Andrew Deck

Generative AI models love to cite Reuters and Axios, study finds Muck Rack found that major models cite journalism in nearly half of responses that require "recency."

A new study by Muck Rack recorded over 1 million citations output by major generative AI models.

Journalistic content was cited in 27% of responses, a number that jumped to 49% when those responses required "a level of recency." www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/gene...

Inside a network of AI-generated newsletters targeting “small town America” Good Daily, which operates in 47 states and 355 towns and cities across the U.S., is run by one person.

Here's our original story on Good Daily: www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/insi...

And a database I compiled earlier this year, which lists 337 of its local newsletters: www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/the-...

6AM City acquires Good Daily’s network of more than 350 AI-generated local newsletters 6AM City will continue to operate its "core" newsletters with human editors, but will treat Good Daily’s AI-generated newsletters as "seed markets."

In January, I uncovered a network of AI-generated newsletters, called Good Daily, that was targeting hundreds of small towns and cities across the U.S.

This week, the newsletter company 6AM City announced it had bought Good Daily and brought its founder on board. www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/good...

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

If you are involved in trying to make nonprofit news sustainable, I wrote and reported this story for you!

So much news that deserves our attention right now, but I hope you'll spend some time with my Houston Landing retrospective for @niemanlab.org (1/3)

www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/what...

A pressure test for AI: Dow Jones makes a translation push for real-time financial news Dow Jones Newswires launches an AI-powered French language service, following the rollout of Korean and Japanese last year.

Today, Dow Jones launched a French version of its newswire using custom-built machine translation.

It's part of a larger push to bring "real-time," AI-powered translations to the newswire, including services in Korean and Japanese. My latest for @niemanlab.org.
www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/a-pr...

New report maps a “severe” shortage of local journalists in the U.S. The report from Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack finds that more than 1,000 counties — one out of three in the nation — do not have the equivalent of even one full-time local journalist.

A New report maps a “severe” shortage of local journalists in the U.S.: www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/new-... I looked at the details for @niemanlab.org The report "finds that more than 1,000 counties — one out of three in the nation — do not have the equivalent of even one full-time local journalist."

Law360 mandates reporters use AI “bias” detection on all stories The policy was announced after an executive accused the newsroom of bias in its Trump administration coverage.

Law360 is requiring all stories pass through an AI "bias indicator" before publication.

The new policy came weeks after an executive from its parent company, LexisNexis, accused the newsroom of liberal bias in its Trump admin coverage. My latest for @niemanlab.org
www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/law3...

Law360 mandates reporters use AI “bias” detection on all stories The policy was announced after an executive accused the newsroom of bias in its Trump administration coverage.

A new policy at Law360, the legal news service owned by LexisNexis, requires that every story pass through an AI-powered “bias” detection tool before publication.

www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/law3...

Cloudflare will block AI scraping by default and launches new “Pay Per Crawl” marketplace Today, Cloudflare became the first major internet infrastructure company to block AI scraping by default. Every new domain registered with Cloudflare will be asked upfront if they want AI crawlers to ...

On Tuesday, Cloudflare became the first major internet infrastructure company to block AI scraping by default.

www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/clou...

Liang-Zhou Nieman Fellowship established at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism - Nieman Foundation A gift from the Endeavor Foundation will support journalists who work in or are from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

A woman who grew up in the US & China knew firsthand that journalism and narratives helped “readers in both cultures to better understand one another.” She now honors her mother and great grandfather with a fellowship for journalists from China,Taiwan and Hong Kong nieman.harvard.edu/liang-zhou-n...

What it takes to sue OpenAI as a journalism nonprofit One year into its copyright litigation, the Center for Investigative Reporting is still one of the only nonprofits to take the AI giant to court.

"It is critical to not let journalism be chewed up and spit out by technologies yet again."

A year into its OpenAI litigation, CIR is one of the only journalism nonprofits to take an AI company to court. I asked CEO @monikab.bsky.social and the CIR legal team why.
www.niemanlab.org/2025/06/what...

What it takes to sue OpenAI as a journalism nonprofit One year into its copyright litigation, the Center for Investigative Reporting is still one of the only nonprofits to take the AI giant to court.

“It is critical to not let journalism be chewed up and spit out by technologies yet again,” @monikab.bsky.social‬ said. “This is not something that has a ten- or even five-year time horizon. This needs to be addressed now.”

www.niemanlab.org/2025/06/what...

Let’s get to the point: Three newsrooms on generating AI summaries for news "Summaries aren’t a replacement for journalism: they can’t exist without it." The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Yahoo News on what they've learned rolling out AI-powered summaries.

“Summaries aren’t a replacement for journalism: they can’t exist without it.”
www.niemanlab.org/2025/06/lets...

“I don’t want to outsource my brain”: How political cartoonists are bringing AI into their work Pulitzer-winning cartoonists are experimenting with AI image generators.

"I don’t want to just be entering text prompts for the rest of my life."

I spoke to political cartoonists, including Pulitzer-winner Mark Fiore, about how they are using AI image generators in their work. My latest for @niemanlab.org.
www.niemanlab.org/2025/06/i-do...

Anthropic’s new AI model didn’t just “blackmail” researchers in tests — it tried to leak information to news outlets Last week, Anthropic dropped its latest batch of AI models, including Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4. Over the weekend, the release was followed by a string of headlines detailing how, in safety te...

In safety tests, Anthropic’s new AI model tried to leak information to whistleblower tip lines and media outlets like ProPublica. www.niemanlab.org/2025/05/anth...

