The Pentagon's Influencers

 Many posts have discussed social media. 

Dan Lamothe and Tara Copp at WP:

The Pentagon has secretly installed several conservative military veterans with large online followings in government roles, declining to disclose their assignments as they amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter and corroborating material.

At least some of the influencers have been assigned to civilian roles that could lead to changes in policy, the people familiar with the matter said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Neither the Pentagon nor those involved have disclosed the government roles despite the Trump administration’s claims that they are running the most transparent Defense Department ever.

Those involved include Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel, and Kurt Schlichter, a retired Army colonel, people familiar with the matter said. Pentagon records reviewed by The Washington Post show that both have active official government email addresses as of this past week and are assigned to the office of Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. The email addresses include a “.civ” suffix, meaning they are labeled as civilian employees, rather than as military personnel or contractors.

Both served for decades in uniform and, since retiring, have turned from the military to conservative commentary. Maness has more than 135,000 followers on X, while Schlichter has nearly 620,000.

Another retired Army colonel and influencer, Thomas Anderson, was listed in Pentagon records earlier this year with a “.civ” email address and assigned to Tata’s office, according to people familiar with the matter and records reviewed by The Post. An attorney, he writes online under the pen name Cynical Publius and has more than 323,000 followers on X. He was no longer listed in Pentagon records late this past week, the people familiar with the issue said.

The assignments for all three have not previously been reported. Questions have been raised online about influencers’ connections with the Pentagon, including in an article last week by the Bulwark

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Perceptions of Media Freedom

Many posts have discussed freedom of the press.

Benedict Vigers  at Gallup:

As the world marks World Press Freedom Day this weekend, perceptions of media freedom worldwide show little movement, remaining near the levels recorded each year since 2010. Overall, a median of 64% of adults across 131 countries in 2025 said they believe the media in their country have a lot of freedom, while 30% disagreed.

...

Three in four U.S. adults (75%) in 2025 think the U.S. media have a lot of freedom, among the lowest totals measured in the past 15 years and statistically tied with the other low point of 78% in 2023. This year also marks one of the few times the U.S. has been statistically tied with, rather than ahead of, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in these perceptions.

Since 2022, Americans’ perceptions that the press in their country has a lot of freedom have fallen 11 points (from 86%), compared with a one-point decline in the median among OECD countries. While this decline has been uneven — the measure rebounded slightly in 2024 before dipping again in 2025 — only three other countries have seen larger absolute declines in perceived media freedom than the U.S. since 2022: Ukraine (-18 pts.), Pakistan (-18 pts.) and Morocco (-15 pts.).

 

 

Relationships with News

 Many posts have dealt with media problems.

 A release from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism:

Americans’ relationships with news are rapidly evolving, with teenagers and adults navigating a far more complex and fragmented media environment than ever before, according to a new national study from the Media Insight Project, a collaboration of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, the American Press Institute, Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and the Local News Network at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

Influencers and independent creators have emerged as a significant — and growing — source of news and information across all generations, especially among teens and younger adults. More than half of Americans ages 13 and older (57%) say they get news and information from influencers or independent creators at least sometimes. Among teenagers ages 13-17, that share rises to 81%, signaling a shift in how younger Americans engage with the information ecosystem. Despite concerns about misinformation, most say influencers do at least somewhat well at verifying facts, being transparent, and offering different viewpoints.

...
Local news continues to play an essential role in community life and remains the most trusted sector of the news ecosystem, even as its financial future in smaller markets remains uncertain. Americans ages 13 and older view local news largely positively, with 76% getting information from local news sources often or sometimes. Across age groups, local news outlets rank highest for trust, including for verifying facts, covering important issues, and providing useful information. While teens 13-17 are more likely to encounter local information via social media or local independent creators, older adults are more likely to get their local news from traditional outlets like television and radio — pointing to a generational shift in how communities stay informed.

...

The study also reveals widespread skepticism toward artificial intelligence as a source of news and information. Only about one in ten teens and adults say AI chatbots are more trustworthy than other sources, though two-thirds of Americans say they never use AI for news at all, suggesting low trust may be tied to limited exposure.

Beyond questions of trust and platforms, the findings underscore growing stress and fatigue in Americans’ relationship with news. While most feel confident in their ability to find reliable information, only 10% say news gives them a hopeful view of the world. Many actively avoid specific topics — particularly celebrity and political news. Rather than rejecting news altogether, people are managing their exposure by setting boundaries around their time online.

