Hacker News with Generative AI: Journalism

Finding Things the Government Might Know About You (nytimes.com)
Two reporters spent over a month compiling and analyzing information about the reams of data the U.S. government collects about Americans.

Privacy, Government Surveillance, Data Collection, Journalism

47 points by anticorporate 7 hours ago | 15 comments

'Vaguely Threatening': Federal Prosecutor Queries Leading Medical Journal (nytimes.com)
A federal prosecutor in Washington has contacted The New England Journal of Medicine, considered the world’s most prestigious medical journal, with questions that suggested without evidence that it was biased against certain views and influenced by external pressures.

Journalism, Medicine, Law, Politics

7 points by nxobject 10 hours ago | 0 comments

Judge blocks Trump administration plans to dismantle Voice of America (npr.org)
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from dismantling Voice of America, the government funded broadcaster, at least temporarily.

Politics, Journalism, Law, Government, Media

11 points by austinallegro 3 days ago | 0 comments

The Tent Company Profiting from Trump's Deportation Plans (propublica.org)
In June 2005, a former employee from the Federal Emergency Management Agency toured the grounds of the Bonnaroo music festival in rural Tennessee.

Politics, Immigration, Business, Journalism

13 points by noleary 3 days ago | 0 comments

What to Read to Wrap Your Head Around the Climate Crisis (theatlantic.com)
These visceral reported accounts will help readers better understand the new ecological status quo.

Climate Change, Journalism, Environmentalism, Science

10 points by pmags 3 days ago | 1 comments

Top Producer of '60 Minutes' Quits, Saying He Lost Independence (nytimes.com)
CBS News entered a new period of turmoil on Tuesday after the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, said that he would resign from the long-running Sunday news program because he had lost his journalistic independence.

Journalism, News Media, CBS News, Television, "60 Minutes"

16 points by jaredwiener 3 days ago | 3 comments

With 'AI slop' distorting our reality, the world is sleepwalking into disaster (theguardian.com)
There are two parallel image channels that dominate our daily visual consumption. In one, there are real pictures and footage of the world as it is: politics, sport, news and entertainment. In the other is AI slop, low-quality content with minimal human input.

Artificial Intelligence, Reality, Media, Journalism

7 points by Vox_Leone 5 days ago | 2 comments

Trump-allied prosecutor sends letters to medical journals alleging bias (nytimes.com)
A federal prosecutor has sent letters to at least three medical journals accusing them of political bias and asking a series of probing questions suggesting that the journals mislead readers, suppress opposing viewpoints and are inappropriately swayed by their funders.

Politics, Media, Healthcare, Journalism

21 points by anigbrowl 6 days ago | 1 comments

DOJ Sends Intimidating Letters to Medical Journals for Supposedly Being Partisan (gizmodo.com)
The U.S. Department of Justice has sent letters to medical journals for supposedly being “partisan,” heavily suggesting that they’re spreading misinformation and are influenced by “funders” rather than medical science.

Politics, Medical Science, Journalism

24 points by rntn 6 days ago | 2 comments

'Immediate red flags': questions raised over 'expert' much quoted in UK press (theguardian.com)
News outlets pull articles featuring ‘psychologist and sex adviser’ Barbara Santini amid doubts over her credentials

Journalism, Media, Fake News, UK, Psychology

103 points by mellosouls 7 days ago | 42 comments

U.S. attorney demands journal explain how it ensures 'viewpoint diversity' (nbcnews.com)
The acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia sent a letter this week to the editor of a scientific journal for chest doctors, implying that the journal was partisan and asking a series of questions about how the publication protects the public from misinformation, whether it included competing viewpoints and whether it was influenced by funders or advertisers.

Journalism, Scientific Publishing, Bias

8 points by voxadam 7 days ago | 0 comments

'Why would he take such a risk?' My censor and me (theguardian.com)
Online dissent is a serious crime in China. So why did a Weibo censor help me publish posts critical of the Communist party?

China, Censorship, Journalism, Politics, Social Media

39 points by calcifer 9 days ago | 14 comments

NZ spy agency probed RNZ journalist's edits to Russia–Ukraine stories (nzherald.co.nz)

Journalism, New Zealand, Russia, Ukraine, Espionage

7 points by suraci 9 days ago | 0 comments

Signalgate chats vanish from CIA chief phone (theregister.com)
CIA Director John Ratcliffe's smartphone has almost no trace left of the infamous Signalgate chat – the one in which he and other top US national security officials discussed a secret upcoming military operation in a group Signal conversation a journalist was inadvertently added to.

Security, Government, Privacy, Journalism

11 points by rntn 9 days ago | 1 comments

The Silencing of Scientific Curiosity (maryannedemasi.com)
As a scientific writer and researcher, I’ve witnessed the decline of medical journals firsthand. Once forums for open debate and intellectual rigour, they’ve morphed into gatekeepers, more concerned with preserving a narrow orthodoxy than pursuing truth.

