Researchers at Northwestern’s GAIN initiative and the Center for News, Technology, and Innovation found that news readers overwhelmingly prefer AI chatbots and summarization tools over direct visits to publisher sites, valuing speed, perceived neutrality, and control. Participants acknowledge the answers are imperfect but accept the trade‑off for convenience. The studies also reveal AI’s propensity to misattribute sources, fabricate links, and flatten source credibility, especially when publishers block crawlers. Nonetheless, users treat AI as a supplement, turning to trusted outlets for deeper or high‑stakes reporting.
Cleveland.com’s editor Chris Quinn created an AI rewrite desk, hiring Joshua Newman to use an in‑house ChatGPT to turn reporters’ notes into polished stories, which humans then fact‑check. The experiment has kept story volume steady while giving reporters an extra...
The Uyghur Post, launched by activist Tahir Imin last November, is one of the few Uyghur‑language news sites, delivering daily stories and a weekly podcast to a diaspora audience of roughly 30,000 monthly readers. It was created to fill the...
Nexstar Media Group announced it has agreed to acquire Tegna in a $3.54 billion transaction, pending FCC approval. The merger would combine two of the largest broadcast station owners, potentially reaching about 80 percent of U.S. households. The deal is expected to...
In this episode, host Susie Banikarim examines three urgent media‑driven crises: the catastrophic humanitarian emergency in Sudan and the under‑reporting that persists despite on‑the‑ground reporting by Ann Curry; the backlash and confusion sparked by Elizabeth Bruenig’s fictional second‑person measles narrative...
In this episode of Journalism 2050, host Emily Bell and Heather Chaplin discuss the survival of journalism with two innovators: Vanan Murugesan of the nonprofit Sahan Journal and Joshi Herrmann of the subscription‑based Mill Media. The conversation contrasts nonprofit grant funding...
In this episode, Ivan L. Nagy talks with Atlantic staff writer Ali Breland about the growing entanglement of the online far‑right with mainstream politics under Trump. Breland explains how figures like Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate and the viral “Clavicular” streamer illustrate a shift...
The episode examines a lawsuit filed by three right‑wing media figures—podcaster Brandi Kruse, talk‑radio host Ari Hoffman, and Discovery Institute fellow Jonathan Choe—seeking permanent press passes and a revamp of Washington’s statehouse credentialing rules. It outlines how the Capitol Correspondents Association ceded credentialing...
The episode explores Jmail, a web tool that lets users browse Jeffrey Epstein’s email archive in a Gmail‑like interface, created by AI programmer Luke Igel and developer Riley Walz to make the massive DOJ data dump hyper‑legible. Igel discusses how AI enabled...
The episode examines Grokipedia, Elon Musk’s AI‑generated Wikipedia alternative, and reveals that its chatbot Grok has become the primary editor, submitting and approving over three‑quarters of all suggested changes. Analysis by the Tow Center shows Grok’s self‑editing surged in December,...