Politicians and social media companies are seen as the biggest sources of misinformation. Americans point to politicians (66%), social media companies (55%), and social media users (54%) as the primary drivers of misinformation. Clear partisan differences emerge here, with Democrats more likely than Republicans to assign responsibility to these actors (75% vs. 65% for politicians, 64% vs. 53% for social media companies). Local news outlets receive the least blame, which may help explain why trust in local journalism remains comparatively resilient even amid declining confidence in the media more broadly.

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Together, these findings suggest that journalism’s influence is no longer defined solely by legacy institutions, but by a comparative, choice-driven environment in which audiences weigh multiple sources against one another. The findings offer a nuanced portrait of the public navigating an increasingly crowded media landscape — one in which attention is fragmented but demand for reliable information remains strong.

Read the full report

Getting Local News

 Many posts have dealt with media problems.

From Pew:

Americans turn to a range of sources for their local news, and while some traditional local news sources such as TV and radio remain common, growing numbers get local news in other ways.

About two-thirds of Americans (65%) say they at least sometimes get news from their local TV news station – down slightly from the 70% who said the same in 2018, though this remains one of the most popular sources of local news. Americans’ use of local newspapers is decreasing, too: 36% of U.S. adults say they get news from their local daily paper at least sometimes in 2025, compared with 43% in 2018.

Rising shares of Americans are getting local news at least sometimes from online forums or discussion groups (52%, up from 38% in 2018), as well as from local government agencies or officials (40%, up from 30%).

The sharpest growth in usage came from other online-only sources. As of 2025, 42% of U.S. adults say they get news at least sometimes from a source that publishes online only (and was not included in any of the other categories), more than double the share that used these sources in 2018 (15%).

Whisper Network

Many posts have discussed social media. 

Melanie Mason and Jeremy B. White at Politico:

Five months before Arielle Fodor, better known on social media as “Mrs. Frazzled,” helped set in motion the downfall of Rep. Eric Swalwell, she was singing his praises on Instagram.

“You know how I love to tell you when I meet a politician who acts like a normal human and not a robot!” she posted the day after the California Democrat launched his campaign for governor. “Eric is that.” 

It was a fairly anodyne post for Fodor, a prodigious professional poster. But it drew an unusual response: Three people privately warning her that Swalwell was no good.

Those messages were the embers of a firestorm that in short order incinerated Swalwell’s campaign, and is now engulfing what remains of his political career.

Swalwell suspended his campaign Sunday, days after multiple news outlets reported on allegations that he sexually harassed women, had sexual relationships with subordinate staff and, in two cases, committed sexual assault. Swalwell has denied accusations he had nonconsensual sex with anybody, though he acknowledged “personal failings.”

The broad contours of Swalwell’s alleged behavior, if not the specifics, did not come as a surprise to many working in and around politics, especially in Washington. The 45-year-old cable news darling and Trump antagonist had developed a reputation for unsavory and sometimes unwanted behavior toward women. Those warnings were shared in whisper networks but rarely traveled outside the circle of political insiders.

That is, until Swalwell sought a promotion to lead the nation’s most populous state and a pair of content creators worked to spill that open secret into public view. His breakneck undoing is a testament to the striking power of a new media ecosystem in which influencers with huge audiences can not only publicize politicians, but control the political conversation. Their growing clout has thrust campaigns into a new digital Wild West, where long-buried allegations and unsubstantiated rumors can find their earliest stages of vetting, a warning for politicians at all levels, including in the run-up to 2028.

On paper, it was a lopsided matchup. Swalwell had a national profile and support from many in the Democratic Party apparatus. Fodor and another content creator, Cheyenne Hunt — along with behind-the-scenes help from Hunt’s friend, a woman who alleged she had been personally harassed by Swalwell and still remains anonymous — had their keyboards and iPhone cameras.

Bad Newspaper News

Many posts have dealt with media problems such as ghost newspapers and news deserts.

Taylor Herzlich at NY Post:

The Washington Post suffered the worst decline in print circulation among the top 25 newspapers in 2025 ahead of bloodbath layoffs earlier this year, as Jeff Bezos’ cancellation of a Kamala Harris endorsement outraged loyal readers, according to new data.

Average daily print circulation at the broadsheet tanked 21.2% in the six months through the end of September 2025 — down to 87,576 from 111,171 the previous year, according to a Press Gazette report citing data from the Alliance for Audited Media.

