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Stop calling optimization "innovation."
"The problem is, if you’re optimizing a product that fundamentally isn’t working for how people get news in 2026, all you’re really doing is riding that buggy off of a cliff with style."
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In Graphic Detail: Subscriptions are rising at big news publishers – even as traffic shrinks
In a world where traffic is decreasing, publishers are moving more heavily into subscriptions - with very good results.
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Most Americans don’t pay for news and don’t think they need to
Only 8% of respondents believe individual Americans have a responsibility to pay for news. "I don't think that information should be a privilege," one respondent said.
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Journalism lost its culture of sharing
"The data are clear: The open-source culture that defined an earlier era of online journalism has collapsed."
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Bari Weiss Is The Symptom
"The truth is that prestige journalism is lousy with Bari Weisses, up and down the line. Ask any journalist trying to cover the genocide in Gaza or the social death of gender nonconformists."
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Watching Bari Weiss Murder Investigative Journalism at CBS
"Notes from someone who's withstood White House demands to stop an explosive story—and who once even had a 60 Minutes piece spiked."
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Lies we tell ourselves
We don't need to educate our audiences to fit our needs. We need to educate ourselves to fit our audiences.
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Nieman Lab's Predictions for Journalism 2026
"Each year, we ask some of the smartest people in digital media what they think is coming in the year ahead. Here's what they told us." Some essays from the annual collection that caught my eye.
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What AI means for the business of: journalism
"[An] archipelago of high-trust communities [is] where journalists are uniquely capable of building thriving businesses."
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Don’t dwell on “democracy,” and other new findings about how to market local news
It turns out that "we're protecting democracy and our industry is dying, please pay us money" is not a great sales pitch.
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What I learned in the first five years of Platformer
Casey Newton's annual updates are always great. This year, perhaps predictably, the biggest highlight for me is his ambitions around community. We need stronger community platforms to support newsrooms.
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More UK news publishers are adopting 'consent or pay' advertising model
"Sixteen of the 50 biggest news websites in the UK are now using a “consent or pay” model to allow users to pay to reject personalised advertising or even avoid ads altogether." It should be illegal.