Documentary filmmaking, empowering content creators, and research on media, politics and public policy — written as I go.
Jim VandeHei's bet is that AI can automate everything a local market needs except the journalism itself. But what it automates is desk work, and the cost that actually broke local news is one reporter covering an area larger than Rhode Island.
Ask why Fox, CNN and MSNBC cover a story the way they do, and most people reach for ideology. A new study with Valerie Martinez-Ebers and Aida Ramusovic found something narrower, and more useful.
John Johnson was the only person to anchor at WABC, WCBS and WNBC. Getting his story on screen meant working archive by archive, and locking narration last, not first.
The story doesn't fail because the reporting was bad. It airs late, or airs smaller than it should, because the file couldn't move fast enough to matter.
The 1973 toilet paper shortage he only joked about is the story people reach for first. Until a study I co-authored in 2021, nobody had actually tested whether Carson could move opinion.
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