This year, five Pulitzer winners and three finalists disclosed AI use to the judges. That's the most since the disclosure requirement was added in 2024. I asked several of the reporters behind these stories how they brought LLMs and other AI tools into their work. www.niemanlab.org/2026/08/a-re...

A record-breaking eight Pulitzer awardees disclosed AI use this year

Five winners and three finalists detailed their AI adoption to the judging committee.

niemanlab.org

NEW: At least five media companies are using algorithmic pricing to decide how much news subscribers should pay. If you've been told that your news subscription price was determined by an algorithm using your personal data, please take the survey at the end: www.niemanlab.org/2026/07/this...

“This price was set by an algorithm”: News subscribers are surprised by a new line in their renewal emails

Outlets like Wired, NJ.com, and The Wall Street Journal are setting renewal prices just for you — and being forced to disclose it.

niemanlab.org

Business Insider was once synonymous with news aggregation. But in the AI search era, it's turned its back on aggregation altogether. I sat down with editor-in-chief Jamie Heller to learn how she's trying to reshape the publication to break its own news. www.niemanlab.org/2026/07/busi...

Business Insider’s big bet against aggregation

Facing repeated layoffs and traffic declines, Business Insider turns its back on the aggregation business it pioneered.

niemanlab.org

“Every piece of DNA extracted puts a title on a book of life, and every one of these books is the largest book by a very big magnitude than the longest book ever written by a human. I’m depressed to think about burning the books of life without ever reading them.” www.niemanlab.org/2026/07/ther...

There are millions of undiscovered species on Earth. Vox is trying to find one.

"It’s an indication of how unexplored our world is. If you can find a new species in New York City, think how many more there must be out there."

niemanlab.org

Fact-checkers around the world face major funding cuts from USAID and Meta. Meanwhile, new threats loom, including attempts to influence AI products through what some have dubbed "LLM poisoning." My report from the GlobalFact conference in Vilnius, Lithuania. www.niemanlab.org/2026/06/at-g...

Fact-checkers reckon with shrinking budgets and growing AI threats at GlobalFact 2026

Hundreds gathered in Lithuania to discuss Russian influence operations, “LLM poisoning," and how to survive a funding crisis.

niemanlab.org

A new partnership between Beehiiv and Cloudflare gives independent journalists a suite of tools to control which AI crawlers are scraping their work. www.niemanlab.org/2026/06/beeh...

Beehiiv’s new Cloudflare partnership gives indie journalists a new level of control over AI crawlers

Over the past year, major news publishers have taken aggressive anti-scraping measures to curb the rise of AI crawlers. So far, most of these backend interventions have been out of reach for…

niemanlab.org

After McClatchy forced reporters at the Centre Daily Times to add their bylines to AI-generated articles, the Pennsylvania newspaper decided to unionize. The NewsGuild-CWA says its their first union drive in the country due to concerns about newsroom AI adoption. www.niemanlab.org/2026/06/the-...

The Centre Daily Times unionizes after backlash to McClatchy’s AI tool

The local Pennsylvania outlet is the first newsroom under The NewsGuild-CWA to unionize in response to AI adoption.

niemanlab.org

Politico has agreed to shut down two AI editorial tools that were at the heart of a union arbitration it lost in November, according to its newsroom guild. This was a major test for AI contract terms, which are now in more than 60 media contracts across the U.S. www.pen-guild.org/news/victory...

VICTORY: POLITICO agrees to shut down both AI tools at center of landmark arbitration — PEN Guild

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 22, 2026 Media Contacts: Kathleen Floyd, WBNG Communications — kfloyd@wbng.org PEN Guild — politicoeenewsguild@gmail.com WASHINGTON– The POLITICO and E&E N...

pen-guild.org

NEW: More than 340 U.S. local news outlets are restricting Internet Archive access. @hanaatameez.bsky.social and I mapped out the full list, showing just how dire this trend is for the future of local news archives. www.niemanlab.org/2026/05/more...

