I’m currently judging the Asian Media Awards for WAN-IFRA. This is my 7th year as a judge. I notice some outlets put in for the awards every year, but many do not. If you have never entered your work before, take a look at this - and other - awards programs, and apply! wan-ifra.org/events/asian...

If you're a media organisation working out your youth audience offering, sign up to this free webinar on 2 Sept, to hear how children and teenagers in Australia perceive and understand news media. Register: events.humanitix.com/report-launc...

Report Launch - News and Young Australians in 2026: how children and teens access, perceive and understand news media

Register on Humanitix - Report Launch - News and Young Australians in 2026: how children and teens access, perceive and understand news media. Online. Tuesday 1st September 2026. Find event informatio...

events.humanitix.com

TikTok knows me too well - it's served up a useful channel for AI trainers, with side-by-side footage of a similar subject. You get 5 sec to choose which is AI and which is real. Useful for case studies. www.tiktok.com/@tkp..1001 #journalism

This is doing the rounds on Threads. It takes two minutes to check something, folks. An old but good rule of thumb: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2...

Fact Check: NO Evidence Pope Leo XIV Said "Be Woke" Or That Statement Containing That Phrase Is Authentic | Lead Stories

Did Pope Leo XIV release a statement in which he said "Be woke"? No, that's not true: There is no...

leadstories.com

SO ANNOYING. When I'm shopping for 'end to end encryption' apps, I don't want one of the ends to be Meta. www.bbc.com/news/article...

WhatsApp defends 'optional' AI tool that cannot be turned off

While Meta says the AI chatbot is a "good thing", some users have shared their frustrations.

bbc.com

GIJN has joined 26 other press freedom and journalist groups in voicing support for a free press, and called on the U.S. to protect reporters and media workers employed by the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Read the letter: https://twp.ai/1VmYaz

They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.

Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow

As the administration does its best to hide public records from the public, Wired magazine is stepping up to help stem the secrecy

freedom.press

A new project to track polls: The NYT will build off the work of the recently shuttered 538, trying to ensure that this resource, which is a foundational tool for many journalists and researchers, remains updated long-term. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/p...

Reply with your favourite Starter Packs for people fleeing X here. Here's Bellingcat's: go.bsky.app/HZSzS41

More depressing news out of the USA today. www.npr.org/2025/03/15/n...

'Bloody Saturday' at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

Federal officials placed 1,300 employees at Voice of America on indefinite paid leave, while severing contracts with Radio Free Asia and other U.S.-funded networks.

npr.org

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." But here we are.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2y ago

Trump at the DOJ: "I believe that CNN and MSNDC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they are really corrupt and they are illegal. What they do is illegal."

"A top political columnist for The Washington Post resigned today, accusing Post chief executive and publisher Will Lewis of killing her column that criticized owner Jeff Bezos's drive to overhaul the opinion pages..." www.npr.org/2025/03/10/n... That top columnist is Associate Editor Ruth Marcus.

Top 'Washington Post' columnist resigns, accusing publisher of killing piece

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus resigned today, accusing the paper's publisher of killing her piece on owner Jeff Bezos' overhaul of its opinion pages.

npr.org

This @theguardian.com story about a deepfake con used to steal from ordinary folk - including pensioners - was made possible with help from @occrp.org, one of the orgs targeted by DOGE. It's a good week to take out a newspaper subscription! www.theguardian.com/money/2025/m...

Deepfakes, cash and crypto: how call centre scammers duped 6,000 people

Nursing home resident and pensioners among thousands of victims of massive fraud network operating from Georgia

theguardian.com

"Critics contend that coverage is sometimes so broadly focused that it doesn’t connect with local readers. Many express concerns about who’s paying the bills and with what motives. And there’s constant fear about the funding drying up.”

Maine Is Becoming a Laboratory for Nonprofit News - Nieman Reports

Most media outlets in New England's northernmost state are now nonprofit

buff.ly

The Los Angeles Times has removed its new AI-powered “insights” feature from a column after the tool tried to defend the Ku Klux Klan

MAGA Newspaper Owner’s AI Bot Defends KKK

An AI-generated summary tried to offer “different views” on the hate group.

thedailybeast.com

Oh dear. My favourite app for editing video for social media has _changed_ VN used to do auto-captions for free. Not any more.

This is not uncommon when it comes to fact-checking and is why media literacy MUST be part of the response to misinformation and disinformation. There's no guarantee that correct - or corrected - information will get in front of all the necessary eyeballs.

Taylor Lorenz@taylorlorenz.bsky.social · 2y ago

Viral claims about family influencers fleeing the state of California are completely false. TikToks and YouTube videos have amassed millions of views pushing this conspiracy. My article debunking it only has.... 2 shares. Journalism feels so fruitless sometimes.

Sidebar to, like, everything else going on today but Sean Baker, director of Anora, was one of the catalysts for the mobile journalism movement, when he made Tangerine in 2015 on an iPhone 5S en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangeri... #mojo #oscars #anora

Tangerine (film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Excellent thread from the founder of @bellingcat.com if (like me / most people) you’re trying to get your head around what the heck is going on rn

Eliot Higgins@eliothiggins.bsky.social · 2y ago

What we’re witnessing in America is what happens when disordered discourse captures a political party, then the state itself. The Republican Party was the first to fall - abandoning truth for conspiracy, ideology for grievance, and policy for performative outrage.

Just finished reading this from @antelava.bsky.social. It's very useful if you're interested in journalism and trust. There's a link to a @pewresearch.org study in Natalia's story that provides additional valuable context. www.codastory.com/rewriting-hi...

How the West lost the war it thought it had won - Coda Story

On the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has reason to celebrate. He has scripted a new ending to the Cold War by exploiting the gap between Western democratic ideals a...

codastory.com

Thread: A viral clip of Donald Trump Jr saying on his Triggered podcast that "the US should have been sending weapons to Russia" instead of Ukraine is AI-generated and fake. Worryingly, the fake AI audio sounds near identical to Don Jr's real voice. Let's see how we can verify that it's fake.

If it walks like a duck…

Anne Applebaum@anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 2y ago

"Suddenly, and not accidentally, people who work for the American federal government are having the same experience as people who find themselves living under foreign occupation" www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

scoop: PBS is closing its DEI office in response to President Trump’s recent executive order. Note from CEO Paula Kerger

This thread 👀

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2y ago

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%. I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

I'm publishing Google's internal memo to employees explaining why it's ending DEI hiring goals across the company The rationale is linked to Google being a federal contractor and "recent court decisions and U.S. Executive Orders on this topic" Full memo here: www.theverge.com/google/60701...

Google tells employees why it’s ending DEI hiring goals

Another Big Tech company caves to the Trump administration.

theverge.com

Folks trying to put some figures on what the USAID funding freeze means for journalism - this piece from Jon Allsop in Columbia Journalism Review is a good starting point: www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

USAID and the Media in a ‘Time of Monsters’

What the aid funding freeze means for independent journalism around the world.

cjr.org

Thanks @pulitzercenter.bsky.social for organising this 3-day Reporting on AI Intensive course. Usually it's me doing the training but this week I'm joining 50 journalists from all over the world to learn from @karenhao.bsky.social and @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social. Woo hoo!

Couple days ago the USAID website was taken down, and it's still 'site not found'. Now, Wikipedia lists the USAID website as being under the State Department: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...

FYI - if you have a compatible iPhone (15 pro/max; any 16 model) and update to iOS 18.3, Apple Intelligence gets installed automatically. You can switch it off & choose not to use it - but you can’t uninstall it. Also, it takes up 6gb of storage on your iPhone even if you’re not using it.