Writing in the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz, my Northeastern journalism colleague Laurel Leff raises some questions about a recent open letter signed by more than 50 journalism and communication studies professors calling on The New York Times to conduct an independent review of a December story on Hamas’ use of sexual assault as a weapon of war. The story, “Screams Without Words: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7,” came under scrutiny after The Intercept reported that the Times had relied in part on a freelancer who had liked tweets advocating extreme violence in the Gaza St ..read more

Eugene, Oregon. Photo (cc) 2012 by Visitor7. The pixels were barely dry on my post about the Pulitzer Prize awarded to Lookout Santa Cruz when I learned about plans by founder Ken Doctor to launch a second Lookout Local site in Oregon’s Eugene area. The Oregonian reported last month that Lookout Eugene-Springfield will launch in late 2024 or early 2025 with a newsroom of 20, of whom 15 will be journalists. That’s more firepower than Gannett’s Eugene Register-Guard can muster. Indeed, The Oregonian published a pretty depressing report on that paper a year ago that began: The Eugene Register-G ..read more

Ken Doctor (via LinkedIn) Congratulations to Lookout Santa Cruz, a digital local-news startup that on Monday won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting. The site was recognized for its reporting on a January 2023 flood and its aftermath. In the words of the Pulitzer board, Lookout Santa Cruz published “detailed and nimble community-focused coverage, over a holiday weekend, of catastrophic flooding and mudslides that displaced thousands of residents and destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses.” Here’s what Lookout Santa Cruz had to say about winning the award: We reported quick ..read more

Bruce Mohl. Photo (cc) 2011 by the Rappaport Center. CommonWealth Beacon editor Bruce Mohl has announced that he’ll be retiring later in 2024 after 15 years on the job. As Bruce notes, the publication was a four-times-a-year print publication known as CommonWealth magazine when he started and is now a growing digital operation covering state politics and public policy. He writes: “To all of you, I wanted to say thanks. Thanks for reading. Thanks for returning phone calls. Thanks for the news tips. And most of all thanks for getting involved.” CEO Joe Kriesberg adds: Under his leadership,&nbs ..read more

Al Jazeera logo, with its code of ethics in English and Arabic. Photo (cc) 2009 by Joi Ito. BBC News reports that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has followed though on longstanding threats to shut down Al Jazeera, accusing the Arab news service of acting as a propaganda arm for the terrorist group Hamas. As the story notes, though Al Jazeera is now off the air in Israel, it is still available through Facebook and other social media outlets. The Committee to Protect Journalists has denounced the action, quoting a statement from CJP Program Director Carlos Martinez ..read more

Hadas Gold of CNN reports on the dangers that student journalists have faced at the hands of law enforcement as police have been called in to bring pro-Palestinian protests to a close at Columbia University, UCLA and other college campuses. She writes: The confrontations with journalists come as student-run news outlets and traditional news media descend on college campuses where police officers have clashed with and arrested hundreds of demonstrators demanding the universities divest any financial ties with Israel over the war in Gaza. On one campus, assailants reportedly followed and attacke ..read more

Mark Zuckerberg, defender of the algorithm. Photo (cc) 2016 by Alessio Jacona. Imagine that you could log onto Facebook and not be exposed to that infernal, endlessly scrolling News Feed. Imagine, instead, that you could visit your friends and groups as you wished, without any algorithms to determine what you get exposed to. That’s what Facebook was like in the early days — and it’s what it could be like again if a lawsuit filed by longtime internet activist and researcher Ethan Zuckerman succeeds. Zuckerman has developed a tool called Unfollow Everything 2.0, which would allow users to unfo ..read more

Ellen Clegg and I will be speaking at an event for our book, “What Works in Community News,” this Monday, May 6, from 6 to 7:45 p.m. at the West Roxbury branch of the Boston Public Library, 1961 Centre St. We’ll be sponsored by the Friends of the West Roxbury Branch Library, and books will be for sale. Free and open to the public ..read more

As Ron Mitchell and Andre Stark, the new owners of The Bay State Banner, mark a little over a year of publishing New England’s leading newspaper for the Black community, they’re also making a major change in format: the tabloid-sized paper is going broadsheet. As Don Seiffert reports in the Boston Business Journal, the Banner is now being printed by the Times Union, in Albany, New York. Leave a comment | Read comments ..read more

Stephen Buckley There have been rumblings for a while that it was time for news organizations to bring back the position of ombudsperson, also known as the public editor — an in-house journalist who would look at issues in coverage and render a judgment. At one time the job was fairly common at many larger news organizations, including The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Boston Globe. But as the business model for journalism deteriorated, the position was increasingly seen as a luxury. On Tuesday, The Dallas Morning News took a step in the right direction, hiring a public editor ..read more