More than 340 local news outlets are limiting the Internet Archive’s access to their journalism

McClatchy, Advance Local, Tribune Publishing and other major newspaper chains are restricting the nonprofit's archiving bots.

niemanlab.org

NEW: More than 340 local U.S. news outlets are limiting @archive.org's access to their journalism. @andrewdeck.bsky.social and I have mapped out what at looks like across the country: www.niemanlab.org/2026/05/more...

personally I think it's a very big deal that the Canada bureau chief for the @nytimes.com — certainly one of the highest-paid journalists in the country — asked an unspecified "AI tool" what Poilievre said & published its AI-hallucinated quotes in her reporting.

Yesterday, Semafor published an AI-assisted conference report based on an analysis of hundreds of session transcripts. "[Our audience] expects really high-quality analysis and whatever tool we’re using to get there is secondary," @semaforben.bsky.social told me. www.niemanlab.org/2026/05/sema...

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.

niemanlab.org

South American investigative journalists pioneered the use of satellite data and machine learning to expose illegal mining across the Amazon. Now, geospatial foundation models are making those same methods accessible to journalists around the world. www.niemanlab.org/2026/04/geos...

Geospatial AI is reinventing the rainforest beat

Environmental journalists are pairing satellite imagery and machine learning to expose illegal mining across the Amazon.

niemanlab.org

Great to join @marketplace.org today! Talked about the reporting that @hanaatameez.bsky.social and I have done on why news publishers are blocking the Wayback Machine. www.marketplace.org/episode/2026...

News sites are blocking access to Internet Archive's Wayback Machine

In efforts to block AI companies' web crawlers, publishers are also not allowing Wayback Machine to take snapshots of their content, fearing that it could later be scraped from the pages of the archiv...

marketplace.org

NEW: A PR company is operating a bizarre fake news site that's plagiarizing original journalism at a massive scale -- all while spewing misinformation, publishing hallucinated quotes, and replacing real people’s names with “Jane Doe.” Also: it misquotes the Pope. futurism.com/artificial-i...

A Prominent PR Firm Is Running a Fake News Site That’s Plagiarizing Original Journalism at Incredible Scale

A PR firm is running a strange AI-fueled plagiarism mill that's ripping off — and mangling — a huge amount of local and national reporting.

futurism.com

I'm quoted in this for signing & sharing a testimonial about an incident in which Vancouver Police edited their press release after I'd published an article about it to make it look like I had lied. Anyway, long live the Wayback Machine! www.niemanlab.org/2026/04/jour...

Journalists champion Wayback Machine after news publishers limit article archiving

In January, Hanaa’ Tameez and I broke the story that The New York Times, The Guardian, and USA Today Co. had begun limiting the Wayback Machine’s access to their news articles. Our reporting showed th...

niemanlab.org

Earlier this year, Lab broke the story that The New York Times, The Guardian, and USA Today Co. had begun limiting the Wayback Machine’s access to their news articles. Now, journalists are pushing for news publishers to lift the restrictions. www.niemanlab.org/2026/04/jour...

Journalists champion Wayback Machine after news publishers limit article archiving

In January, Hanaa’ Tameez and I broke the story that The New York Times, The Guardian, and USA Today Co. had begun limiting the Wayback Machine’s access to their news articles. Our reporting showed…

niemanlab.org

Thanks @knibbs.bsky.social for the shout! Earlier this year, @hanaatameez.bsky.social and I broke the story that major news publishers were blocking the Wayback Machine. Wired with a follow-up this week on the journalists and digital rights orgs pushing back against the decision.

Kate Knibbs@knibbs.bsky.social · 4mo ago

So glad this story is gaining traction & wanted to highlight that @andrewdeck.bsky.social at @niemanlab.org broke the news that NYT/Guardian/USA Today were blocking IA earlier this year. Encourage all to read: www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/news...

So glad this story is gaining traction & wanted to highlight that @andrewdeck.bsky.social at @niemanlab.org broke the news that NYT/Guardian/USA Today were blocking IA earlier this year. Encourage all to read: www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/news...

News publishers limit Internet Archive access due to AI scraping concerns

Outlets like The Guardian and The New York Times are scrutinizing digital archives as potential backdoors for AI crawlers.

niemanlab.org

Kate Knibbs@knibbs.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Journalists know that losing the Wayback Machine would be a nightmare: www.wired.com/story/the-in...

Yesterday, the ProPublica Guild walked off the job in the first strike by a major U.S. newsroom over, at least in part, AI protections. I spoke with striking journalists and union leaders on the picket line in New York for @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2026/04/prop...

