Journalism

Few private citizens have ever been more central to the state of world affairs than Rupert Murdoch. As the head of a sprawling global media empire, he commanded multiple television networks, a global news service, a major publishing house and a Hollywood movie studio. His newspapers and television networks had been instrumental in amplifying the nativist revolt that was reshaping governments not just in the United States but also across the planet.

There are no doubt many reasons for the rise of partisanship, but our research, using voting data from across the country over a four year period, recently uncovered an important one: the loss of local newspapers. As local newspapers disappear, citizens increasingly rely on national sources of political information, which emphasizes competition and conflict between the parties.

Google is launching the Local Experiments Project, an effort to fund dozens of new local news websites around the country and eventually around the world. The tech giant says it will have no editorial control over the sites, which will be built by partners it selects with local news expertise. The first effort within the new Local Experiments Project will be ‘The Compass Experiment," which is a partnership between Google and McClatchy to launch three new, digital-only local news operations on multiple platforms. Google says the investments will be significant.

The digital era is making its mark on local news. Nearly as many Americans today say they prefer to get their local news online as say they prefer to do so through the television set. The 41% of Americans who say they prefer getting their local news via TV and the 37% who prefer it online far outpace those who prefer a printed newspaper or the radio (13% and 8%, respectively). The degree to which the public accesses each type of provider digitally versus non-digitally varies a great deal.

In the swirl of reporting and speculation about President Donald Trump, nothing has held viewers on the edge of their seats quite like the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and his investigation into possible ties between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian agents. Mueller’s complete report hasn’t yet been released, but on March 24, Attorney General William P.

More than two-thirds of Republicans say they have little confidence in the media, a figure that has risen nearly 20 points since 2014. On the other end of the political spectrum, fewer Democrats express low confidence in the media than at any point in nearly 30 years. The result is a gap of 43 points between members of the two parties, a broad gulf on whether the news media is trustworthy. 

Day in, day out, the @WhiteHouse Twitter account shills for President Donald Trump, coordinating messages that cast his presidency in a positive light. But @WhiteHouse, which has over 18 million followers, doesn’t just share policy accomplishments and favorable statistics: it aims snarky put-downs at Trump’s critics and the news media, and retweets some of the president’s most concerning anti-press attacks. While journalists obsess over the @realDonaldTrump account’s every missive, @WhiteHouse goes mostly under the radar.

Apple announced a new initiative in support of leading nonprofit organizations in the US and Europe that offer nonpartisan, independent media literacy programs. The News Literacy Project (NLP) and Common Sense in the US and Osservatorio Permanente Giovani-Editori in Italy will each receive support from Apple to advance their efforts in empowering young people with the critical thinking skills necessary in today’s digital age.

On March 17, President Donald Trump defended two of Fox's right-wing opinion shows and criticized three of the network's news anchors. Most notably of all, he used Twitter to send a long message to Fox executives, urging them to "stay true to the people that got you there."  "Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country. They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well.

Facebook’s effort to establish a service that provides its users with local news and information is being hindered by a lack of outlets where the company’s technicians can find original reporting. The service, called "Today In" and launched in 2018, is available in some 400 cities in the United States. But the social media giant said it has found that 40% of Americans live in places where there weren’t enough local news stories to support it.