Rachel Lobdell

Share your thoughts on newsroom-creator partnerships - News Creator Corps One in five U.S. adults say they regularly get news from creators on social media. Newsrooms have started to experiment with partnering with creators to expand their reach, but there is still much unk...

NCC is compiling a comprehensive guide to the biggest sticking points in newsroom-creator partnerships, and we need newsroom editors and creators to weigh in.

What are the benefits you see in collaborating? Are you unsure of how to monetize the partnership or how editorial oversight would work?

Apply - News Creator Corps Trusted Creator Fellowship News Creator Corps’ Trusted Creator Fellowship is a short-term program providing partnership and training to U.S.-based information providers who want to level-up their conn...

The NCC Trusted Creator Fellowship timeline:
—Applications are due on December 31, 2025.
—Applicants will be notified by the end of January.
—The cohort will meet virtually once a week from February 23 to April 24.

newscreatorcorps.org/apply/

The fellowship teaches tactical skills like fact-checking, sourcing, and interviewing to ensure the creators are disseminating accurate information and connects content creators with news organizations, nonprofits, and other institutions to expand the reach of accurate and trustworthy information.

As the trusted voices of our time, content creators have an outsized influence on shaping public opinion, as well as an outsized responsibility to get the information they are delivering right. This training fellowship is an intensive program of skill sharing and community building.

Apply - News Creator Corps Trusted Creator Fellowship News Creator Corps’ Trusted Creator Fellowship is a short-term program providing partnership and training to U.S.-based information providers who want to level-up their conn...

Applications for News Creator Corps' Spring 2026 Trusted Creator Fellowship are open: newscreatorcorps.org/apply/

If you create content that informs or connects people, this program will teach you the tactical skills to ensure you are disseminating accurate information. (Plus a $5k stipend!)

Creators are helping teens sift through the flood of misinformation - News Creator Corps Frequent exposure to social media misinformation can make it even more difficult to discern what’s real and what’s fake online.

Social media has a misinformation problem that’s making teens (and everyone, really) unable to spot the truth. Here’s my latest about how some creators are working to fix that.
newscreatorcorps.org/2025/11/crea...

Meet The Fellows: The meteorologist who knows that 'people like to learn things' - News Creator Corps Ali Van Fleet started creating content for TikTok during the pandemic, and now she's dedicated to finding innovative ways to share climate and weather information.

The next in our Meet The Fellows series: Ali Van Fleet, a meteorologist studying climate communication.

“I think it’s easy to tell someone like, ‘Oh, you can go read this book.’ But are they going to? No. This is how people are getting their information."

newscreatorcorps.org/2025/11/meet...

Creators—and everyone sharing on the internet—should think about minimizing harm - News Creator Corps Each of us has a front-row seat to not just witness history but contribute to how people remember it.

"Keeping “minimize harm” front and center matters because most harm from shared information isn’t malicious, it happens when we don’t stop to think about the ripple effects of what we share or publish."

newscreatorcorps.org/2025/11/crea...

We know that humor captures attention and creates a more engaging learning environment, as evidenced by decades of late night TV.

NCC's upcoming virtual workshop will demonstrate how basic improv and standup tactics can be integrated into anyone's writing or performing style. Join us Dec. 10.

Why flight delays could persist after shutdown ends and impact Thanksgiving travel Hundreds of thousands of travelers have seen flight disruptions in recent days due to the US government shutdown, and restoring capacity takes time.

"People shouldn't just automatically assume if they have a flight this weekend, that everything is going to be exactly perfect," she said. "There's still going to be kind of the snowball effect." www.businessinsider.com/why-flight-d...

Meet The Fellows: Sometimes it’s just about having a good time - News Creator Corps Kahja Elliott started Kay in the Bay as a way for her to get to know the Bay Area through food after moving there from the East Coast.

We have a new series so you can meet the NCC fellows, and we're kicking it off with Kahja Elliott.

“Kay in the Bay is a platform about all of the different ways we can interact with food that encourages communities."

newscreatorcorps.org/2025/11/meet...

Justices agree to decide major election law case Setting the stage for a major ruling on election law, the Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether federal law requires ballots to be not only cast by voters […]

The Supreme Court agreed to rule on a high-stakes case that could have profound impacts on the 2026 and 2028 elections. Are states required to count mail-in ballots that are postmarked on or before election day but arrive after? www.scotusblog.com/2025/11/just...

