Center for Communication & Civic Renewal

Here is a list I post from time to time. My answer to a reader who asked me: what could journalists do NOW to break with some of their more corrosive habits. Defense of democracy seen as basic to the job. Symmetrical accounts of asymmetrical realities seen as malpractice. “Politics as strategic game” frame seen as low quality, downmarket, amateurish— and overmatched. Bad actors with a history of misinforming the public seen as unsuitable sources and unwelcome guests. Internalizing of the “liberal bias” critique seen as self-crippling, a historic mistake in need of correction.

Here's something I post from time to time. My answer to a reader who asked me: what could journalists do NOW to break with some of their more corrosive habits.

The full write up is here:

Was It Something The Democrats Said?
A Response to Third Way’s Political Language Memo

open.substack.com/pub/dcinboxi...

The only thing I can say about this paragraph is read it. Sit with it. Read it again. @michaelharriot.bsky.social

With Cuts to Federal Funding, How Will Public Media in the U.S. Survive? - Nieman Reports With cuts to federal funding, how will public media in the U.S. survive? Gabe Bullard writes, "The closure of the CPB will hurt NPR and PBS, but the most immediate and devastating blow will be to the ...

I'm closely interviewed for this Nieman Lab report that discusses how rural areas will be affected by loss of funding for local NPR reporting. We must not underestimate the importance of equal access to information - we're about to witness a seismic ideological shift in American sense of "place."

We just learned we are the most visited nonprofit news site in the U.S.

How effective are user corrections on social media, and does adding a link to a fact check improve effectiveness?

In piece led by @sachaltay.bsky.social we find corrections have small effects, adding a fact-check unlikely to make them more effective misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/the-... 1/6

[deep sigh]

I legitimately wonder where the senior managers pushing LLM tools get the notion that they will save time. Personal experience says it's the equivalent of double checking the work of a particularly incompetent work-study student.

Such is management disconnect from the work being done.

A book cover with title “Listeners Like Who? Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry”

Copy of my book just arrived in the mail today! Feels unreal. You can preorder it here: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

Missouri AG: Any AI That Doesn’t Praise Donald Trump Might Be “Consumer Fraud” (No, Really)

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey just sent threatening letters to Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta, claiming their AI chatbots violated Missouri's consumer protection laws. The crime? When asked…

When NPR left Twitter, traffic dropped by only a single percentage point.

niemanreports.org/npr-twitter-...

For Chinese Students, America Feels Just Like Home But not in a good way.

Although “people in China are acutely conscious of the limits of permissible speech,” Lavender Au writes, Chinese students living in the United States never expected to be contending with similar worries:

USAID cuts may cause 14 million more deaths in next five years, study says The analysis, published in the Lancet, estimates the agency’s programs saved 91 million lives worldwide over two decades, playing a vital role in global health.

Musk's DOGE efforts to undermine foreign aid will lead to the deaths of tens of millions unless reversed. wapo.st/4684PQL

Note that Trump's cuts to university research are his least supported policy, @mayasen.bsky.social. Suggests a potentially broad coalition in support of university research, if universities can effectively make this argument.

Enjoy our report from wave 2 of our three wave election panel study. This report highlights the importance of information diets and the country’s preferences in this current moment. Stay tuned for wave 3 at the end of summer!

About the 2024-25 Wisconsin Communication & Election Study The 2024-25 Wisconsin Communication & Election Study is a multi-wave survey panel administered online by YouGov. Wave 1 was fielded before the presidential election from October 17 to November 4, 2024. Wave 2 – the focus in this report – was fielded in April and May of 2025 with reinterviews of Wave 1 participants plus a supplemental fresh cross-section. Wave 3 will be fielded in Fall 2025. We also fielded a Midwestern regional survey with many of the same questions. In Wave 1, YouGov supplied a demographically weighted representative opt-in sample of 2,000 American residents. For Wave 2, we successfully reinterviewed 52% of Wave 1 national participants. We apply demography-based survey sample weights to better align estimates with state populations. Although non-probability samples do not have traditional margins of error, percentages from the full sample have a virtual margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points for estimates near 50%, with smaller margins for estimates as they move toward 0% or 100%. Estimates for Democrats in the two states have margins of error of +/- 3 percentage points, and estimates for Republicans are +/- 3 percentage points. YouGov interviewed 3486 respondents, including a main sample of 2400 nationally representative respondents (1028 recontacted from Wave 1), and 4 oversamples composed of 253 in Iowa (167 recontacted), 270 in Michigan (178 recontacted), 269 in Minnesota (177 recontacted), and 294 in Wisconsin (225 recontacted). The main sample was then matched down to a sample of 2000, having included all 1028 recontacts. The respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race, education, and party ID. The sampling frame is a politically representative "modeled frame" of US adults.