The Los Angeles Times, owned by billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, saw the second-largest drop in average print circulation, falling 19.8% to 63,492,according to the data.

It was another rough year for print papers across the industry, as the combined average daily print circulation of the top 25 largest newspapers fell 12.5% over the same period, and all but one of the top 25 saw declines.

But WaPo and the LA Times were hit especially hard following significant subscription cancellations after the papers’ editorial boards were blocked from printing endorsements of Harris ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to the Press Gazette report.

Last month, the Washington Post axed a third of its newsroom — more than 300 journalists, including its entire sports desk — ignoring reporters’ impassioned pleas to Bezos.

Alice Brooker at PressGazette:

The combined average daily print circulation at 25 of the largest audited newspapers in the US fell by 12.5% in the six months to the end of September 2025, according to new data from Alliance for Audited Media (AAM). Figures supplied exclusively to Press Gazette show that only one title among the top 25 by combined print and digital circulations saw a rise in print circulation year on year. However, AAM has flagged that its circulation data does not include all digital newspaper subscriptions, and the non-profit organisation rolled out new digital reporting rules in February 2026.

Breaking News and Age

 From Pew:

Americans and the News

Many posts have dealt with the news media 

Kirsten Eddy el al. at Pew:

Americans today describe a complicated relationship with the news. Most say being informed is essential for civic life – especially voting – yet many feel overwhelmed, skeptical and selective about how they engage with information, according to a new Pew Research Center study from the Pew-Knight Initiative.

A central tension shapes today’s news landscape. Most people believe Americans have a civic responsibility to be informed when they vote. But far fewer say regularly following news is extremely or very important in general, and roughly half say they can stay informed even if they don’t actively follow it.

The reality of how people get news nowadays plays into this tension. Americans are evenly split between those who mostly get news because they are seeking it out and those who mostly let news find them. But either way, the high volume of information reaching people from a wide variety of sources brings with it several challenges.

For one, people feel the onus is on news consumers to check whether the news they get is accurate. Americans have far more confidence in their own ability to do this than in other people’s ability.

News fatigue is also widespread – and shaping Americans’ news choices. About half of U.S. adults say they are worn out by the amount of news these days, and people are more likely to say most of the news they come across is not relevant to their lives than to say it is relevant. Following the news often feels like an obligation, and only about one-in-ten Americans say they follow it solely because they enjoy it.

Many have adjusted their news habits: Two-thirds say they have stopped getting news from a specific source, and six-in-ten say they have reduced their overall news intake.

These are some of the key findings of a survey of more than 3,500 U.S. adults that Pew Research Center conducted in December 2025 and nine focus groups held in June 2025. To learn more about this study, read “About this research.”

Pink Slime in California

Many posts have dealt with misinformation, disinformation, and partisan pseudo-news sites.

Colin Lecher at CalMatters:

Earlier this year, as the political battle over Congressional redistricting brought California into the national spotlight, Facebook users were shown a curious series of ads.

The ads, from a straightforward-looking news site called the California Courier, often felt a lot like campaign commercials, linking to articles hammering Democrats in the state, including Gov. Gavin Newsom. Few punched in the other direction, toward Republicans. One said “California Democrats just rewrote their gerrymandering plan so voters will see their partisan map on the ballot this November.” Another called Proposition 50, which passed in November, “a scheme critics say is meant to undermine voter-approved protections and entrench one party rule in California.”

A reader who clicked through to the Courier’s website would find stories that largely align with a conservative view of the news, like a video of a child “riding a scooter through San Fran’s drug-ravaged streets,” or an anonymous piece that cites “confidential sources” cautioning against a “left-wing educator” running for a position with an Orange County school district.

What a reader would not find is any disclosure of the Courier’s ownership or funding, including what appear to be ties to a network of conservative organizations in California that, according to one researcher, scaled up a series of right-leaning news sites in three other states just ahead of the 2024 election.

...

One of the named writers describes himself on social media as a “content creator” for the Lincoln Media Foundation, a conservative group, and links to Courier articles. Another shares a name with a Republican strategist based in Orange County, and a third lists a resume with conservative organizations in a short bio.

The Lincoln Media Foundation is tied to the Lincoln Club, a group based in Orange County that bills itself as “the oldest and largest conservative major donor organization in the state of California.” The club funnels anonymously-donated money to conservative candidates and causes.

... 

