Nieman Reports
@niemanreports.org
A publication of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, Nieman Reports covers thought leadership in journalism—winner of the Bart Richards Media Criticism Award and Mirror Awards. https://niemanreports.org/
Laura Amico, NF ’13, writes for @niemanreports.org about how launching “Scene in Boston” taught her to trust her reactions and build confidence through practice.
A Curiosity-Inspired Career Pivot Leads to a New Journalism Venture - Nieman Reports
How a shared airport ride inspired a theater-loving crime reporter to launch a podcast about Boston’s theater scene
niemanreports.org
Athar Abu Samra’s calls with family in Gaza revealed details headlines could not fully capture, as she writes in @niemanreports.org.
When My Family Became My Newsroom - Nieman Reports
A Palestinian reporter returns to Gaza and reexamines longstanding journalistic assumptions, including objectivity and emotional distance.
niemanreports.org
Thrilled to share my latest @niemanstoryboard.org podcast conversation, with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist @bykenarmstrong.bsky.social. We talked about the intersection of storytelling and investigative journalism, and experimenting with new forms. niemanstoryboard.org/2026/07/31/p...
Pulitzer winner Ken Armstrong on the importance of storytelling in investigative journalism - Nieman Storyboard
The senior editor for Bloomberg News shares lessons on collaborating with large reporting teams and experimenting with new forms for the Pulitzer-winning story “TrAPPed”
niemanstoryboard.org
💡 A Curiosity-Inspired Career Pivot Leads to a New Podcast About Boston's Theater Scene niemanreports.org/scene-in-bos...
A Curiosity-Inspired Career Pivot Leads to a New Journalism Venture - Nieman Reports
How a shared airport ride inspired a theater-loving crime reporter to launch a podcast about Boston’s theater scene
niemanreports.org
📲 A Journalist's Guide to Creating Vertical Videos "You don’t need a big production company, expensive cameras, or your own studio. I produced my best videos in my apartment, just with my smartphone and free editing software." niemanreports.org/social-media...
This Is How You, Yes YOU, Can Finally Get Started With Social Media Video - Nieman Reports
Journalists should not fear a medium that rewards authenticity and creative storytelling, writes Sanaz Saleh-Ebrahimi.
niemanreports.org
RSS-like tools are getting another look from developers trying to make website feeds feel more approachable. Laura Hazard Owen writes about HyperTexting and Current for Nieman Lab.
This app turns the web into a scrollable feed (just don’t call it RSS)
As an elder millennial who still mourns the death of Google Reader (13 years ago this month, sigh) and uses the Feedly daily, I was intrigued by TechCrunch's post: "A new app, HyperTexting, turns the open web into a scrollable social media-like feed." HyperTexting, launched on iOS on J…
niemanlab.org
About one in 10 Americans are Mobilizers, the most civically and politically active group in new Pew-Knight research. Sophie Culpepper for Nieman Lab.
Mobilizer, connector, spectator, or outsider? New Pew research categorizes how Americans do (or don’t) engage civically
Civic engagement takes many forms. The term describes activities as disparate as voting, volunteering, attending religious services, and following the news. Yet “these behaviors are often studied separately, making it difficult to see how they come together in people’s day-to-day lives,” rese...
niemanlab.org
A conversation during a shared Lyft ride sparked “Scene in Boston.” Sixteen weeks later, Laura Amico, NF ’13, recorded the theater podcast’s first episode.
A Curiosity-Inspired Career Pivot Leads to a New Journalism Venture - Nieman Reports
How a shared airport ride inspired a theater-loving crime reporter to launch a podcast about Boston’s theater scene
niemanreports.org
Some journalists worry AI tools could weaken foundational research habits, from tracking down information to checking primary sources and speaking with experts.
A new study looks at the skills journalists are losing (and gaining) because of AI tools
Last year, MIT's Media Lab came out with a buzzy study on a phenomenon that’s been coined “cognitive debt.” In short, the researchers found that when ChatGPT users offloaded essay writing tasks to their AI assistants, their own writing abilities declined. ChatGPT users consistently had the lo...
niemanlab.org
Press freedom groups described the visa problems facing journalists at the 2026 World Cup as unprecedented in sports journalism. Nieman Reports has the story.
Shut Out: For the First Time, Iranian Journalists Are Denied Entry to Cover a FIFA World Cup - Nieman Reports
Unable to enter the U.S., Iranian journalists reflect on disappointment in being forced to miss the world’s biggest sporting event
niemanreports.org
A preprint study surveyed more than 10,000 adults in 26 countries and found that political identity was linked to player preference.
What short news videos reveal about the Messi–Ronaldo debate — and news distribution today
"People don't choose to have their media diet and their football allegiances bundled together. The feed does that for them."
niemanlab.org
For decades, searching Nazi Party membership records meant requesting files from Germany’s Federal Archives or using microfilm at the U.S. National Archives. GIJN via Nieman Lab.
One name at a time: How Die Zeit built a searchable database of Nazi Party members
"The story that a German newspaper used AI to create a 'Nazi search engine' is just too good to ignore."
niemanlab.org
El Planeta and WBUR brought Panini stickers and albums to World Cup watch parties in Chelsea, Massachusetts.
Local news went all in on the World Cup. Here’s what worked.
From sticker swaps in Boston to interactive guides in L.A., news outlets are using the tournament to test new ways of reaching audiences.
niemanlab.org
LAist’s election-guide wall captured more than 58,000 new emails in under a month and signed up more than 48,000 people for its election newsletter.
