Cheryl Phillips

Inside California’s new police records database Cheryl Phillips, founder and co-Director of Big Local News at Stanford University, gives insight on new database giving Californians access to nearly one-point-five million pages of internal police re...

“Inside California’s new police records database” - Spend a few minutes watching an interview with Cheryl Phillips (@cephillips.bsky.social) on KTVU Fox 2 (@ktvufox2.bsky.social) to hear more about the new database.
www.ktvu.com/video/1686149

#AI #UCBerkeley #Stanford #localnews

#ddj #datajournalism
Hiring two data journalists

umd.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/UMCP/job/Uni...

He Made Billions on Google and PayPal. Now, He’s Betting on News.

scoop: @charterworks, the media startup co-founded by WSJ alum @delaney, has sold to @sfstandard. Behind the deal is Michael Moritz, the SF billionaire who placed early bets on Google and PayPal and is now investing in news.

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/b...

Hello #IRE25! I'll be presenting tomorrow on a panel about localizing data for investigative reporting. @cephillips.bsky.social, Samantha Sunne and Nicole Lewis are all on the panel as well! Not to be missed.
schedules.ire.org/ire-2025/ind...

Rethinking Model Collapse and What that Means for the Value of News Data What is model collapse and what does it mean for news organization strategy?

“… it seemed that the news industry was in fact sitting on a treasure trove that the tech companies would need to pay for to keep scaling up their models: fresh, human-authored data.”

@nickdiakopoulos.bsky.social’s primer on model collapse:

And yes, this is effectively me trying to get the world to care about prompt injection by trying out a new term for a subset of the problem!

I hope this captures the risk to end users in a more visceral way - particularly important now that people are mixing and matching MCP servers themselves

The lethal trifecta for AI agents: private data, untrusted content, and external communication If you are a user of LLM systems that use tools (you can call them “AI agents” if you like) it is critically important that you understand the risk of …

If you use "AI agents" (LLMs calling tools in a loop) you need to be aware of the Lethal Trifecta

Combine access to private data, exposure to untrusted content and the ability to externally communicate and an attacker can trick the system into stealing your data simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/16/...

DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts We obtained records showing how a Department of Government Efficiency staffer with no medical experience used artificial intelligence to identify which VA contracts to kill. “AI is absolutely the wron...

A DOGEr with no government or contracting experience used an LLM to identify contracts for cancelation — or “munching,” in his terms — at the VA. It did not go well. We have the scoop:

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

This is bleak reading

Product development is built on a foundation of trust A conversation with Elite Truong, VP of Product Strategy The vice president of product strategy at the American Press Institute and board secretary for the News Product Alliance, Elite Truong, has…

Product development is built on a foundation of trust - A conversation with Elite Truong, VP of Product Strategy rjionline.org/news/product...

Under Texas’ Abortion Ban, Where a Woman Lives Can Determine Her Risk of Developing Sepsis While the rates of dangerous infections spiked across the state after it banned abortion in 2021, women in Houston fared far worse than those in Dallas, according to ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind ana...

NEW: The rate of sepsis in Houston surged 63% after Texas banned abortion.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where hospital leaders empowered doctors to intervene before patients’ conditions worsened, it rose just 29%.

Congratulations to the incoming JSK cohort!!

Thank you!

Big Local News, Baltimore Banner, NYT win Local Reporting Pulitzer Today, Alissa Zhu, Nick Thieme and Jessica Gallagher of The Baltimore Banner and The New York Times were awarded the local reporting Pulitzer prize for an investigation into Baltimore’s fentanyl crisi...

A big day for Big Local News - so glad we could be a part of this Pulitzer Prize work with The Balimore Banner and The New York Times Investigative Reporting Fellowship! biglocalnews.org/content/news...