Science, Journalism, Medical Research, Academia

12 points by XzetaU8 9 days ago | 4 comments

The Fraudulence of "Waste, Fraud and Abuse" (paulkrugman.substack.com)
This was my first Substack post after leaving the New York Times. Reposting now — new post coming in a few hours — because it holds up pretty well, although I underestimated the damage Musk would cause

Politics, Journalism, Social Media, Technology

31 points by dxs 10 days ago | 1 comments

Another Wikipedia Admin Caught Making PR Edits (wikipediocracy.com)
In 2013 we discovered a number of administrators from India who secretly had conflicts of interests and were using Wikipedia for PR. Today, we reveal another.

Wikipedia, Journalism, Public Relations

10 points by mostcallmeyt 12 days ago | 0 comments

What Was Quartz? (zachseward.com)
"It's impossible to kill a media brand," Jim Spanfeller told me on my first day working for him, as we sat in his corner office. He had just bought the business news organization, Quartz, that I had spent the past decade building and, most recently, trying desperately to save from oblivion. So I was inclined to believe him.

Media, Business, Journalism, Technology

142 points by mooreds 18 days ago | 64 comments

Was the Signal Chat Illegal? (factcheck.org)
As fallout from a Trump administration group chat about a military attack in Yemen continues to unfold, some Democrats are saying the inadvertent inclusion of a journalist in the chat goes beyond incompetence — they say it was criminal.

Politics, Law, Journalism, National Security

8 points by atomicbeanie 18 days ago | 0 comments

The 'ghost reporters' writing pro-Russian propaganda in West Africa (aljazeera.com)
Al Jazeera finds that an influence campaign using nonexistent writers is spreading anti-France sentiment across West and Central Africa.

Propaganda, Journalism, Africa, Russia, France

18 points by gnabgib 18 days ago | 0 comments

Why an Australian journalist is teaching meditation in America's toughest jails (abc.net.au)
New York's Rikers Island isn't for the faint of heart.

Journalism, Meditation, Prisons, Australia, United States

5 points by meander_water 19 days ago | 0 comments

Laura Loomer Is a Warning (theatlantic.com)
White House staffers, it seems, had better hope that they stay in Laura Loomer’s good graces.

Politics, Journalism, Social Media

16 points by pmags 19 days ago | 6 comments

A Lifeline for Journalism and Content Creators in a Looming Recession (ycombinator.com)
Imagine a world where the voices of journalists are silenced, where investigative reporting fades into oblivion, and where creators—those who bring joy, knowledge, and truth to our screens—are forced to abandon their craft.

Journalism, Content Creation, Economics, Recession

12 points by RyanJB 19 days ago | 4 comments

How the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg Got Added to the White House Signal Chat (theguardian.com)
Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz included a journalist in the Signal group chat about plans for US strikes in Yemen after he mistakenly saved his number months before under the contact of someone else he intended to add, according to three people briefed on the matter.

National Security, Politics, Journalism, Media

327 points by howard941 20 days ago | 266 comments

How 1000 Volvos Ended Up in North Korea (2017) (npr.org)
Twenty-eight years ago, U.S. journalist Urban Lehner was riding in the back seat of a speeding Volvo 144 sedan. He was on assignment for The Wall Street Journal in North Korea. The road out of Pyongyang was empty.

North Korea, Journalism, Transportation, History, Cold War

15 points by tosh 20 days ago | 2 comments

Social media alt text for journalists, and why it matters (joemurph.com)
In this industry we talk about knowing, about understanding our audience, about how important that is. If we are to take that seriously, that means knowing that disabled people are part of our audience — and that means telling stories in a way that includes those people.

Accessibility, Journalism, Social Media

10 points by freejoe76 21 days ago | 1 comments

What's in that bright red fire retardant? No one will say, so we had it tested (laist.com)
An LAist investigation found toxic heavy metals in samples of fire retardant collected from the Palisades, Eaton and Franklin fires. Here's what that means.

Environmental Issues, Fire Safety, Chemical Analysis, Public Health, Journalism

193 points by littlexsparkee 22 days ago | 127 comments

News Graveyards: How Dangers to War Reporters Endanger the World (watson.brown.edu)
Since the 2000s, national governments and terrorist groups – from Israel, Syria’s Assad regime and the United States to the Islamic State – have found ways to curtail conflict coverage through myriad means, from repressive policies to armed attack.

Journalism, War, Conflict, International Relations, Safety

28 points by Qem 23 days ago | 3 comments

Unmarked Vans. Secret Lists. Public Denunciations. Our Police State Has Arrived (nytimes.com)
“It’s the unmarked cars,” a friend who grew up under an Argentine dictatorship said. He had watched the video of the Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil’s abduction. In the video, which Khalil’s wife recorded, she asks for the names of the men in plainclothes who handcuffed her husband.