Jeff Inman

Corporation for Public Broadcasting to shut down after Congress pulls funding Congress recently voted to strip CPB of its federal funding.

Well, that sucks. www.axios.com/2025/08/01/c...

Dotdash Meredith rebrands as People Inc. Dotdash Meredith's rebrand into People Inc. capitalizes on brand equity in a way that its current name does not.

Rebranding as People Inc. makes complete sense to me. Capitalize on what people know.

The Rise of Indie Local News Local news isn’t dead. It’s just smaller.

Local media isn’t vanishing. It’s just getting smaller. Newsletter journalists are replacing local media, covering stories that larger legacy media outlets ignore.

Your Privacy vs. Their Profits The EU wants to limit what companies can track and sell. The U.S. just gave them a green light to keep going.

By killing a Biden-era rule last week, the Trump Administration is making sure the government can buy as much of your data as it wants, including everything from your flying habits to your phone movements.

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Great piece on how censorship moves from the school house to public libraries (and soon beyond?) from Literary Activism.

Media Overthrow President Trump has attacked the media at every opportunity—just like Project 2025 told him to.

Project 2025 laid out a blueprint to blunt the influence of the media. Defunding public media last week is just one in a series of steps Trump has already enacted. (Also, happy Revenge of the 5th.)

The Handbasket 100% independent journalism by Marisa Kabas

Good reporting should always be recognized. @marisakabas.bsky.social and other independent journalists deserve credit for their work. I've mentioned her reporting in my stories about changing media. If you don't follow her, you should.

YouTube video by Metal Blade Records Unearth - My Will Be Done (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

I will admit that the things hold me together these days are Star Wars shows — thank you #Andor — and metal so heavy it could crush a Sherman tank. This is the entertainment of our times: a show about stopping space nazis and music that is pure distilled anger.

Jailing Journalists A Justice Department policy change revives the threat to reporters’ notes, footage — and freedom.

Friday night’s Pam Bondi memo just gave the Justice Department permission to start arresting journalists that don’t cooperate with government prosecutors. It’s just another way the Trump Administration is trying to intimidate journalists and control coverage. jeffinman.substack.com/p/jailing-jo...

Our cover this week.

The Substack Bubble? Will the explosion of interest in the newsletter platform be its very undoing?

Substack has seen massive growth in the last several months. But as inboxes get clogged, will the influx of newsletters lead to Substack fatigue?
jeffinman.substack.com/p/the-substa...

Hey all, looking for folks running a niche or local news Substack willing to talk about why they decided to launch their newsletter for a story I'm working on. Respond or DM if you're willing to talk. Thanks.

Journalists call out reported White House plan to reshuffle media seats Axios reported that the White House is creating a new briefing-room seating chart, a function long controlled by the White House Correspondents’ Association.

The Trump Administration is trying to instate a defacto state media by place friendly media outlets in prime spots, refusing to answer difficult questions from legit journalists, and outright barring access to some outlets.

Dismantling Section 230 The 26 Words That May Not Protect You for Long

We're now officially living in a surveillance society where something you say online could land you in jail. Which, of course, seems like the perfect time to repeal Section 230, the one law that keeps us safe on the internet.

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

While the Trump Administration is definitely doing horrible things, it's good to know that they are still not great at running things. If they were, this all might be worse.

Meta rep flagged 'critiques of tech industry figures' as 'sensitive or controversial content' Meta said that the journalist "should never have received this response," but the incident set off a wave of concern over censorship online.

Why is this not shocking?

Judge orders urgent release of DOGE records, citing ‘unprecedented’ power and ‘unusual secrecy’ It’s the first significant ruling in a growing legal push to pierce DOGE’s secretive veil, a decision that undercuts Musk’s repeated insistence about the operation’s transparency.

We should absolutely have access to DOGE records.

Opinion | How Trump is reshaping reality by hiding data Sweeping statistical purges are part of a broader attempt to reinvent “truth.”

You can't place your trust in numbers when the government makes the numbers disappear.

Washington Post to overhaul newsroom structure The shifts follow months of high-profile staff departures and blowback to recent opinion coverage changes by owner Jeff Bezos.

After the blowback over Jeff Bezos' two pillars doctrine, the Washington Post is trying anything to stay relevant while appeasing its owner. Good luck.

Opinion | Photos are disappearing, one archive at a time As photographers try to find homes for their work, archives are vanishing, especially in local journalism.

This is a fascinating problem I never would have thought about. It makes me wonder what happened to all the photos of my old Las Vegas photojournalist Bill Hughes, who documented the city for decades for Las Vegas Citylife.

X Global Outage: Is it restored? What we know so far On Monday, X (formerly Twitter) users worldwide faced a major outage. Downdetector recorded thousands of reports from India, the US, and the UK. Many users saw an error message while accessing the app...

X is down, which means there's just a smidge less hate and anger in the world for the next few minutes.

They All Lie How JMM's accountant represents the bulk of America's view on the media

Once a potential foil, now Sen. Joni Ernst is just another accomplice in the Trump Administration. Some in her home state of Iowa still think she has integrity. Recent revelations by @propublica.org and public false statements should dissuade anyone of that idea.

“Those nasty Canadians are ripping us off and are controlled by Mexican cartels. They’re poisoning us with fentanyl and need to become the 51st state or they will pay a high price” is a belief that literally ZERO Americans had six weeks ago. It’s entirely invented from scratch.

Putin Is Loving This Russian state TV is sounding an awful lot like Trumpworld these days.

Or maybe it's that Trumpworld is sounding a lot like Russian TV.

YouTube video by RATMVEVO Rage Against The Machine - Bulls On Parade (Official HD Video)

Rage Against the Machine seems more and more relevant by the day. www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L4Y...

He’s truly our first Cameo president

Use AI, they said. What could go wrong, they said.

Spectacle Over Substance The White House's war on legacy media is changing who gets access across the government

The Trump Administration's War on Media has been a mixed bag so far, in part thanks to the Epstein Files dumpster fire.

White House Moves to Pick the Pool Reporters Who Cover Trump In announcing plans to handpick the reporters who can ask the president questions, the White House is breaking decades of precedent.

Two things here: 1. Opening the doors to new media isn't a bad thing, but 2. hand-picking only favorable news organizations to ask question is anti-democratic. The press is rightfully outraged. The people should be too.

Judge allows White House ban on Associated Press to continue — for now District Judge Trevor N. McFadden denied the AP’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have restored press access, after President Trump’s “Gulf of America” decree.

Totally ridiculous.