The Blade building in Toledo, Ohio. Photo (cc) 2019 by David Wilson.
I had a chance to take part in a conversation Wednesday on “All Sides with Amy Juravich” on WOSU Radio in Ohio. Our topics included the Block family’s threat to shut down The Blade of Toledo if a buyer isn’t found, devastating cuts at the McClatchy newspaper chain, and the ongoing problem of rural news deserts.
Dee Drummond, a former Blade reporter now at the University of Toledo, and First Amendment lawyer Michael Berry were Juravich’s other guests, though we were not on at the same time.
David Ellison, right, and his billionaire father, Larry Ellison, are now calling the shots at two major news organizations — CBS News and CNN. Photo in the public domain.
My students and I were talking this morning about press freedoms in the U.S. and in other Western democracies. How, I asked, could countries like Britain, Canada, Germany and France ensure such freedoms in the absence of something like the First Amendment?
The answer is that they can’t, at least not as comprehensively as we do. Libel protections and the right to publish information about criminal trials, government secrets and the like are in fact more robust here than they are in other countries. Yet according to the Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders, the U.S. ranks just 64th, behind Botswana but ahead of Panama. Norway is No. 1.
How can this be? A large part of the explanation came Monday, when the last remaining legal opposition to Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery melted away, transforming two behemoths into one super-behemoth. Nearly all of this corrupt (as in the sense of rotting flesh, not whether it’s legal) transaction involves entertainment properties, which is where the money is. But what many of us really care about is that CNN is moving under the same corporate umbrella as CBS News.
Margaret Sullivan. Photo (cc) 2016 by Michaelbenabib.
The “What Works” podcast is back after our summer hiatus. My co-host, Ellen Clegg, was feeling under the weather, so I’m flying solo. But no worries — Ellen still handled editing and production, and she should be back for our next episode.
We’re pleased to have Margaret Sullivan as our guest. Sullivan has spent the last decade or so doing the toughest of jobs: telling the country’s most powerful newsrooms what they’re getting wrong. She was the fifth public editor at The New York Times, from 2012 to 2016. Somebody once called it the worst job in journalism, but she took it anyway. Then she went to The Washington Post as its media columnist, where she covered the 2016 and 2020 elections, the Trump years, and the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. She left the Post in 2022, which, in hindsight, looks like excellent timing.
Sullivan writes a weekly column on media, politics and culture for The Guardian US, and she publishes a fearless newsletter on Substack called American Crisis, where she calls out lapses in how the media are covering Donald Trump’s authoritarianism.
But she also has deep roots in local journalism. She was a summer intern at her hometown paper, The Buffalo News, and worked her way up to become its first woman editor-in-chief. So she knows firsthand what happens to a community when its newspaper is gutted. In 2020, she published a book about the local news crisis called “Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy” and, we’re pleased to say, she blurbed our book, “What Works in Community News.”
I’ve got a Quick Take that Yogi Berra would have called déjà vu all over again. The Block family, which owns The Blade newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, says it will shut down the paper if they can’t find a buyer by the end of 2026. Now where have we heard that before? I also dive into the new impact report from the American Journalism Project, a philanthropic organization that turns out to be one of the biggest funders of nonprofit news in the country. AJP makes the case that nonprofit news as a business model has moved past the experimental stage.
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Donald Trump’s edict banning three news organizations from the White House is illegal, and I have little doubt that the courts will overturn it in due course. The question is: How should the rest of the media respond?
Trump said on Friday that CNN, MS NOW and Politico would no longer be allowed access, writing on Truth Social: “There’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories,” adding: “Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine, but I don’t have to let them into my — into the people’s house.” And sure enough, CNN and MS NOW were turned away at the gate earlier today.
It’s time for a check-in on how digital outlets that rely partly or entirely on artificial intelligence are hollowing out the already-beleaguered news business. What better time than now, while we’re in the midst of a national freakout over AI? (The latest: Karen Weise and Mike Isaac report in The New York Times on concerns within Microsoft and OpenAI that AI scraping amounts to “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions.”)
I’ll begin with what strikes me as the most well-intentioned of the projects that have caught my eye recently: Nanopress, which produces morning newsletters for more than 70 communities and neighborhoods in the Boston area by scraping information from local government, civic groups and news organizations.
Old store in Nelson County, Va., a focus on Nick Mathews’ new book, “Deserted.” Photo (cc) 2010 by Ted Hodges.
Local news is in crisis everywhere, but the challenge is more daunting in rural areas than it is in cities or affluent suburbs.
Consider the Storm Lake Times Pilot, which serves a farming community in Iowa. As co-founder Art Cullen explains in the 2021 documentary “Storm Lake,” the rise of agribusiness wiped out much of the local advertising that had once sustained the paper while the spreading tentacles of social media grabbed another large chunk. When Cullen appeared that same year on the podcast that Ellen Clegg and I host, “What Works: The Future of Local News,” he told us that both he and his brother, John Cullen, were living on Social Security rather than take a salary out of their precarious newspaper revenues.
