Joshua Cinelli

Editor’s Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations We are reinforcing our editorial standards following this incident.

Whoa: "@arstechnica.com published an article containing fabricated quotations generated by an AI tool & attributed to a source who did not say them...That this happened at Ars is especially distressing. We have covered the risks of overreliance on AI tools for years."
arstechnica.com/staff/2026/0...

Majority of Americans express low confidence in journalists to act in public’s best interests 57% of U.S. adults say they have not too much (40%) or no confidence (17%) in journalists to act in the best interests of the public.

"Majority of U.S. adults say they have low confidence in journalists to act in the public’s best interests"

Gosh. Why would people think that? If only there was something that could be done! Certainly this will get better with more AI...

www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

The Congresswoman Criminalized for Visiting ICE Detainees LaMonica McIver went to tour an immigration jail in her district. Now she faces seventeen years in prison.

Read every word of latest from @jonathanblitzer.bsky.social

What is happening at the Department of Justice, ICE, & DHS? Who are those making decisions based on loyalty and not facts or the law?

The case against Rep. LaMonica McIver of NJ paints a full picture.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

It is painful to see 60 Minutes reverse the maxim and go out of its way to comfort the comfortable, and afflict everyone else, including the afflicted.

Good night, and good luck.

Elon Musk’s Worthless, Poisoned Hall of Mirrors How X blew up its own platform with a new location feature

Indefatigable @cwarzel.bsky.social: This is X in 2025: Potentially fake accounts crying at other potentially fake accounts that they aren’t real, all while refusing to acknowledge that they themselves aren’t who they say they are—a Russian nesting doll of bullshit
www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Brilliantly done! Oliver cited research on links btw strength of public media & strength of democracy.

“And given that the health of our democracy is currently best described as ‘that one photo of Prince Philip where he was in the car’, we can use all the public media funding we can get right now.

A new generation of journalists emerges from the Amazon, just in time for COP30. A new generation of journalists emerges from the rainforest, just in time for COP30.

👉 Viviane Zandonadi: “This co-training program constantly makes us look at ourselves, the so-called experienced journalists. Experienced in what? Why do we think we know more? We are constantly talking to these people who have other experiences and other ways of being."

www.cjr.org/feature/repo...

Ford Foundation’s New Leader Vows to Protect Elections and the Rule of Law

Encouraging words from Ford Foundation's new president, Heather Gerken: “There isn’t just the work of now, of this moment, which is incredibly important. We are also going to need to dream a new democracy into existence.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/u...

In Medill’s latest State of Local News report, a “festering, 20-year-old problem” looms larger than ever “Digital news sites don’t come close to replacing the number of newspapers and journalism jobs being lost. And the digital news providers are almost entirely concentrated in metro areas, leaving vast ...

"Built into Nieman Lab’s mission is a commitment to be 'fundamentally optimistic.' It is challenging to read Medill’s 2025 State of Local News Report and hold onto that optimism."

Steven Waldman @rebuildlocalnews.bsky.social: “We’re losing the race against time.”

www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/in-m...

Who could have seen it coming?

"An estimated 50 million Americans live in counties w/ either no local news source or just one."

"Facebook’s deemphasis of local news and the rise of generative AI on search engines has also driven people away from the news sites."

apnews.com/article/news...

Do countries with better-funded public media also have healthier democracies? Of course they do But the direction of causality is tricky. Do a democracy's flaws lead it to starve public media, or does starving public media lead to a democracy's flaws?

The history of radio, the Internet, and now AI seem to have the same arc: $ > Public

"American radio began wild and unregulated, experimental, a bubbling font of creativity — & then quickly became commercialized, optimized for mass audiences and massive profits."

www.niemanlab.org/2022/01/do-c...

What went wrong at the Houston Landing? “We tried to be too much, too fast, for too many people.”

Really great job by @speppered.bsky.social to unearth the state of play that led to the demise of the Houston Landing.

“There was all of this ego from high up: 'We’re going to make the future of news' But they all just wanted to run the show & it was a nightmare.”
www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/what...

Community radio stations are collateral damage as Congress cuts NPR funding Congress voted to claw back federal funding to public media. Some of those hit hardest include community radio stations in areas that voted for the president.

The argument that drives me nuts from supporters of zeroing out Public Media's federal $ is we live now in a "golden age of content abundance." Quantity does not equal quality and so much of the civic information commons is garbage. Accessible quality information is KEY!

www.npr.org/2025/07/20/n...

Do countries with better-funded public media also have healthier democracies? Of course they do But the direction of causality is tricky. Do a democracy's flaws lead it to starve public media, or does starving public media lead to a democracy's flaws?

"Do countries with better-funded public media also have healthier democracies? Of course they do"

www.niemanlab.org/2022/01/do-c... (January 2022)

When Local Newspapers Die, Corruption Festers Our study also found that digital media sites didn’t make much of a difference.

Let's check in on what David Simon, former Baltimore Sun journalist & WIRE creator, said in 2009 testimony to Senate on the future of journalism: “It is going to be one of the great times to be a corrupt politician.”

Also, "the parasite is slowly killing the host."

www.cjr.org/analysis/loc...

