"There's a lot out there to leak," writes Laura Hazard Owen of the chaos that surrounds the Trump administration. She writes for NiemanLab about how news organizations are changing their tactics to attract tipsters (have you heard of an app called Signal?) and explains how to leak information to a journalist as safely as possible.

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#Journalism #Media #Newspapers #TrumpAdministration #Leaks

Oh goodie — it’s election season in the U.S. again. @bolts’s @taniel breaks down the 20 races to watch in April, from the high-profile Wisconsin supreme court election to the congressional specials in Florida.

boltsmag.org/whats-...

#USPolitics #Wisconsin #Florida #DownBallotRaces #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Who could have predicted this? Really, a lot of people. @404mediaco’s @jasonkoebler reports on how 23andMe’s bankruptcy has led to more than 50 class-action and state court lawsuits from around 35,000 people who are worried about what will now happen to their genetic data.

www.404media.co/dna...

#Science #Research #DataSecurity #InfoSec #23andMe #Bankruptcy #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

It’s #NewstodonFriday once again, and as always, we have a great selection of stories from independent newsrooms. This week’s highlights include @ProPublica’s story about a DJ turned white supremacist influencer, @parkermolloy writing for @damemagazine about the death of legacy media, and @bolts’s @taniel on —yikes — another round of U.S. elections. Please check out these stories and all the others in this thread, comment, like, follow their accounts and give them your money. ⤵️

#Media #Journalism #News #Newstodon #MastodonMigration #FollowFriday

Mass layoffs have begun at Voice of America (VOA), the U.S.'s government-funded media network. The move came after Trump signed an executive order to effectively eliminate the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which supervises VOA, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and six other federal agencies. Here's more from Al Jazeera. At the second link, find a @CNN story about how the news of VOA's dismantling has been received in China.

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#VoiceOfAmerica #Journalism #Media #News #TrumpAdministration

Utah was one of only a few red states to allow universal vote-by-mail, but not anymore. @bolts’s Alex Burness writes about how the Republican-controlled legislature is about to get rid of the practice, which has been in place since 2019, and is imposing new restrictions on absentee voting too.

boltsmag.org/utah-l...

#USPolitics #Voting #Utah #USNews #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

News continues to flow at breakneck speed and independent newsrooms continue to reveal and analyze what’s happening around the world. Highlights for us this week were @ProPublica's exposé on DOGE’s potential impact on social security, @KnowableMag's explainer on pregnancy at altitude, and a lovely interview by @thecontinent of the beloved Ethiopian singer Mahmoud Ahmed. Please check out these stories and all the others in this thread, comment, like, follow their accounts and give them your money. ⤵️

#Media #Journalism #News #Newstodon #MastodonMigration #FollowFriday

Former tech reporter Almar Latour is publisher of The Wall Street Journal and CEO of its parent company, Dow Jones (itself part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp). @reckless1280 spoke to him for @theverge's Decoder podcast about AI, press freedom, news industry layoffs, and the future of the news industry. "I think we’ll see innovation in journalism and a lot of creativity — already and in years to come — where, undeniably, there’s this flood of information of mixed quality. There’s also, undeniably, a huge demand for reliable information. People are craving it more than ever before. In fact, the more noise there is, the more people are confused and the more they are asking, 'Hey, tell me what this means,'" says Latour.

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#Journalism #Media #Tech #Technology #AI #News #DowJones #WallStreetJournal

50 years ago, Tim Bliss and Terje Lømo worked in the Oslo lab of the late neuroscientist Per Andersen, where they made a momentous discovery: the fact that when a neuron signals to another neuron frequently enough, the second one will later respond more strongly to new signals for hours afterwards. The phenomenon is called long-term potentiation (LTP) and it’s fundamental to how we learn and remember. @KnowableMag talked to Bliss and Lømo about their discovery, and to other neuroscientists about how they’re applying knowledge about LTP to their research about memory disorders, chronic pain and more.

knowablemagazine.or...