How this year’s Pulitzer awardees used AI in their reporting For a second year, the Pulitzer Prizes required applicants to divulge AI usage — one winner and three finalists disclosed.

One Pulitzer Prize winner (and three finalists) disclosed using AI to this year's judging committee.

I spoke to the reporters behind those stories about how they leaned on AI tools in their investigations. My latest for @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2025/05/how-...

Politico’s Newsroom Is Starting a Legal Battle With Management Over AI Politico has rules about AI in the newsroom. Staffers say those rules have been violated—and they’re gearing up for a fight.

SCOOP: Politico's newsroom will show down with bosses in a first-of-its-kind battle over AI www.wired.com/story/politi...

“We’re the providers of information…but Google now wants to be the distributor” A new 84-page report from Peter D. Brown and Klaudia Jaźwińska, researchers at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, sketches out the state of play between big tech platforms a...

We at the Tow Center have a major report out on AI in the newsroom - (absent any funding influence from the providers or users of the technology). ‘Journalism Zero’ is not too much of a stretch from the abstraction created by LLMs
summary from @niemanlab.org
www.niemanlab.org/2025/05/were...

Power Hungry An unprecedented look at the state of AI’s energy and resource usage, where it is now, where it is headed in the years to come, and why we have to get it right.

After months of reporting and research, I’m really excited and proud to publish this series on AI and energy. It’s a deep look at AI’s energy requirements, where that energy mix comes from, and its carbon debt.

www.technologyreview.com/supertopic/a...

The (very valid) reactions to this tweet are *exactly* what newsrooms fear when their owners dabble in AI-generated content without editorial input or approval.

Local journalists work hard to build trust with readers, sources, and local communities. Fake books in third-party inserts don't help.

How do you report on the weather when data is disappearing? "The U.S. has a system that is the best in the world, but we're actively sabotaging it."

"All of this is part of the Trump administration’s larger war on measurement, which is itself a symptom of (and contributor to) a sense of the world becoming increasingly hard to comprehend." www.niemanlab.org/2025/05/how-...

Business Insider is tracking employees’ ChatGPT usage as part of a new AI push An enterprise version of ChatGPT is now available to all staff, with 70% using the tool “regularly.”

Business Insider wants more of its employees to use ChatGPT, and for them to use it more often.

In an all-hands, leadership named the top 10 ChatGPT users on staff to encourage adoption. BI told me nearly 70% of employees are already using ChatGPT "regularly."
www.niemanlab.org/2025/05/busi...

Two Men Claiming to Be Trump Appointees Blocked From Entering US Copyright Office The men appeared at the US Copyright Office days after after the Trump administration fired its leader, who had just published a report about the use of copyrighted materials for AI training.

SCOOP: On Friday, the US Copyright Office released a blockbuster report on AI training.

On Saturday, the USCO director was unceremoniously fired.

Today, two men claiming to be Trump appointees—including a new acting USCO director—showed up at the office: www.wired.com/story/us-cop...

Senior State Department official sought internal communications with journalists, European officials, and Trump critics Trump appointee Darren Beattie requested records regarding a large list of high-profile names, organizations, and right-wing buzzwords for a “Twitter files”-style document dump about alleged conservat...

Scoop:

Trump appointed snr state dept official sought stafff's internal comms w/ journalists, European officials, + critics of Trump for a “Twitter files”-style dump to try + prove that the State Dept's Global Engagement Center censored conservatives.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/01/1...

“The article will die, should die, but storytelling will not”: Notes from the Nordic AI in Media Summit Topics included model building, "liquid content," and European tech sovereignty.

I was at the Nordic AI in Media Summit in Copenhagen last week and across the board speakers called for "radical" changes to news formats and distribution models.

"The article will die, should die, but storytelling will not,” said Gard Steiro, the EIC of VG. www.niemanlab.org/2025/05/nord...

A conference of twin crises At the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference, one question reigned: How do you cover an existential threat when your industry is facing an existential threat of its own?

I went to SEJ last week and the vibes were…kinda weird! I wrote about it for @niemanlab.org: www.niemanlab.org/2025/04/a-co...

Tomorrow’s Publisher, a site about the future of news, is “powered by” an AI startup NoahWire is bringing an LLM treatment to news wire services.

Tomorrow's Publisher looks like a news site about the future of journalism. A closer look reveals it's a showcase for a new "AI wire service" called NoahWire.

I spoke to the site's founders about the ethics of using AI to repurpose and republish original reporting.
www.niemanlab.org/2025/04/tomo...

Scan this QR code with your phone to chat with me on Signal.

SOURCE REQUEST 🚨

I'm working on a @niemanlab.org story about what’s come of media companies' 2020 DEI promises.

How have newsrooms' DEI priorities changed over the last 5 years? What impact have DEI initiatives had on journalism/journalists?

DM me here, on Signal, or email (hanaa@niemanlab.org).

I'm working on a story about what’s come of media companies' 2020 DEI promises: Do you know of newsrooms that have or have not followed through on them?

Send me a tip via email (hanaa@niemanlab.org) or on Signal (@hanaatameez.01): signal.me#eu/SQFmfpneR...

Please RT for reach!

The origins of Patch’s big AI newsletter experiment Local news aggregation was primed for automation. In the transition Patch left human curators behind.

Last month, Patch announced it was publishing AI-generated local newsletters in 30,000 communities across the U.S.

I spoke to former Patch workers about the precursor to its AI program and the decision to leave human newsletter writers across the country behind.
www.niemanlab.org/2025/04/the-...