And here are some of the methods details for whomever is interested. 👋 /end

Read more details in the full report here!

We'll be doing much more analysis with these data, and we'll have another panel survey wave in November.

Stay tuned! 12/
cccr.wisc.edu/wp-content/u...

Chart: Rep trust in institutions by media use See text for description.

Trust also varied among Reps by media use. Police & Trump trust is higher among RW-only Reps. Trust in colleges, college grads, unions, & big corps is higher for MSM Reps. Institutional trust is highest for RW+MSM. Distrust of undocumented across all media groups. 11/

Nat'l econ views for Reps by media use. See text for description.

Chart: Rep reports on personal finances by media use. See text for description.

Media use differentiated economic & personal finance perceptions among Reps, w/ RW only Reps engaged in greater partisan perceptual biases than other Reps. 10/

Rep awareness of Trump actions (chart) Range from 73% to 91%, gaps by media use up to 40 pts.

Chart: Rep support for Trump's actions Big gaps by media use up to 40 pts

Finally, we looked at all these views among Reps, whose views varied dramatically by media use -- regular RW media use only (18%) vs mainstream only (23%) vs. both (20%) vs. minimal (39%).

RW media Reps were *more* aware of major Trump actions & more supportive than MSM & min. 9/

Chart: trust in institutions & groups Lowest for big corps & Congress, highest for military Big party gaps on many but widespread distrust of big corps & Congress.

Chart: change in institutional trust, ranging from -3 to +6

Public trust in institutions & groups was low overall, but with high variance by party depending on the target, incl for universities & colleges. Highest overall for military, lowest for Congress & big corporations, even among Reps.

Average trust levels were largely unchanged since Oct 2024. 8/

Range of policy views from 34% overall support for affirmative action to 72% for gun checks. Big party gaps around 40-60%.

Chart: change in policy views compared to Oct 2024 10 policy view changes range from -4% to +4%

Public attitudes on policies reflected usual partisan gaps. These views largely remained static, defying common "thermostatic" trends that move against the current admin. We find slight shifts of a few percentage points, balancing out overall or even slightly conservative. 7/

National Economy Views chart Econ better than 1 yr ago: 13%, 26% same, 61% worse Big party gaps.

Chart: Reports on personal finances 15% better than last year, 44% same, 40% worse. Party gaps but less than for nat'l econ.

Change in econ perceptions chart 94 pt decline for Dem nat'l, 48% decline for Dem personal finances 711 pt rise for Reps nat'l, 52% rise for Reps personal finances

The public overwhelming believes the nat'l economy is worse now than 1 year ago. Evaluations of their own family’s finances largely mirrored national economic perceptions, but the partisan differences were much more muted. Comparing views of same ppl in October 2024, Dems & Reps swapped views. 6/

In addition, 48% say Trump has overstepped his legal authority, while 33% say he has not. 5/

Chart: Limited public support for Trump's actions. 32-49%, big party gaps with Dems 3-14%, Reps 61-86%, Independents 21-44%.

None of 10 Trump actions we asked about win majority support. The closest are deportation at 49% & Ukraine aid cuts at 41%. Trump cuts to university grants are least popular at 32%, & the rest fall between 32% & 39% Reps are roughly 60% more supportive than Dems across all actions. 4/

Chart: Some public awareness of Trump's actions. 62-85% at least somewhat aware. Small party gaps.

Public awareness: Most Americans are at least “somewhat” familiar w/ 10 of Trump’s most significant actions. Most w/ Trump’s efforts to deport immigrants & tariffs, least w/ Trump’s illegal attempts to override federal budgets set by Congress. 3/