ProPublica journalists walk off the job in first U.S. newsroom strike over AI

On the picket line in New York, union leaders said they expect "more concentrated conflicts" over AI in the news industry.

niemanlab.org

"We are lucky that we are still alive, and we are lucky that we are able to speak with you, while we hope that one day you will all be able to come to Gaza and witness everything with your own eyes, and write about that with your own words and pens." niemanreports.org/lyons-award-...

Palestinian Journalists Honored for Their Coverage and Courage - Nieman Reports

Shrouq Aila and Anas Baba receive Lyons Award, given by the 2026 Nieman Fellows, for reporting from Gaza while enduring the horrors of war

niemanreports.org

I'm honored to be in this company, and deeply appreciative that @newhousesu.bsky.social chose to recognize a story that calls out the uncomfortable truth in our industry.

Newhouse School of Public Communications@newhousesu.bsky.social · 4mo ago

📰 The Newhouse School is excited to announce the finalists in the 2026 Mirror Awards competition, which honors the reporters, editors and teams of writers who hold a mirror to their own industry for the public’s benefit. Read more about the finalists: buff.ly/VvVPcMj

Excited to say I'm in great company here, along with @hanaatameez.bsky.social!

Newhouse School of Public Communications@newhousesu.bsky.social · 4mo ago

📰 The Newhouse School is excited to announce the finalists in the 2026 Mirror Awards competition, which honors the reporters, editors and teams of writers who hold a mirror to their own industry for the public’s benefit. Read more about the finalists: buff.ly/VvVPcMj

Today, Meta's Oversight Board warned that the company's planned global expansion of Community Notes “poses significant human rights risks." www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/meta...

Meta’s Oversight Board warns that “Community Notes” aren’t a proper substitute for fact-checking globally

On Thursday, Meta’s Oversight Board, a quasi-independent body that reviews the social media giant’s moderation practices, ruled that “Community Notes” are not a proper substitute for its…

niemanlab.org

I took a closer look at the ProPublica union’s vote to strike, including their demand for protection from AI-related layoffs. The vote marks the first time a major U.S. newsroom has authorized a strike, at least in part, over AI protections. www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/prop...

ProPublica’s union authorizes the first U.S. newsroom strike over AI protections

The Guild has voted to walk off the job if ProPublica doesn’t agree to a ban on AI-related layoffs, as well as “just cause” for firings, seniority provisions during layoffs, and wage increases.

niemanlab.org

NEW: I talked to journalists and researchers about how OSINT was both helpful and hurtful in the aftermath coverage of El Mencho's killing in Mexico. www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/afte...

After Mexico’s most-wanted cartel leader was killed, OSINT helped fuel both clarity and confusion online

Many OSINT analysts are experts in their fields and take care to verify information before publishing, but even well-intentioned accounts may inject more noise than clarity into an already tense situa...

niemanlab.org

In the vacuum left by the DOJ's faulty Epstein Files search, journalists and engineers have stepped in to build alternatives for readers. "[When] people feel the government’s not being transparent, it’s even more important for media outlets to provide that service" www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/ai-p...

AI-powered search is fueling a wave of Epstein Files transparency projects

Newsrooms have long used AI to sift through document dumps. Now that same tech is being used to build search tools for readers.

niemanlab.org

So proud of Adam and all the work he's done to get this project off the ground! Still so much important work ahead. You can support now by donating or signing up for when grant applications open down the line. necessary.foundation

Adam Goldman@theadamgoldman.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Hello I am very excited about this

Trump's outlandish numerical claims — like reducing drug prices by 600% — are a good reminder of the importance of math education as a civic virtue. I wrote about it in the NYT www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/o...

Opinion | The Trump White House Needs a Refresher on Basic Math

nytimes.com

I spoke to @sevendaysvt.bsky.social for their story on a local Vermont pub's undisclosed AI usage. Great details in this one, including this gem: "a supposed link to 'regional reporting' on the topic sent readers to an adults-only porn site." www.sevendaysvt.com/news/media-n...

Compass Vermont Raises Questions About AI and the News

Evidence shows that the online news outlet’s stories are produced, at least in part, with undisclosed artificial intelligence.

sevendaysvt.com