These for-profit local news sites have become the “papers” of record in their communities
▪ In an increasing number of cities around America, it’s a digital-native startup that residents turn to most for the latest — not a declining newspaper.
Minnesota — and its public radio station — kept everyone’s attention at the start of 2026
▪ Nebraska Public Media also saw readership spikes in March, thanks to coverage of record-breaking wildfires. Here’s our regular ranking of the top 25 public radio websites in the United States.
“Affiliation, not just access”: Newsrooms try to move beyond membership to a focus on “belonging”
▪ The Texas Tribune, Die Zeit, and Daily Maverick are thinking about richer participation that helps readers not just feel informed, but connected.
The European Union backs Italy’s right to make Meta pay for news ➚
In Atlanta, the push for digital subscriptions hasn’t taken off as much as hoped ➚
Behind the scenes at Wirecutter for an epic duel of air purifiers
▪ “One thing we’ve never figured out how to do is make a video of an air purifier test because it is so boring. It literally is just a machine sitting alone in a room.”
Trolling, memes, and deepfakes: How AI is thickening the fog of war
▪ Four experts discuss how AI is reshaping war reporting and the news ecosystem.
Semafor’s new AI tool helped boil down its entire flagship conference into nine takeaways
▪ Semafor Intelligence leans on embedding models to distill hundreds of session transcripts into key insights.
News podcasts are, increasingly, something you watch (but The Daily still works best as audio)
▪ “I think the audience is new, and I think it is bigger.”
Google highlights links from subscribed publications in new AI Overviews update ➚
Australia’s building a great system to fund local journalism — but it doesn’t want to use it
▪ Its proposed replacement for the News Media Bargaining Code retains its original sin: pretending that a public policy decision is actually just a little nudge to help the free market.
ProPublica gets a new look built to work across platforms ➚
The Intercept didn’t just publish a story about ICE — it drove it around JFK
▪ The investigative nonprofit turned a digital privacy guide into a real-life stunt, and news creators helped share the message.
Newsletters, live coverage, a one-time magazine: The World Cup is becoming a testbed for journalism experiments
▪ “It’s one of those huge, gigantic things that sort of go beyond sports. It’s like a life-measurement mechanism.”
People are stressed out by most news that isn’t local news, according to a new study ➚
More scoops, less aggregation and analysis: How Casey Newton is revamping his newsletter to compete with AI
▪ “‘What kinds of editorial businesses can only be built around a human being?’ feels like it is going to become a more and more important question.”
“Like nailing Jell-O to a wall”: Why unions are struggling to protect journalists’ rights in the age of AI
▪ Union leaders in the U.S., Greece, and the Philippines discuss how they are grappling with the dilemmas posed by an ever-evolving technology.
Geospatial AI is reinventing the rainforest beat
▪ Environmental journalists are pairing satellite imagery and machine learning to expose illegal mining across the Amazon.
Journalists champion Wayback Machine after news publishers limit article archiving ➚
Prediction markets are breaking the news and becoming their own beat
▪ “I wake up every day and I’m like, this is the world. I’m still in the fever dream.”