast on the TWiT network, I came to wonder whether ChatGPT and large language models might give all of artificial intelligence cultural cooties, for the technology is being misused by …›

BuzzMachine→ California’s protectionist legislation

2023-06-25 I just submitted a letter opposing the so-called California Journalism Preservation Act that is now going through the Senate. Here’s what I said (I’ll skip the opening paragraph with my journalistic bona fides): Like other well-intentioned medi …›

BuzzMachine→ ChatGPT goes to court

2023-06-09 I attended a show-cause hearing for two attorneys and their firm who submitted nonexistent citations and then entirely fictitious cases manufactured by ChatGPT to federal court, and then tried to blame the machine. “This case is S …›

PressThink→ Answers to Craig’s Questions

2022-03-24 I have known Craig Newmark for a long time. He’s the Craig from craigslist.org. Now he’s best defined as a philanthropist. Craig supports a lot of journalism projects, including one named for him: The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journa …›

First Draft→ Australian election misinformation playbook

2022-03-13 The challenge of monitoring, understanding, defining and responding to mis- and disinformation is exacerbated during election campaigns. This report outlines tactics used by agents of disinformation to undermine elections as observed by First Draft’s …›

PressThink→ The savvy turn in political journalism

2022-01-17 For 15 years I have been writing about what I call the savvy style in the American press. This post is about the moment when a journalist goes there. Or refuses to. But first: what is the savvy style? This is from 2011: In the United States, most of th …›