Nieman Lab
The Daily Digest: May 27, 2025

NPR sues the Trump administration, a wolf not in sheep’s clothing

“In particular, ‘the First Amendment prohibits government officials from retaliating against individuals for engaging in protected speech.’ Yet retaliation is the Order’s plain purpose.” By Joshua Benton.

How new, platform-driven news outlets are attracting young audiences

“Journalism has been very sterile for awhile, from our perspective.” By Gretel Kahn.
Anthropic’s new AI model didn’t just “blackmail” researchers in tests — it tried to leak information to news outlets
What we’re reading
Twitter / Ben Mullin
The Washington Post has announced a voluntary round of buyouts →

“Targeting video, the copy desk, the opinion section and people who’ve worked at the company for 10 or more years.”

Talking Points Memo / Josh Marshall
The Trump White House and the great quieting →

“When you step back it is remarkable how many big things are happening which we hear little or nothing about because people are being quiet…One consistent pattern I’ve seen in recent months is that this repressive dynamic has much more impact on elites.”

WAN-IFRA / Neha Gupta
How The Atlantic keeps subscribers — without cutting prices →

Reader State is a “proprietary metric tracks how frequently subscribers engage with content…[The Atlantic] defines success as a subscriber returning on several different days within a 30-day period. Those who read on at least four separate days a month tend to develop a weekly habit — a strong predictor of staying subscribed for a year.” (Related.)

Wired / Kate Knibbs
The Freedom of the Press Foundation is threatening to sue if Paramount settles with Trump over that 60 Minutes interview →

“‘Corporations that own news outlets should not be in the business of settling baseless lawsuits that clearly violate the First Amendment,’ Freedom of the Press Foundation director of advocacy Seth Stern said in a statement.”

Semafor / Max Tani
Bloomberg wants its diversity programs to be “inclusive of everybody, as opposed to being specifically built for particular underrepresented groups” →

“The company has also made slight changes in recent months to its diversity policies, like renaming its DEI team the ‘HR Inclusion’ team.”

The New York Times / Maya Salam
What we know about The Paper, the upcoming spinoff of The Office →

“Like ‘The Office,’ ‘The Paper’ is a mockumentary sitcom about an industry in trouble: this time the newspaper business…The same fictional documentary crew that followed the employees of Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, Penn. is now following those who work at The Truth Teller, a fictional newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, whose publisher is trying to revive it with the help of volunteer reporters.”

Semafor / Max Tani
A new book is dividing opinion staffers at The Washington Post →

“According to two Washington Post staffers, staff have complained privately that the book publicly pitted current colleagues against each other and appeared to run afoul of the Post’s editorial guidelines around collegiality, as well as rules that restrict staff from publicly disclosing internal editorial conversations.”

Digiday / Krystal Scanlon
OpenAI’s bold vision for ChatGPT seems poised for a familiar business model: ads →

Advertising is “one of the few high-margin businesses that can absorb the cost of scaling both Al and hardware. With ChatGPT, the GPT Store, and now a possible always-on device, OpenAl is steadily building an ecosystem full of engagement and signal-rich user behavior — exactly what advertisers want. And while OpenAI hasn’t said much about ads, it’s building the kind of ecosystem that rarely stay ad-free for long.”

The Atlantic / Daniel Engber
PBS edited a documentary to remove criticism of Donald Trump →

“In April, two weeks before it aired on PBS stations, a 90-second segment of the film in which [Art] Spiegelman referred to the president’s ‘smug and ugly mug’ was cut from the film at the behest of public-media executives…PBS has been under attack by the Trump administration since January.”

The Guardian / Hugo Lowell
Pete Hegseth clamps down on press inside Pentagon amid row over leaks →

“The changes, announced in a two-page memo issued by Hegseth, effectively boxed credentialed reporters into one corner on one floor of the building…To walk anywhere else in the Pentagon, including past areas occupied by the joint chiefs and the press office for the joint chiefs, reporters will need to request permission and be escorted by an official, the memo said.”

The New York Times / Callie Holtermann
They’re 15. Wait until you read their newspaper. →

“Clunky sentences were tightened. Inelegant adjectives were cut. Powdered doughnut holes were eaten, and mini bags of Cheez-Its, too.”

Politico / Christine Mui and Chase DeFeliciantonio
California’s revamped Google journalism deal raises new questions →

“Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom dialed back state support for a first-in-the-nation newsroom fund in the face of a $12 billion state deficit. Then on Wednesday, Google — the lone corporate backer of the initiative — decided to lower its own tab by a third, from $15 million to $10 million for this year.”

MediaPost / Ray Schultz
Washington Post tech workers have voted to unionize →

The tally was 171-38. “‘Today we win a seat at the table for all tech workers at The Washington Post…Together, our union will secure stronger protections and access to benefits that will help us do our jobs better’…Last September, the Post laid off 54 people at Arc XP.”

The Verge / Mia Sato
Former Meta exec Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would “kill the AI industry in this country overnight” →

“Quite a lot of voices say, ‘You can only train on my content, [if you] first ask.’ And I have to say that strikes me as somewhat implausible because these systems train on vast amounts of data. I just don’t know how you go around, asking everyone first. I just don’t see how that would work.”

Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt
The years-long sale saga of The Telegraph is finally over →

“U.S.-based private investment firm Redbird Capital Partners has bought the Telegraph…Redbird said Abu Dhabi government-backed International Media Investments, which originally had the majority stake under a plan to buy Telegraph Media Group in 2023 but was stymied by the then-Conservative government stopping foreign state investment in newspapers, will take a minority investment.”

The Guardian / Chloe Mac Donnell
Blacklisted fashion photographer Terry Richardson returns to the newsstands →

“Eight years after major fashion brands and publications said they would no longer work with Terry Richardson, following a string of allegations of sexual misconduct made against the renowned fashion photographer, he now appears to be making a comeback.”

The Washington Post / Frances Vinall
Trump’s Federal Trade Commission is investigating the liberal media watchdog Media Matters →

“In a statement, Media Matters President Angelo Carusone said that the Trump administration had ‘been defined by naming right-wing media figures to key posts and abusing the power of the federal government to bully political opponents and silence critics.'”