Why some towns lose local news — and others don’t Research identifies five key drivers — ranging from racial disparity to market forces — that determine which towns lose their papers and which ones beat the odds.

Abby Youran Qin @niemanlab.org:

"Without journalistic scrutiny, scholars find that mismanagement flourishes, corruption costs balloon, and the communities most vulnerable to abuse receive the least accountability. This is how news deserts exacerbate inequality."

www.niemanlab.org/2025/06/why-...

Here's to the memory of Tom Robbins, a journalistic bulldog & teacher to many, including @ CUNY J School.

“Showing up, listening closely and finding the people burning with intensity to tell their story, those are the three most important qualities of the job.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/b...

Why I’m Resigning from the NSF and Library of Congress I cannot participate in systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging.

"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging. My resignation represents such a refusal, not a surrender of responsibility but an assertion of it."

Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social

time.com/7285045/resi...

Opinion | To Understand Global Migration, You Have to See It First These estimates, drawn from the location data of three billion Facebook users, provide a view of human migration in extraordinary detail.

The Big Picture - Kathleen Kingsbury @nytimes.com: Instead of arguing over immigration w/ shocking anecdotes & exceptional incidents, our debates should start with a resource like this one — quality information, gathered with a consistent procedure across the world

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Elon Musk gets government policy ideas from X. Here’s how. A look at which accounts — big and small — have Musk’s ear and how some appear to have sparked action from Musk and the Trump administration.

Well done by WaPo: "Musk’s relationships w/ right-wing or conservative accounts have also multiplied since he purchased the platform. On average, he interacts with one of these about six times per day.
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/int...
By Clara Ence Morse, Eric Lau, Azi Paybarah & Talia Trackim

“If the society today allows wrongs to go unchallenged, the impression is created that those wrongs have the approval of the majority.”

Barbara Jordan

A huge loss to journalism, John Thornton was earlier than most in championing non-profit local news, in Texas and beyond. Thornton saw the financial support of local journalism as a solveable problem: "It's not even an ARTS sized problem, it's a BALLET sized problem" he used to say

An ICE Contractor Is Worth Billions. It’s Still Fighting to Pay Detainees as Little as $1 a Day to Work. GEO Group, whose stock is valued at $4 billion, says that state minimum wage laws don’t apply to the cleaning services that it’s asked detained migrants to perform at facilities where they’re kept.

NEW: GEO Group, whose stock is valued at $4 billion, says that state minimum wage laws don’t apply to the cleaning services that it’s asked detained migrants to perform at facilities where they’re kept. @mckenziefunk.com

Defying Trump, several US-funded international broadcasters are still reporting the news | CNN Business The leaders of several US-funded international networks have instructed their organizations to continue broadcasting, ignoring a Trump administration order, because they believe last weekend’s termina...

Voice of America -- February 1, 1942
Introduced by the “Battle Hymn of the Republic" & the pledge:

"Today, and every day from now on, we will be with you from America to talk about the war... The news may be good or bad for us – We will always tell you the truth."

www.cnn.com/2025/03/18/m...

‘Panic benefits Ice’: local newsrooms fight back as immigrants face misinformation As rumored raids fuel anxiety about mass deportations, outlets are offering resources and debunking falsehoods

Misinfo vs. Deep ties w/ local residents & orgs!

Alma Martinez, ED, Central Valley Journalism Collaborative (CVJC) “We have lived here, we have families here, we come from the communities that are being targeted. That builds trust. That’s the secret sauce.”

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

This is such a powerful & important piece from Lydia Polgreen @polgreen.bsky.social

"Terrible failure of imagination on a civilization-altering scale."

There will be a price to be paid for such short-sightedness of trying to reject "the human desire to flourish & to set one's own path in life."

This ridiculous accusation by the new FCC Chair to investigate whether NPR & PBS, the last vestiges of a public commons media source to be commercial free, are somehow "too commercial" while ignoring the "Vast Wasteland" of Internet & social media should warrant a fight.
www.npr.org/2025/01/30/n...

Meta never cared about factchecking. What it wants is friction-free oligarchy The company’s plan to end its factchecking program is about appeasing Trump. That signals the making of a mafia state

I deactivated my Facebook account this week. I joined in Dec 2007 ahead of covering the FB presidential debate in NH. To be honest, I haven't used FB much in years & didn't delete Instagram or WhatsApp b/c I still use.

But the Spirit of the Symbolism is Real!

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Meta is making big changes to hiring practices, sources told me and @mikeisaac.bsky.social

- no more teams devoted to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
- no diversity preference for working with outside minority owned supplier businesses
- no goals for hiring women and minorities

Fact-checkers, targeted by MAGA loyalists, blast Zuckerberg’s assertion their work was ‘biased’ | CNN Business Meta’s surprise decision to scrap its fact-checking partnerships – blindsiding journalists involved in the program and putting some out of work – is part of a much bigger shift in media and politics.

"Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network, said the decision 'will hurt social media users who are looking for accurate, reliable information to make decisions about their everyday lives and interactions with friends and family.'"

www.cnn.com/2025/01/08/m...