Recent articles
May 20, 2026
More than 340 local news outlets are limiting the Internet Archive’s access to their journalism
In January, Nieman Lab broke the story that major news publishers — including The New York Times, The Guardian, and USA Today Co. — had started blocking the Internet Archive due to concerns that AI...
www.niemanlab.org
May 18, 2026
Sam Altman backs “micropayment” model for AI agents to compensate publishers
Late last month, Sam Altman sat down with Nicholas Thompson, the CEO of The Atlantic, for a podcast episode of Re:think, the publication’s marketing and branded content studio. One clip has been ma...
www.niemanlab.org
May 7, 2026
Semafor’s new AI tool helped boil down its entire flagship conference into nine takeaways
On April 13, more than 500 CEOs and other power brokers gathered in Washington, D.C. to join Semafor World Economy. Across the five-day event, hundreds of speakers took the stage, including Goldman...
www.niemanlab.org
May 6, 2026
Google highlights links from subscribed publications in new AI Overviews update
When a Google search user encounters an AI Overview or an AI Mode response, the response will now highlight whether it includes information that comes from a publication the user subscribes to. Goo...
www.niemanlab.org
April 27, 2026
Geospatial AI is reinventing the rainforest beat
In 2018, Joseph Poliszuk fled Venezuela. That year, after exposing corruption in then-President Nicolas Maduro’s administration, he had become the target of lawsuits by wealthy Maduro loyalists. He...
www.niemanlab.org
April 15, 2026
Journalists champion Wayback Machine after news publishers limit article archiving
In January, Hanaa’ Tameez and I broke the story that The New York Times, The Guardian, and USA Today Co. had begun limiting the Wayback Machine’s access to their news articles. Our reporting showed...
www.niemanlab.org
April 9, 2026
ProPublica journalists walk off the job in first U.S. newsroom strike over AI
On Wednesday, roughly 150 members of the Propublica Guild, one of the largest nonprofit newsroom unions in the country, went on a 24-hour strike. About two dozen Guild members picketed ProPublica’s...
www.niemanlab.org
April 7, 2026
Federal appeals court supports injunction against ICE in L.A. Press Club lawsuit
In September 2025, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction requiring that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) limit its use of force against journalists, observers, and peaceful prote...
www.niemanlab.org
March 26, 2026
Meta’s Oversight Board warns that “Community Notes” aren’t a proper substitute for fact-checking globally
On Thursday, Meta’s Oversight Board, a quasi-independent body that reviews the social media giant’s moderation practices, ruled that “Community Notes” are not a proper substitute for its fact-check...
www.niemanlab.org
March 24, 2026
ProPublica’s union authorizes the first U.S. newsroom strike over AI protections
On March 20, members of the ProPublica Guild, one of the largest nonprofit newsroom unions in the U.S., overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike. Out of the roughly 150 journalists, copyeditors, ...
www.niemanlab.org
March 18, 2026
“We’re not going to do a chatbot anytime soon”: Notes on the RISJ’s AI and the Future of News symposium
On March 17, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) gathered reporters, academics, and technologists at the University of Oxford for a one-day symposium on AI and the future of ne...
www.niemanlab.org
March 10, 2026
As AI data centers scale, investigating their impact becomes its own beat
Data centers have long underpinned the internet as we know it, but the generative AI boom has ushered in a new era of rapid, largely unchecked development. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta alone...
www.niemanlab.org
March 4, 2026
Traffic to top tech publications has plummeted since 2024, new analysis shows
Organic search traffic to some of the internet’s most-read tech publications has dropped by 58% since 2024, according to a new analysis from the SEO and GEO marketing firm Growtika. The report pull...
www.niemanlab.org
March 4, 2026
AI-powered search is fueling a wave of Epstein Files transparency projects
The Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA) requires that the millions of documents collected by the Department of Justice (DOJ) about Jeffrey Epstein be shared with the public in a “searchable and d...
www.niemanlab.org