Recent articles
September 1, 2026
Go west: With a new operation in California, ProPublica continues its expansion outside Manhattan
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, uncoverin...
www.niemanlab.org
August 31, 2026
Are newspaper opinion sections embracing AI-written op-eds?
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 ...
www.niemanlab.org
August 17, 2026
Claude is changing how it generates prose to be more detectable (and maybe worse?)
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...
www.niemanlab.org
August 5, 2026
Is Americans’ declining trust in media driven by political messaging?
Why has trust in American news media dropped so much in the past 50 years — much more than it’s declined in other rich western countries? To some people, I’m sure, the answer will seem obvious: Jou...
www.niemanlab.org
August 3, 2026
U.S. news jobs are more than 3× more likely to be based in Manhattan than they were 25 years ago
Ten years ago, I wrote a piece on how the internet was sucking journalistic resources out of the middle of the country and concentrating it on the coasts — primarily New York City. While digital pu...
www.niemanlab.org
July 27, 2026
Tacos, elk sheds, and Facebook ads: How some local news sites saw their traffic spike
It’s time for our latest look at which newsrooms are having success increasing their web traffic. We bring you four of these each quarter, looking at four different market segments: local newspaper...
www.niemanlab.org
July 14, 2026
Capital B is ready to open a third local news operation — about two hours east of its first one
The Black-focused national-and-local news outlet Capital B launched in 2022 with a staff of 16 and a first local focus on Atlanta, with plans to expand. Co-founders Lauren Williams and Akoto Ofori-...
www.niemanlab.org
July 1, 2026
Now we’re getting AI fake news complaining about how AI fake news is the death of real news
Reading sad things about journalism — newspapers, especially — has been a big part of my job for almost two decades. On Monday, I came across such a story that seemed to be getting traction on soci...
www.niemanlab.org
June 23, 2026
The British government wants to force more trustworthy news into your doomscrolling
The British government is asking social media companies to put more news — real news, produced by public service broadcasters like the BBC — high up in people’s feeds. And if companies refuse, it’l...
www.niemanlab.org
June 11, 2026
How an Alaska news nonprofit bought the local newspaper it was founded to compete with
It’s been a big couple of years for Amy Bushatz. A former executive editor of Military.com, her husband’s military career had taken their family to the Matanuska-Susitna Valley of Alaska — northern...
www.niemanlab.org
June 9, 2026
What kind of stories are best at turning local news readers into subscribers? It’s hard news, not the soft stuff
Let’s start with the good news. What types of news stories are most likely to make a reader subscribe on a local newspaper’s website? Is it celebrity news, horoscopes, sports scores, the gardening ...
www.niemanlab.org