Researchers have taken to calling sites like those operated by Lincoln Media “pink slime” news, a name coined after a meat-industry additive. These sites don’t produce outright false news, like others, but they do not meet basic journalistic standards. That often means low-quality content and failing to disclose associations with outside organizations.

The sites generally aren’t designed to generate revenue, but to sway public opinion. The majority, according to researchers, lean toward a conservative agenda, and if the site’s stories gain traction on social media, they can travel widely.

 

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LA Reported

Many posts have dealt with media problems such as ghost newspapers and news deserts.

At The Wrap, Michael Calderone discusses a new initiative by Claremont McKenna College alumni David Dreier and Scott Woolley:

What has transpired in Los Angeles is part of the national crisis, as large city dailies once flush with advertising dollars have contracted, while many smaller papers and muckraking alt-weeklies have shuttered or shrunk. The number of news deserts, communities lacking reliable and timely information, climbed from 206 to 213 this year, according to Medill’s latest study, and this phenomenon isn’t relegated to large, rural expanses. In Los Angeles, a major metropolis where Hollywood and Big Tech are covered from all angles, there are communities, or news “islands,” as former Los Angeles Times executive editor Kevin Merida put it, “without coverage to serve them.”

... 

With nearly 10 million people living in Los Angeles County, there will always be stories untold. Even the Times at its most robust, with a newsroom of roughly 1,200 staffers two decades ago, couldn’t comprehensively cover every community at every moment. But the cutbacks at the Times, and elsewhere, have revealed significant gaps in coverage that journalists and civic leaders are hoping to fill through a variety of models, both for-and-non-profit.

 Forbes veteran Scott Woolley is co-founding and editing LA Reported, which launches on Jan. 8, and will utilize Substack as its primary distribution model. “Our plan is to publish a small number of deeply reported stories, written as lively and engaging narratives,” he told TheWrap. Woolley expects the outlet, which will rely on freelance writers, to cover housing, affordability, political malfeasance, transportation and public safety policy, as well as “some lighter pieces that don’t deal with such weighty topics but are just damn fun to read.”

The News About the News is Still Bad

Many posts have dealt with media problems such as ghost newspapers and news deserts.

Zach Metzger at Medill Northwestern:

Our first State of Local News report, published in 2016, examined the local news landscape across America over the previous 10 years, taking data from 2005 as its starting point. Now, in the project’s 10th year, we are able to look back through the past two decades and see dramatic transformations in the ecosystem of local news. Almost 40% of all local U.S. newspapers have vanished, leaving 50 million Americans with limited or no access to a reliable source of local news. This trend continues to impact the media industry and audiences nationwide. Newspapers are disappearing at the same rate as in 2024; more than 130 papers shut down in the past year alone. Newspaper employment is sliding steadily downward. And although there has been some growth in stand-alone and network digital sites, these startups remain heavily centralized in urban areas, and they have not been appearing fast enough to offset the losses elsewhere. As a result, news deserts – areas with extremely limited access to local news – continue to grow. In 2005, just over 150 counties lacked a source of local news; today, there are more than 210. Meanwhile, the journalism industry faces new and intensified challenges including: shrinking circulation and steep losses of revenue from changes to search and the adoption of AI technologies, while political attacks against public broadcasters threaten to leave large swaths of rural America without local news.

 From the press release:

Key findings from the Medill study: 

• The number of news desert counties rose to 213 in 2025, a jump from 206 in last year’s report. In another 1,524 counties, there’s only one remaining news source. Taken together, some 50 million Americans have limited to no access to local news. Twenty years ago, there were about 150 news desert counties, with about 37 million Americans at the time living in news deserts.

• The rise in news deserts was accompanied by an increase in newspaper closures, which ticked up to 136 this past year, a rate of more than two per week. Medill tracked 130 in last year’s report.

• In a marked departure, most of this year’s closures came at smaller, independently owned newspapers — not those controlled by large chains — signaling that an increasing number of long-time family publishers are surrendering to economic pressures.

• Total jobs at newspapers slumped 7% in the past year. The industry has now lost more than three-quarters of its jobs since 2005.

• More than 200 newspapers changed hands in the past year, down from the number of transactions last year but still a torrid pace by historical standards.

• Nearly 300 public radio stations and more than 100 public television stations are producing local reporting. In nine counties, public radio is the sole news source, making those areas especially vulnerable to becoming news deserts in coming months.