#Science #Biology #Health #Medicine #Neuroscience #Medicine #MemoryLoss #ChronicPain #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Another busy week (maybe one day there’ll be a quiet one) in which independent publications have been doing sterling work on politics, science, tech, the environment and more. Please check out these stories from newsrooms with a fediverse presence, which cover subjects from antifascism to EVs in Zimbabwe. Oh, and Canadians, there’s a special treat for you at the end.
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#Media #Journalism #News #Newstodon #MastodonMigration #FollowFriday

@newyorktimes's veteran tech reporter John Markoff interviewed some of #TeamFediverse including @Gargron, @reckless1280 and our CEO @mike for a feature on the rise of decentralized social media. “It goes back to the original principles where the internet started out as decentralized,” Eugen Rochko told Markoff. Here's the full story [may be paywalled].

We're so excited to develop these conversations further at SXSW this weekend — check out the itinerary and sign up to join us at #FediverseHouse at the second link.

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#Fediverse #ActivityPub #Federation #OpenSocialWeb #SXSW #JohnMarkoff #EugenRochko #MikeMcCue #SXSW2025

Subscribers to The Washington Post don't like Jeff Bezos's radical overhaul of the paper's opinion pages. More than 75,000 have canceled since the announcement on Wednesday. Current and ex-staffers have also spoken out, with former executive editor Marty Baron calling the move "craven." Between late October and the day of the U.S. election (Nov. 5), more than 300,000 subscribers canceled. The Post has wooed around 400,000 new subscribers since then, @npr reports, but often at highly discounted rates.

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#WashingtonPost #JeffBezos #Media #Journalism #News #MediaIndustry

What happened to February? The shortest month seemed shorter than ever this year — even though January feels very long ago. This #NewstodonFriday, to counter the doom and the gloom, we’re watching Jane Fonda’s SAG Awards acceptance speech on repeat (it’s the last item in this thread). Please do read and boost the whole thread of stories from newsrooms with a presence in the fediverse. It makes a difference to our brave independent media friends.

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#Media #Journalism #News #Newstodon #MastodonMigration #FollowFriday #Fediverse

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has announced that the paper’s opinion page will now focus only on personal liberties and free markets, stating, via X, that legacy opinions have become outdated and replaced by the internet. In his announcement, he said that the changes are based on American principles of freedom. @CNN reports that the Post’s editorial page editor, David Shipley, has left the paper after being offered the opportunity to lead the section. Staffers aren’t pleased with the move, with chief economics reporter Jeff Stein calling it a “massive encroachment by Jeff Bezos” that makes it clear “dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there.”



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#News #Media #Journalism #JeffBezos #WashingtonPost

Two years ago, Wisconsin liberals flipped the state Supreme Court, leading to expanded voter access. On April 1, control of the court is on the line again with the retirement of a longtime liberal justice, Ann Walsh Bradley. @bolts looks at the contest between local judge Susan Crawford, who as an attorney, helped lead the challenge to the state’s voter ID law, and Brad Schimel, the former Republican attorney general of Wisconsin.

boltsmag.org/wiscon...

#Wisconsin #WisconsinSupremeCourt #StatePolitics #USPolitics #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Every time we come to compile this #NewstodonFriday thread, we’re amazed at what indie newsrooms are able to accomplish — but particularly this week, when we were gobsmacked by two pieces of painstaking reporting, both relating to Texas: @ProPublica wrote about how the state’s abortion ban has made pregnancy more dangerous, and @TexasObserver identified an ICE prosecutor as the operator of a racist social media account. Please click on, read and boost all the stories in this thread, donate to publishers, and support independent media.

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#Media #Journalism #News #Newstodon #MastodonMigration #FollowFriday

It’s Valentine’s Day, and we love the fediverse — especially all the indie newsrooms that we feature in our #NewstodonFriday thread. If there are any you’d like to put on our radar, please tell us in the comments — and don’t forget to read and boost the stories in this thread, donate to publishers, and support independent media.

