Journalism

The percentage of women and people of color in TV newsrooms and in TV news management are at the highest levels ever measured by the RTDNA/Hofstra University Newsroom Survey. About a quarter (24.8%) of newsroom staffers are people of color--11.&% African American, 10.8% Hispanic or Latino, 2% Asian and .3% Native American. That is still well below minority representation in the population as a whole, which is about 38%. Highlights:

According to figures provided by media analytics company Newswhip, The Washington Post published 10,580 individual things in May of this year, including wire stories, graphics, and other miscellania. CNN published 9,430, The New York Times 5,984, The Wall Street Journal 4,898, and NPR 2,254. Similar numbers are not available for the pre-smartphone era, but the print edition of the Post on June 26 —a decent analogue for the numbers in the print-driven era—included 135 stories, less than half the daily web total.

The Trump Federal Communications Commission has been working diligently since its first moments in office to help Sinclair expand its political messaging. By rewriting the rules governing local broadcasting, the Trump FCC is allowing Sinclair to turn supposedly “local” television operations into a coordinated national platform for the delivery of messages. Local television stations were licensed to multiple firms to promote a diversity of viewpoints. Using the public airwaves was supposed to deliver diverse editorial content and news coverage.

Facebook announced an expansion of several initiatives to combat the spread of misinformation on the social network used by more than 2 billion people. Facebook acknowledged that fake news reports and doctored content have increasingly become image-based in some countries, making it harder for readers to discern whether a photo or video related to a news event is authentic. The company said it has expanded its fact-checking of traditional links posted on Facebook to photos and videos.

Since the 2016 US presidential election, much attention has been focused on the role of bots in promoting political news on Twitter. But bots can play a role in spreading many other types of news and information as well. This study finds that suspected bots are far more active in sharing links to news sites focusing on nonpolitical content than to sites with a political focus. Some findings:

Based on the photographic evidence, living conditions inside government-run detention centers for immigrant children separated from their parents in south Texas look reasonably orderly and clean. But there’s a major catch: All of the photographs depicting life inside the facilities have been supplied by the government itself. There’s been no independent documentation; federal officials, citing the children’s privacy, have barred journalists from taking photographs or video when they’ve been permitted inside.

Federal prosecutors said they are not seeking to subpoena reporters or Senate aides in the prosecution of James A. Wolfe, a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer charged with lying to the FBI about his contacts with journalists. Attorneys for Wolfe, meanwhile, are asking a federal judge for a gag order including on President Donald Trump to forbid government officials from making remarks they contend could harm Wolfe’s case.

President Donald Trump blamed yet another entity for the growing immigration crisis on the US southern border: the news media. President Trump said the “fake news” reports about children being separated from their families at the border are aiding human traffickers. "They are helping these smugglers and these traffickers like nobody would believe," President Trump said of the media.

The June 19 episode of the New York Times' podcast "The Daily"  focused on the GOP’s controversial new policy of separating migrant families. Reporter Julie Hirschfeld Davis had actually interviewed White House policy adviser Stephen Miller, and she planned to use the audio from the interview on this morning’s show.

In today’s fast-paced and complex information environment, news consumers must make rapid-fire judgments about how to internalize news-related statements – statements that often come in snippets and through pathways that provide little context. A new Pew Research Center survey examines a basic step in that process: whether members of the public can recognize news as factual – something that’s capable of being proved or disproved by objective evidence – or as an opinion that reflects the beliefs and values of whoever expressed it.