• Utilizing predictive modeling created by the school’s Spiegel Research Center, the Medill team found 250 counties at high risk of becoming news deserts over the next decade.

• Web traffic to 100 of the largest newspapers has plummeted more than 45% in the past four years, according to a Medill analysis of data tracked by the media analytics company Comscore.

• The report counted more than 300 local news startups in the past five years across virtually every state, demonstrating a surge of entrepreneurship that has come along with a wave of philanthropic support. The vast majority of those startups, however, are in metro areas, leaving rural and less affluent areas further behind.

• The number of local news sites that are part of larger national networks is continuing to multiply. This year, there are 849 sites across 54 separate networks, up 14% from the 742 individual sites across 23 networks. This growth illustrates the increasingly prominent role of digital network sites on the local news landscape.

Not Following the News

Many posts have dealt with news media 

Naomi Forman-Katz at Pew:

The share of Americans who say they follow the news all or most of the time has decreased since 2016, according to nearly a decade’s worth of Pew Research Center surveys. This shift comes amid changes in the platforms people use for news and declining trust in news organizations.

Presidents and the Press: The Early Years

 Many posts have discussed the relationship between presidents and the press. 

Todd Andrlik at Mount Vernon:

Washington read newspapers voraciously and understood the immense power of the printed word. Bruce Chadwick, one of 37 historian contributors to Reporting the Revolutionary War, wrote in George Washington’s War (2004) that “The help of the press was another part of Washington’s winter [of 1777] strategy. The general read as many newspapers as he could… he had friends in every major city in the states send him their newspapers and asked anyone scheduled to visit him to bring along the latest editions. He read them to find out how the press and public felt about the army – and him – but also to determine what the British were doing.”

The following winter, Washington received authorization from Congress to fund the publication of the New-Jersey Journal, a completely army-controlled newspaper that served as Washington’s mouthpiece and helped offset the political vitriol from James Rivington’s and James Humphreys’ Loyalist papers being printed in British-occupied New York and Philadelphia. The story of the Journal is well told in Chadwick’s volume. In Reporting the Revolutionary War, general audiences can now experience firsthand the same impressive assortment of war intelligence and public opinion that Washington craved from newspapers.

Shannon Duffy at Mount Vernon:

The peak of press attacks against Washington came with the public announcement of the controversial Jay Treaty with Great Britain in 1794, which attempted to ward off an impending war with Britain at the expense of American-French relations. Even before the terms of the treaty were announced, Jay's negotiations stirred up widespread opposition. The hostility was triggered not only by anti-British sentiment, but also by fears that the President was overstepping his authority in negotiating the treaty.

Washington's apparent refusal to acknowledge public opposition to the treaty added to a general discomfort with the power he was wielding. "Belisarius" cast harsh aspersions upon Washington's high-handed manner, which he saw as emblematic of the entire administration: "a brief but trite review of your six years administration, mark the progressive steps which have led the way to the present public evils that afflict your country. . .the unerring voice of posterity will not fail to render the just sentence of condemnation on the man who has entailed upon his country deep and incurable public evils."3

John R. Vile at The Free Speech Center:

In 1792, the new Congress under the Constitution adopted further legislation on the postal service. In setting rates, from 6 cents to 25 cents per letter (depending on the distance it was being sent), Congress provided that newspapers would be charged only 1 or 1 1/2 cents, again based on distance. The law also allowed designated governmental officials including the president, vice president, cabinet officers, and members of Congress to send mail related to their offices for free. This practice, which continues today, is known as the franking privilege.

To facilitate the exchange of information, the law continued the earlier practice that provided that “every printer of newspapers may send one paper to each and every other printer of newspapers within the United States, free of postage, under such regulations, as the Postmaster General shall provide.”

Peter McNamara at The Free Speech Center:

Scholars have traditionally cited 17 indictments and 10 convictions, many upon charges so flimsy as to be comical.  Targets of the act tended to be the editors of Democratic-Republican newspapers who criticized the Federalist administration of President John Adams.

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The prosecutions and subsequent convictions under the Sedition Act galvanized opposition to the Federalist administration. (Samuel Chase, a Supreme Court justice, was particularly partisan toward the Sedition Act when presiding over prosecutions, and was later impeached for this.) The prosecuted Republican printers and editors became folk heroes. In the election of 1800, the Federalists were swept from power—never to return—and Jefferson, the new Democratic-Republican president, subsequently pardoned those who had been convicted under the law.

