P. Kim Bui

Federal Funding Crackdown Imperils Global Newsrooms

This is why the USAID cuts have been the topic of nearly every convo I’ve had with other journalists lately. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/b...

Also: please don’t send your lone Asian American reporter out to cover LNY. If this is your only coverage of Asian American life, you’re doing it wrong.

For god’s sake, this is not the time for a segment on food where Asian food is deemed strange and weird.

Both things I’ve personally witnessed.

chúc mừng năm mới!!

This is also my yearly reminder to journalists that multiple other Asian countries celebrate Lunar New Year, so please be culturally inclusive and call it as such as opposed to Chinese New Year, which continues the poor practice of lumping diverse, rich countries together.

One last thing: it took several months, off season, for us to build that set of resources. This is not a two day sprint. It takes editors, reporters, data, SEO, and developers working together with a shared goal: be an information hub for our communities in all instances.

These are opinions, but based on my 20some years in breaking news.

LA orgs are doing a good job of getting info out. I see you.

The point of my ramble is the fires are a prime example of why breaking news can get easier if planned for. (I’m grateful Chris et al helped us think this through, btw)

Though 5: liveblogs

People reading live blogs are likely those watching/worrying. If you lost your home, you’re not in a state to scroll a liveblog to find what you need.

Blogs are easy for us, but in a true emergency they’re not for the public. I personally prefer a structured updating story.

Thought 4: How you will cover matters as much as what you cover. Avoid burnout with plans.

BEFORE the emergency know: where do people live? How do we decide lead editor? How do we assign reporting shifts? Do photographers have the right gear?

Update these plans yearly. Update gear yearly.

Thought 3: utility, not SEO. That landing page is your home page for the emergency. Lay out areas for essentials. The latest for each fire. Latest response. Fact checks. Guides. Resources. A map. Chronology is less important. An ugly list of past reporting at the bottom is fine. Kill the damn ads.

Thought 2: fire season is yearly. Same for hurricanes, etc. when it is not said season, get your team together to build infrastructure. At reportedly and NowThis, we structured breaking news into categories and worked out how we’d mobilize in each. We should have also built landing pages in advance.

This sounds easy, but with most CMSs it takes time and effort to build a big page with links out to everything.

Thought one: It doesn’t have to be nicely designed. In fact, it needs to look as simple as possible bc most people will be viewing said info on a cell phone.

I’ve been thinking about why I pushed to build this, as I watch a place I love burn and try to keep up with news. LA journalists are tired and overworked right now.

I believe with planning you can make their job easier. The thing is as simple as this: make it easy to find the crucial information.

Wildfire resources for Arizona <p>Arizona wildfire season can start in late February or early March and go into September. Here&#39;s everything you need to know to protect your family, pets and home from forest fires.</p>

It is still up and sort of functioning! My last baby that we shipped before I left. www.azcentral.com/storytelling...

Useful for any western state, though it centers on AZ

I do too but honestly I never aspire to get up at 5 am just to meditate for 30 min. I am OK with 10 min at 730.

I have never read a "morning routine" from any person (celeb or non) and
1) beleived they actually do that every day
2) thought their routine is doable for a regular human being.

If you read the newsletter you'll see another announcement in there, but I'll save that for another day (prob later this week). For now, I hope you enjoy the booklet! I'm printing mine out and doing it this weekend.

Every year, I release the booklet I designed to help me reflect on the last year and set goals for the next.

This year, I didn't change the design, but some key questions have been adjusted for today's times.

I release it as part of my newsletter The Middles. buttondown.com/kimbui/archi...

Writing this was a bit of a leap for me (I don't usually pontificate on funding), and it's an argument that only has so many legs, but we can all agree 2025 is going to be a pivotal point for press freedom from oligarchs / plain ol billionaire owners. This, I think, might get lost in that fury.

The new media, powered by Substack Partnering with The Free Press to better support media organizations

substack just announced a new enterprise media offering (whatever that means) in partnership with bari weiss’ website “because of its commitment to pursuing high-integrity journalism.”

if you’re still publishing there, it’s time to get the fuck out.

on.substack.com/p/the-new-me...

Buttondown is also totally independent and small. When I had issues the founders have emailed me, and I prefer to support indie developers.

If you're even more curious the 2024-25 booklet will include a few tweaks but sticks to the general process.

I think I am most concerned with not annoying folks who signed up for The Middles to get leadership thoughts.

I use @buttondown.com but beehiv is good too. Substack…does not match my values.

This is the 2022-2023 booklet if you’re curious. www.dropbox.com/s/kl9hjceo3o...

Every year, I release a goal setting workbook. I create them for free, and have sent them to my newsletter list (themiddl.es). I haven’t sent anything on that list for a year.

If you use the booklet, tell me: keep it on my newsletter list and hope I write more next year or release another way?

🧈🧈

A black and white photo of Grace Hopper standing in front of a computer bank. She is wearing a dark knee-length dress and has glasses. She is holding a piece of paper that says "COBOL" in her right hand, and flipping a switch on the computer with her left.

Computer science pioneer and United States Navy rear admiral Grace Hopper was born #OTD in 1906. 🧪 👩‍🔬

As far as I am aware, she is the only person who has both a supercomputer and a US Navy destroyer named after her. (1/n)

Image: Computer History Museum

No prob! That is one of more, I really just want people to think critically about how and who they follow/support. That other list includes many wonderful people but just underscores how much of the system leaves us out, whether intentionally or not.

I am mainly annoyed because this *should* be a chance to rebuild our connections using lessons about prior place, which many POC left bc it is not inclusive/diverse. To rebuild the same narrow systems seems…stupid. It is a fresh chance for you to build feeds that are not hegemonic.

Because I’m mildly annoyed, if you’re looking for media/news folks to follow, I strongly suggest you look for ones with diversity and this one popular one I see is….not diverse at all. A good example:
go.bsky.app/BmnETn7

Because of that place, I thought I hated all mexican food except for quesadillas and taquitos. TBH, the ice cream was pretty good.

Non-midwesterners never believe that my first exposure to Mexican food was a place called Chi Chis (yes, now I know what that means). But I bring you proof, it is apparently coming back?? www.msn.com/en-us/foodan...