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#Media #Journalism #News #MastodonMigration #FollowFriday

It’s #NewstodonFriday again, where we share a thread of stories from the independent newsrooms that have a presence in the fediverse, plus a couple of articles that our own editorial desks shared. This week we discovered yet another brilliant publication is here: @msfreepress. If there are any newsrooms or journos you’d like to put on our radar, please tell us in the comments — and don’t forget to read and boost the stories in this thread, donate to publishers, and support independent media doing incredible, brave, important work.

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#Media #Journalism #News #MastodonMigration #FollowFriday

Our team works hard every day to create a safe environment for the people who choose to spend time here, and when guidelines are violated, we take action.

This is our commitment to our community, but we understand it is also our responsibility. Here's a blogpost to explain more.

about.flipboard.com...

#Journalism #Media #Moderation #Truth #TrustAndSafety #Flipboard #MediaIndustry

Happy new year, fedi friends and welcome to the fascinating world of 2025, which has already lasted approximately 15 months. Here’s a selection of stories from newsrooms with an active presence in the fediverse, plus a couple from our own desks.These include Meta employee reactions to their new policies (not good!), an exploration of the social worker shortage in Texas, an article on making peace with our younger selves, and a story for the ages about the man who infiltrated right-wing militia and shared his experiences with @ProPublica. Please follow all the newsrooms featured, click on their stories, boost them, subscribe, donate and support any way you can.
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#Media #Journalism #News #MastodonMigration #FollowFriday

If, like us, you’re donning your holiday gear (it’s sweatpants!) and bidding farewell to work till 2025, then here’s a collection of stories to entertain you through the fortnight. And if you’re deskbound, well, hopefully this #NewstodonFriday thread offers some distraction from the humdrum. All the newsrooms featured here are independent and have their own active fediverse accounts. Please follow them, click on the stories, boost them, subscribe, donate and otherwise support if you can. We’ll be around through the festive season but taking a break from Newstodon — and hopefully, the news. Happy holidays, and tidings of comfort and joy.

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#Media #Journalism #News #MastodonMigration #FollowFriday

Is it us, or do Friday the Thirteenths seem to come around more often these days? Fittingly, we have some scary stuff this #NewstodonFriday, including stories about Medicare, media obeying in advance, and AI movies that aren’t technically supposed to be horror — but they gave us a fright. All the newsrooms featured here are independent and have their own active fediverse accounts. Please follow them, click on the stories, boost them, subscribe, donate and otherwise support if you can.

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#Media #Journalism #News #MastodonMigration #FollowFriday

Nieman Labs has released its annual predictions for journalism package, which includes the opinions of media folks like Linda Solomon Wood of @NatObserver on facing down the fossil fuel industry, @StarTribune's Chase Davis on newsrooms and AI, and Ben Smith of @Semafor on how media needs to go back to bundling. Here's a link to all the predictions. Tell us in the comments what you think will happen to journalism in 2025, or what you'd like to see.

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#Journalism #Media #Newspapers #News #Business #MediaIndustry

If any of you are on Bluesky, check out our new Starter Packs, curated by the folks behind @NewsDesk, @TechDesk, @CultureDesk and @ArtPhotosDesk, and designed to help you find engaging profiles, communities and conversations. Here's a blogpost with more detail.

about.flipboard.com...

#Flipboard #Bluesky #StarterPacks #Fediverse #PeopleNotPlatforms

This #GivingTuesday, make a difference by supporting local and independent journalism. Subscribe and donate to these publications, all of which have an active presence on Mastodon, to help them keep publishing the stories that keep our communities informed and our democracy strong. 🧵 1/2

@404mediaco
@bolts
@damemagazine
@gbhnews @KnowableMag
@ProPublica
@restofworld
@SFPublicPress
@TexasObserver
@thecontinent
@TheConversationUS
@themarkup
@thetransmitter
@thetyee
@thexylom
@timkmak
@TucsonSentinel

#Newstodon #GivingTuesday #News #Media #Journalism #LocalNews #IndependentMedia #IndependentNews