Yay! @pickoffwhite.bsky.social @berkeleyjournalism.bsky.social

Exclusive: US consumer safety agency to stop collecting swaths of data after CDC cuts The U.S. consumer product safety agency will stop collecting data on injuries from incidents like car accidents and adverse drug effects due to staff cuts at the CDC, according to an agency email seen by Reuters and a source familiar with the situation.

So the CDC is going to stop collecting data on "motor vehicle crashes, falls, alcohol, adverse drug effects, aircraft incidents, work-related injuries " but will step up collection and amplification of self-reported "vaccine injuries."

www.reuters.com/business/hea...

Couldn’t make it this year; great conference

A win for press freedom: Judge dismisses Gov. Phil Bryant’s lawsuit against Mississippi Today - Mississippi Today A state judge dismissed former Gov. Phil Bryant’s defamation lawsuit against Mississippi Today, ending a nearly two-year case that became a beacon in the fight for American press freedom.

"The reporting speaks for itself. The truth speaks for itself." mississippitoday.org/2025/04/04/a...

Big Local News Receives $3.9 Million From Knight Foundation to Strengthen Local Data Journalism Infrastructure STANFORD, Calif. – April 3, 2025 – Stanford University’s Big Local News has been awarded a $3.9 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to accelerate collaborative infrastructure...

We're thrilled to share that Big Local News has received a $3.9 million grant from the Knight Foundation to help strengthen the infrastructure that supports local journalism nationwide.
biglocalnews.org/content/news...

Bob McChesney was a media thinker whose idealism could have led to a better world Earlier this morning I looked up a review that I wrote for The Boston Phoenix of Robert McChesney’s breakthrough 1999 book, “Rich Media, Poor Democracy.” I had to laugh, because B…

New at Media Nation: Bob McChesney was a media thinker whose idealism could have led to a better world.

Before I joined @propublica.org, I spent five years working in population research. Many of my former colleagues were funded through NIH grants. Some of those grants have been terminated.

Would appreciate you sharing this with your colleagues and groups.

Today I lost an NIH grant training clinicians to do research about intimate partner violence with perinatal women.

More women are murdered in the perinatal period than die of obstetric complications.

I didn't just lose a grant. We lost an entire cohort of people building careers to prevent that.

Residents suffer as county hospitals divert $2.6 billion from poorly staffed nursing homes New data obtained by IndyStar through a public records lawsuit reveals the fullest picture yet of Indiana's secretive nursing home Medicaid scheme

County hospitals tried to hide how much nursing home Medicaid money they diverted. IndyStar sued, and now we know:

More than $2.5 billion intended for care at nursing homes kept by public hospitals. Meanwhile, Indiana ranks near the bottom for nursing home care.

www.indystar.com/story/news/i...

one of many reasons I subscribe to Wired and you should too

Government transparency is critical to living your best life How can you live your best life? An honest and transparent government is a must for a stable, non-lethal life, long life.

More sunshine week highlights: freepressokc.com/government-t...

The site in December 2024: web.archive.org/web/20241212...

Attendees in sessions listening with person in front wearing purple NICAR25 sweatshirt

Classroom showing speakers in front in Jedi costumes and one is holding a light saber

Speakers before session with laptops and mic, one is pointing to screen

Three conference attendees speaking with each other in panel room

Thank you to all our wonderful members who joined us at #NICAR25 in Minneapolis! We hope you learned a lot and are feeling inspired to do great journalism in your community.

The coolest thing I’ve seen today is that a bunch of volunteer public health professionals and developers have restored the CDC website from before January 20th 2025.

This differs from an archive in that they want to rebuild the links between pages and replicate the full website.

NICAR 2025 schedule | March 6-9, 2025 | Minneapolis Welcome to the #NICAR25 conference schedule!

if this interests you, do drop by and say hi & learn from the incredible @cephillips.bsky.social, the wildly skilled @chrisamico.bsky.social and our wonderful moderator @markhorvit.bsky.social!

🔗 schedules.ire.org/nicar-2025/i...