News avoidance: endless crises wear people out

Media consumers look in vain for help and solutions amid rampant misinformation As a journalist, I am somewhat ashamed to say that I actively avoid reading the news—some of the news, anyway. I can’t bear to read anything that mentions the name of the previous president or his political party or voter fraud or any […]

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In science journalism, what’s a fact?

Rigorous methods help distinguish pseudoscience from trustworthy information Both scientists and journalists sometimes have the uncomfortable experience of seeing their research and conclusions challenged by startling new information. If you are a true scientist or journalist, you view the new information with an open mind. And then you test it. You attempt to prove it […]

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25 years ago, I discovered the Internet

Before Google and Facebook, high-speed fiber-optic service opened up the world A potentially embarrassing exercise is to read articles you wrote a few months or years ago. Sometimes it’s because you made predictions that were way off base. I was recently browsing through some old columns I wrote when I was publisher of the Baltimore […]

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Is science a match for sensationalism?

Tactics and strategies for engaging the public on climate change, vaccines Scientists have been battling for the hearts and minds of the public for centuries, and not always winning. To avoid being burned at the stake by the Catholic Church for heresy, Galileo had to deny that the earth revolves around the sun, rather than […]

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What Analytics taught me about my community

My newsletter and publishing partners matter more than social media and search I’ve been publishing a blog for some 12 years now and have never been dazzled by the visitor traffic. I consoled myself by saying it was meant to be just a type of business card. People could see what I knew about digital […]

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Italy’s Il Post hits 50,000 subscribers

Digital native differentiates itself with scrupulous precision, transparency Luca Sofri is a personality in Italian media. He has been a print journalist with several major publications and a television and radio commentator. But that was not enough to make his digital news startup financially sustainable. He experimented a lot in the past 12 years, glimpsed […]

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A journalist gains fame as a mystery writer

It’s about finding the time, finding an agent, and relentlessly beating the drum This week’s episode of the newsletter is about how a police reporter at a a metropolitan daily newspaper became a celebrated writer of mystery novels. For some journalists, covering crime or politics is a stepping stone to more creative work. And in […]

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