Almost 170 years later, the Supreme Court wrote in the celebrated libel case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964): “Although the Sedition Act was never tested in this Court, the attack upon its validity has carried the day in the court of history.” Today, the Sedition Act of 1798 is generally remembered as a violation of fundamental First Amendment principles.

The Federalists in 1800 turned to papers to warn about the election of Thomas Jefferson: 

Monticello:

In order to curb Alexander Hamilton's influence, [James Thomson} Callender published, in his The History of the United States for 1796, a report of the affair between Alexander Hamilton and Maria Reynolds, a married woman.[4] The day before the Alien and Sedition Acts became law on July 13, 1798, Callender fled to Virginia to the home of Senator Stevens Thomson Mason of Loudoun County. Then, in 1799, he moved to Richmond where he wrote for the Richmond Recorder. His anti-Federalist pamphlet, The Prospect Before Us, led to his prosecution under the Sedition Act.[5] He was sentenced on May 24, 1800, to nine months in jail and a $200 fine.

When he got out of jail in the spring of 1801, Callender expected President Jefferson to reward him for his work and his loyalty. He wanted the Richmond postmaster job but he did not get it. In the president's view, Callender was now too radical, and in an attempt to foster reconciliation after the difficult election of 1800, Jefferson did not patronize the more militant or radical Republicans. As Jefferson wrote, "I am really mortified at the base ingratitude of Callender. it presents human nature in a hideous form."[6] In February 1802, Callender joined with Federalist newspaper editor Henry Pace and began to attack both parties, particularly the Republicans and specifically Jefferson. In a series of articles beginning on September 1, 1802, Callender alleged that Jefferson had several children by a slave concubine, Sally Hemings.[7]

Free Speech Center;

Before either of these events, a riot in Baltimore reflected local anger over the publication of the Federalist Republic, a newspaper run by Alexander Contee Hanson.

Reflecting sentiments that prevailed among members of the Federalist Party, it had vehemently opposed American participation in the War of 1812, which Congress had declared at the request of President James Madison, largely over English interference with American shipping. After being driven from his business by rioters, Hanson had retreated to Georgetown but returned to Baltimore where he resumed his vitriolic verbal attacks against the war and its Democratic-Republican supporters.

 

AI and Reporting

Artificial intelligence is an increasingly important topic in politics, policy, and law.

Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson at NYT:

Ryan Sabalow, a reporter for the newsroom CalMatters, noticed something peculiar when he began covering California lawmakers in 2023. Politicians would often give impassioned speeches against a bill, then refrain from voting entirely.

He began to wonder how often legislators were ducking tough votes — and how that influenced California’s laws....

He and his team turned to an A.I. tool, Digital Democracy, which tracks every word uttered in California legislative sessions, every donation and every vote taken. It led to an article, and an Emmy-winning segment on CBS, that revealed that Democratic lawmakers had killed a popular fentanyl bill by not voting at all.

...

Artificial intelligence is sweeping through newsrooms, transforming the way journalists around the world gather and disseminate information. Traditional news organizations increasingly use tools from companies like OpenAI and Google to streamline work that used to take hours: sifting through reams of information, tracking down sources and suggesting headlines.

... 

The Associated Press used A.I. tools this year to quickly sort through tens of thousands of pages of documents relating to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. The tools made the documents searchable and summarized them, while also allowing journalists to see which parts of the files had been unredacted for the first time.

"Off the Record" Is Not Retroactive

  Anna Bower at Lawfare reports a text exchange with prosecutor Lindsay Halligan:

Through the whole of our correspondence, however, there is something Halligan never said: She never said a word suggesting that she was not “on the record.”

It is not uncommon for federal prosecutors to communicate with the press, both through formal channels and sometimes informally. My exchange with Halligan, however, was highly unusual in a number of respects. She initiated a conversation with me, a reporter she barely knew, to discuss an ongoing prosecution that she is personally handling. She mostly criticized my reporting—or, more precisely, my summary of someone else’s reporting. But several of her messages contained language that touched on grand jury matters, even as she insisted that she could not reveal such information, which is protected from disclosure by prosecutors under federal law.

As a legal journalist covering the Justice Department, I had never encountered anything quite like my exchange with Halligan. Neither had my editor. Over the last several days, he and I spoke with multiple former federal officials and journalists who cover the justice system. None could recall a similar instance in which a sitting U.S. attorney reached out to chastise a reporter about matters concerning grand jury testimony in an active case.

