Meet the Meteorologists Leaving Broadcast Behind
Matt Laubhan, former chief meteorologist at Mississippi’s WTVA, launched an independent, 24‑hour weather streaming platform after a layoff threat from the Allen Group. During the January 2026 ice storm his livestream drew 1.5 million viewers, facilitating real‑time generator donations that kept municipal water pumps running. The venture, part of the Digital Weather Network, now includes 19 meteorologists across the U.S. and Canada and is funded solely by advertising. Laubhan’s model highlights a growing trend of broadcast meteorologists moving to digital, hyper‑local services.
The Murdoch Empire Shows Trump’s Enemies No Mercy
Netflix’s four‑part docuseries *Dynasty: The Murdochs* chronicles Rupert Murdoch’s rise from an Australian newspaper magnate to the architect of a global, right‑leaning media empire. The series highlights the outlet’s historic cheerleading for wars—from the 1982 Falklands conflict to the 2024...
Lessons From an Early-Career Journalist
In this episode of The Kicker, host Megan Greenwell chats with early‑career journalist Sophia Barnett about her rapid rise at the Minnesota Star Tribune, where she’s covered high‑stakes stories from a school shooting to the national ice‑raids story within her...
On Standing Rock, Local News Is Teetering
The Lakota Times shut down in January, leaving Standing Rock with only one other local outlet, KLND Radio, which itself faces a 50% funding cut. Independent newspaper the Teton Times, run by veteran journalist Avis Red Bear, survives on a...
Inside the Legal Defense of Georgia Fort and Don Lemon
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort were arrested and charged with conspiring to disrupt a St. Paul church service attended by an ICE regional director. Both plead not guilty, arguing they were present solely as reporters....
A Reporter in Nashville, Detained by ICE
Estefany Rodríguez, a Colombian journalist for Nashville Noticias, was seized by ICE in Nashville without a warrant and transferred to a detention center in Louisiana. She entered the U.S. on a tourist visa in 2021, filed for asylum, and holds...
To Survive the AI Age, Publishers Are Finally Working Together
Publishers in the United Kingdom have launched SPUR, a standards alliance that brings together the BBC, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, Sky News and The Guardian to protect their content from unchecked AI use. The group aims to establish guardrails for responsible AI, simplify licensing...
Hyperlocal AI with a Million Subscribers
Patch, operating under the PatchAM brand, has launched AI‑generated newsletters that now serve 14,000 hyperlocal communities and have amassed nearly one million subscribers. The service pulls content from aggregation sources, event calendars and platforms like Nextdoor, delivering daily or twice‑weekly...
The New York Times Takes the Pentagon to Court
The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon, challenging new credentialing rules that replace independent journalists with pro‑Trump outlets. The policy, introduced by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, bars mainstream media from routine newsgathering and grants the...
A Cauldron of Ideas to Fight Misinformation
Entrepreneur Nessa Kiani has launched Culldron, a blockchain‑enabled app that rewards users with tiny crypto payments for sharing and verifying real‑time information from Ukraine’s war zones. The platform blends peer‑review, AI‑generated content, and a dynamic credibility score to surface accurate...
AI Versus Accuracy? We’re Willing to Make the Trade-Off.
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...
In This Cleveland Newsroom, AI Is Writing (But Not Reporting) the News
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 Voice of the Uyghur Post
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...
What We Need to Know
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...
Profit or Nonprofit? A Debate over Journalism’s Future
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...
Ali Breland on Why It’s Important to Cover the Online Far Right
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...
Elbowing In
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...
You’ve Got Jmail
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...
Grok Is Now Editing Itself
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,...