The Storm Lake Times Pilot is emblematic of a national phenomenon. In 2025, the Local News Initiative at Northwestern’s Medill School found that 213 U.S. counties lacked a local news outlet, and that nearly 80% of those counties were in rural areas.
The digital version was posted Tuesday by CommonWealth, but there’s more to come, including a print version and explainer videos on social. (Note: I’m a member of CommonWealth’s editorial advisory board.)
Voters could find the ballot especially confusing this year because there are nine questions they will be asked to sift through, including public records reform, a switch to all-party primaries and the repeal of marijuana legalization. The project comprises an overview, explainers, data visualizations, pro and con mini-essays and links to past coverage.
Like all of CommonWealth’s journalism, the ballot-questions project is freely available for republication either in print or online. Or local news outlets could just link to it in a prominent place on their homepages.
Government by ballot question isn’t ideal, but legislative inaction has made it an increasingly important outlet for voter frustration. Don’t go into the ballot booth without knowing what you’re voting for.
Click here or on image to watch “Beat the Press” on Contrarian Boston.
“60 Minutes” made its fall debut on Sunday, and so did “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney.” We watched to see what clues we could discern over how executive producer Nick Bilton and CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss would remake the venerable newsmagazine program, which first slipped into view 58 years ago.
I don’t want to speak for my fellow panelists, but I thought it was solid if unspectacular. The first segment, on the secretive rescue of an American pilot from Iran, couldn’t have happened without the active cooperation of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. But since when have the networks not engaged in access journalism? The story, hosted by Norah O’Donnell, was harrowing, even if my friend Danny Schechter would have derided it as “militainment” if he were still with us.
The New York Times has published a comprehensive examination of Donald Trump’s attempts to stifle freedom of speech and of the press. Written by Jim Rutenberg and Maggie Haberman, it’s cast as a “news analysis” so they can offer some judgments. I’m guessing that it will be on the front page of the Sunday print edition.
There’s nothing in the story that hasn’t been previously reported, but it’s all here — from Trump’s bogus lawsuits against ABC and CBS to his Justice Department’s failed attempt to subpoena Times reporters; from an FBI raid on the home of a Washington Post reporter to FCC chair Brendan Carr’s threats against broadcast networks. Rutenberg and Haberman write:
Almost 20 months into Mr. Trump’s second term, his long-running media clashes have grown into a sweeping campaign to control speech in America that stands out for applying so many levers, so fast, all at once.
Although First Amendment protections remain reasonably strong, there are soft spots, and Trump is exploiting them. For instance, the right of journalists to protect confidential sources is extremely limited, especially in the federal courts, and hauling reporters into court sends a message. It’s nearly impossible to win a frivolous libel suit, but Trump has used such suits to extract settlements from media corporations that need favors. Broadcast may be in its death throes, but it remains the one part of the media that is subject to government regulation, thus opening it up to Carr’s depredations.
The Times roundup is a must-read for anyone who cares about the role of a free and independent press in a democratic society. And know this: If Democrats take back one or both branches of Congress this November, Trump’s behavior is only going to become more unhinged and authoritarian.
I’m passing along this email I received from PR and corporate communications at USA Today Co. in response to my post about the newspaper chain’s deal with AI surveillance company Palantir, which has drawn protests from union employees.
Hi Dan –
I saw your piece published yesterday regarding USA TODAY Co.’s relationship with Palantir and wanted to reach out. Was there a reason you chose not to contact us for comment before publication?
In particular, I noticed the line: “From perusing the coverage, I’m not entirely sure exactly what Palantir will be doing for USAT.” Given that uncertainty, I was surprised that no effort was made to seek clarification from the company directly.
This initiative supports our broader strategy to strengthen audience relationships and create greater value across our business. In this work with Palantir, we’re leveraging AI to create a unified intelligence layer to serve our expansive audience better, deepen engagement, and drive growth across subscriptions, advertising, and e-commerce.
Our editorial decisions remain independent and are guided by our longstanding journalistic standards and ethics policies.
Please note, USA TODAY Co. complies with applicable data protection and privacy laws and maintains strong standards for data security and governance. We require this of our vendors and partners as well, reflecting our belief that safeguarding protected personal information is essential to our business and the audiences we serve.
Sharing a quote below addressing the open letter from the Guild/unionized employees which you can attribute to Amy Garrard, Vice President of Labor Relations, USA TODAY Co.:
“We respect that employees have a range of perspectives. Our agreement with Palantir is a business decision focused on strengthening how we connect and better serve audiences, advertisers, and subscribers. Our data remains protected under our existing privacy commitments, contractual safeguards, and applicable laws. As always, our journalism remains fully independent.”
The New York Times has published a 