...

After I reached out to the department for comment on Halligan’s texts, Halligan texted me yet again, for the first time in several days, insisting that our entire correspondence had been off the record. Our full exchange, linked below, allows readers to make their own judgments on that question.

...

Halligan had said quite a lot during our correspondence, although much of it was hard for me to parse. But there was an important thing she had not said during the entirety of our communications: “Off the record” or “On background” or anything whatsoever about the terms on which we were talking.

As anyone who professionally engages with the media as routinely as Halligan would know, the default assumption when a reporter speaks with a public official is that everything is “on the record,” meaning that anything the source says can be printed with attribution. If the source wishes to speak confidentially, she can negotiate how the information will be used. “On background” means that the information the source provides to a journalist can be published, so long as the journalist doesn’t reveal the source’s name or identifying information. “Off the record” means the reporter can’t print what the source tells them at all. There are other variations too. But with any condition, a fundamental premise is that the reporter must agree to speak on that basis.


In the course of my work as a journalist, I frequently agree to speak with sources on background or off the record. I take my duty of confidentiality seriously and I have never burned a source by revealing confidential communications.


I certainly would have been willing to speak with Halligan on background or off the record. But she never raised the terms on which we were speaking at any point during the two days in which we exchanged texts.

AP FightsVaccine Misinformation

Many posts have discussed myths and misinformation.The greatest spreader of vaccine misinformation is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

From AP:

In response to perplexing White House declarations on autism, a collaborative AP team delivered essential, comprehensive reporting that pushed back on misinformation. Weeks of careful planning, including prep work on precise wording for all formats, ensured facts remained at the core. A powerful collaboration between Washington teams, Health and Science, and Standards editors enabled rapid yet accurate coverage.

The team aggressively, yet sensitively, covered the breaking news, highlighting that Trump’s statements ignored established science. A smart lineup of follow-up stories addressed the aftershocks: a fact-focused piece, a feature on pregnant women’s confusion, a political analysis of the impact on RFK Jr.’s movement, and an exclusive interview with the maker of a drug Trump touted. This unmatched speed and scope resulted in stories dominating APNews.com with 464,000 page views and a YouTube livestream garnering nearly 500,000 views, showcasing the power of thorough, fact-based journalism.

Submission Links

• https://apnews.com/article/tylenol-cause-autism-trump-kennedy-0847ee76eedecbd5e9baa6888b567d66
• https://apnews.com/article/trump-doctor-vaccines-autism-tylenol-covid-disinfectants-22f5bcfe2fd3c18fdd412419941541f8
• https://apnews.com/article/autism-tylenol-pregnancy-mothers-trump-fact-check-6e03fb199acf0c5ce313536c53424788
• https://apnews.com/article/maha-activists-trump-autism-vaccines-tylenol-medical-6fca8bb1b436bb76d1a223adc0f56112
• https://apnews.com/article/trump-tylenol-vaccines-pregnancy-8c8c44e40657a2338533c59ebefaa83a
• https://apnews.com/article/autism-trump-pregnancy-tylenol-65e9c04d05014345364212ecaec4ee3e
• https://apnews.com/article/trump-tough-it-out-pregnancy-women-pain-acetaminophen-dc48caddabef2f086a50b48c5b86a3ca
• https://www.youtube.com/watch

News Consumption Across Platforms

Many posts have dealt with news media 

From Pew:

News consumption across platforms varies by age, gender, race, ethnicity and educational attainment. For example, Americans ages 50 and older are more likely than younger adults to turn to television and print publications for news – and less likely to use digital sources such as social media or podcasts.

Americans with a college degree are more likely than those without one to get news at least sometimes from news websites or apps, podcasts, or email newsletters. Those without a college degree, on the other hand, are more likely than those with one to say they get news from social media.

News from Social Media

Many posts have discussed social media. 

From Pew:

Digital sources have become an important part of Americans’ news diets – with social media playing a crucial role, particularly for younger adults. Overall, about half of U.S. adults (53%) say they at least sometimes get news from social media, roughly stable over the last few years.

Polarization and Trust in News

Jacob Liedke and Elisa Shearer at Pew Research:

Education and News Sources

Many posts have dealt with news media 

Mary Randolph and Michael Lipka at Pew:

For more information about the audiences of these news sources, refer to our News Media Tracker. For a full breakdown of education levels within the audience of each news source, refer to this detailed table.

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis, the topline and the survey methodology.