Major concession from Democrats here is enhanced ACA funds aren’t extended. Preserving them was Dems’ central demand in this fight. They secured a promise of a vote (which Thune has been offering for weeks), but that could still fail. Even if it passes, Johnson has made no promise of a House vote.

How to Opt-Out of Airlines Selling Your Travel Data to the Government The Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), owned by major U.S. airlines, collects billions of ticketing records and sells them to the government to be searched without a warrant. I managed to opt-out o...

PSA from 404 Media: you can opt-out of a data broker selling your flight travel data to the government to be searched without a warrant. Here's how I did it. This is ARC, the data broker owned by major U.S. airlines like United, Delta, American, etc

www.404media.co/how-to-opt-o...

My husband always says he feels like he’s at a wedding during boarding

Some of the bylines I couldn't substantiate, as in they didn't have a LinkedIn profile or other site. Others were real people, but their emails didn't match the emails listed on their websites. I reached out to one via her listed email and asked if she had pitched, and she confirmed she had not.

There were two consistencies that seemed off. The portfolio links that the authors sent were always MuckRock pages, and the email signoffs had a period after the name.

Example:
Thanks,
Rachel Lobdell.

Last week, NCC put out a call for pitches for our blog. We received many interesting ideas that I'm thrilled to commission. But this week I noticed a trend in the pitches and confirmed that we were receiving a deluge of pitches for what would likely be AI created work impersonating journalists.

Brasstaxes Tax help for artists, freelancers and other nice people.

brasstaxes.com

And a reminder: When pop culture comparisons are looked down upon as silly or unintelligent, it's usually because it highlights something that women enjoy, which society has deemed as unserious.

I love the concept of this project. I'm regularly seeing creators use similar explainer devices, often comparing a policy or government process to something in pop culture, like a love triangle or the Kendrick-Drake beef.

Creators are the new front pages Creators' value isn't just providing context. It's curation.

In this week's NCC newsletter: Gen Z audiences are using creator content as a jumping off point, often then digging for more details from more traditional media sources or public records. As creators take on this role of being the new 1A or homepage, it makes their work even more important.

Sometimes I wonder if my toddler is slow to move when asked because problem solving shows like Paw Patrol and PJ Masks address their missions in the least efficient manner possible. If someone is hanging off a cliff, maybe don’t regroup at the tower before heading over?

Let's be realistic about how people are getting information. We'd love for you to join us in this mission.

I chatted with @neeldhanesha.com about what we're building at News Creator Corps: www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/a-ne...

I'm thinking a lot about this as we enter the holiday season and the famous era of "how to not kill your family over dinner" stories. How can we use this time to share resources on truthful information sources?

How our social connections shape the information we encounter - News Creator Corps Misinformation spreads most easily when identity biases and homogenous networks reinforce each other.

How's your personal network literacy? @matthewfacciani.bsky.social shares his research with NCC: "surrounding yourself with more people who share your beliefs increases the likelihood of bias. But even a single person in your network who thinks differently can significantly reduce that bias."

Why journalism from non-journalists is key to Sacramento’s newest nonprofit newsroom’s strategy - News Creator Corps Abridged sees creators as a critical component of their mission to authentically cover the mosaic of communities that make up the region.

There's a new nonprofit newsroom in Sacramento, and @abridgedpbskvie.bsky.social is already shaking things up. They launched a Community Reporters program, which makes creators a key part of their editorial strategy. newscreatorcorps.org/2025/10/abri...

Almost 80% of US counties where SNAP participation has risen since 2010 voted for Trump in 2020. www.socialexplorer.com/home/post/po...

100 Years of Women's Work, Reduced to Rubble Inside the history of the late East Wing. Plus: What healthcare will cost you next year. Trump's latest gold item is... a naval fleet. And new polls show Trump fatigue and a rebound for Democrats.

This is worth reading to understand the history of the East Wing.

newsnotnoisejessicayellin.substack.com/p/100-years-...

A study reviewed how AI represented news content and found that nearly half of all AI answers had issues with accuracy, sourcing, distinguishing opinion from fact, and providing context. www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...