We asked our readers to buy, not donate. Here’s what it taught us about the new math of news.
We needed to test a question public media rarely asks out loud: if we offered these readers something to buy, rather than something to support, would they?
niemanlab.org
Laura Amico, NF ’13, produced her first audio season alongside Boston Arts Academy students who were also learning on the job.
A Curiosity-Inspired Career Pivot Leads to a New Journalism Venture - Nieman Reports
How a shared airport ride inspired a theater-loving crime reporter to launch a podcast about Boston’s theater scene
niemanreports.org
At GlobalFact 2026, speakers warned about “LLM poisoning”: attempts to flood the web with false or misleading narratives so generative AI tools might surface them.
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
When the war began, Athar Abu Samra was in Cairo, unable to return home to Gaza. Her daily calls with family became both a lifeline and part of her reporting process.
When My Family Became My Newsroom - Nieman Reports
A Palestinian reporter returns to Gaza and reexamines longstanding journalistic assumptions, including objectivity and emotional distance.
niemanreports.org
LOOKOUT's success is an example of a small, bootstrapped nonprofit newsroom building a community and relying on that community to help fuel its sustainability and reach new places. www.niemanlab.org/2026/07/lgbt...
LGBTQ+ outlet LOOKOUT aims to expand throughout the Southwest, and beyond
"I'm stealing everything I learned from my time at Vice and from little raggedy zines in the punk rock world."
niemanlab.org
"We found this heartening, in a time when many experts are writing eulogies for clickthrough from search engine results pages." www.niemanlab.org/2026/07/desp...
Despite concerns about AI Overviews, some nonprofit news outlets see a surge in search traffic
"We found this heartening, in a time when many experts are writing eulogies for clickthrough from search engine results pages."
niemanlab.org
"The combination of the emotionality of bees as a poster image for pollinators and hurting the environment, the timing of these honeybee deaths that were news in and of themselves to most readers, and the narrative around the Trump [admin] led to a real home-run." www.niemanlab.org/2026/07/coll...
Collaborations and primary elections boosted traffic to public media sites this quarter
"If I have any takeaway, it's really just the importance of headlines that answer the question, 'Why does this matter? Why should I care?'"
niemanlab.org
AI "will likely accelerate differences already underway. Commercial news organizations will use more automation. Public broadcasters will include more human oversight. And independent outlets will focus more on stories written and reported wholly by people." www.niemanlab.org/2026/07/how-...
How three newsrooms are charting different paths for AI use
In our recent research, we examined how three different media outlets — Reuters, the BBC, and The Guardian — were deploying AI in their workflows.
niemanlab.org
New in Nieman Reports: A Palestinian reporter returns home to Gaza and reexamines longstanding journalistic assumptions about objectivity, verification, and what it means to bear witness. niemanreports.org/journalists-...
When My Family Became My Newsroom - Nieman Reports
A Palestinian reporter returns to Gaza and reexamines longstanding journalistic assumptions, including objectivity and emotional distance.
niemanreports.org
We’re pleased to announce that veteran journalist Henry Chu has been named curator of Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. A longtime foreign correspondent and editor who has reported from more than 30 countries, Chu will be Nieman’s ninth curator. hvd.gs/431352
Henry Chu named curator of Nieman Foundation for Journalism — Harvard Gazette
Prize-winning veteran foreign correspondent, editor aims to focus on challenges facing industry, including AI, press freedom, polarization.
hvd.gs
New in Nieman Reports: A Palestinian reporter returns home to Gaza and reexamines longstanding journalistic assumptions about objectivity, verification, and what it means to bear witness. niemanreports.org/journalists-...
When My Family Became My Newsroom - Nieman Reports
A Palestinian reporter returns to Gaza and reexamines longstanding journalistic assumptions, including objectivity and emotional distance.
niemanreports.org
"Reporting [in] Gaza gave me an understanding of how people navigate uncertainty, how decisions are shaped by circumstances that rarely appear in headlines, and how easily important stories can be overlooked simply because they have become part of everyday life." niemanreports.org/journalists-...
When My Family Became My Newsroom - Nieman Reports
A Palestinian reporter returns to Gaza and reexamines longstanding journalistic assumptions, including objectivity and emotional distance.
niemanreports.org
NIEMAN FOUNDATION: When My Family Became My Newsroom - Nieman Reports niemanreports.org/journalists-... @niemanlab.org @niemanreports.org #photojournalism #journalism
When My Family Became My Newsroom - Nieman Reports
A Palestinian reporter returns to Gaza and reexamines longstanding journalistic assumptions, including objectivity and emotional distance.
niemanreports.org
📲 A Journalist's Guide to Creating Vertical Videos "You don’t need a big production company, expensive cameras, or your own studio. I produced my best videos in my apartment, just with my smartphone and free editing software." niemanreports.org/social-media...
This Is How You, Yes YOU, Can Finally Get Started With Social Media Video - Nieman Reports
Journalists should not fear a medium that rewards authenticity and creative storytelling, writes Sanaz Saleh-Ebrahimi.
niemanreports.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
"This kind of AI-driven price gouging gates essential information behind a paywall that moves simply depending on who you are. It undermines public trust in one of the core pillars of democracy." 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
"Misinformation doesn’t just sow distrust between the public & the media. It robs us of the ability to trust what we see with our own eyes." @hanaatameez.bsky.social @niemanlab.org #NewsLiteracy
The World Cup of misinformation
Misinformation doesn't just sow distrust between the public and the media. It robs us of the ability to trust what we see with our own eyes.
niemanlab.org