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How Claude AI helped improve the look and legibility of Media Nation

For quite a few years I used WordPress’ indent feature for blockquotes rather than the actual blockquote command. The reason was that blockquotes in the theme that I use (Twenty Sixteen) were ugly, with type larger than the regular text (the opposite of what you would see in a book or a printed article) and in italics.

But then I noticed that indents didn’t show up at all in posts that went out by email, leading to confusion among my subscribers — that is, my most engaged readers. I decided to find out if I could modify the blockquote feature. WordPress allows you to add custom CSS to your theme, but I know very little about how to use CSS. I could have asked in a WordPress forum, but I tried to see if I could get an answer from AI instead.

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Northeastern has given us all access to the enterprise version of Claude, Anthropic’s AI platform. It’s a mixed blessing, although I’ve found that it’s very good as a search engine — often better than Google, which is now also glopped up by AI. I simply make sure I ask Claude to add the underlying links to its answer so I don’t get taken in by hallucinations. But Claude is also known for being quite good at coding. What I needed was low-level, so I thought maybe it could help.

Indeed it could. I began by asking, “In the Twenty Sixteen WordPress theme, how can I change the CSS so that blockquotes do not appear in italics?” Claude provided me with several options; I chose the simplest one, which was a short bit of custom CSS that I could add to my theme:

blockquote {
     font-style: normal;
}

It worked. A subsequent query enabled me to make the blockquote type smaller. Then, just last week, I noticed that any formatting in the blockquote was stripped out. For instance, a recent memo from Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Henry contained boldface and italicized text, which did not appear when I reproduced her message. The formatting code was there; it just wasn’t visible. Claude produced CSS commands that overrode the theme. You can see the results here, with bold and italic type just as Henry had it in her message.

I make some light use of AI in my other work. When I need to transcribe an audio interview, I use Otter, which is powered by AI. I’ve experimented with using AI to compile summaries from transcripts and even (just for my own use) an actual news story. Very occasionally I’ve used AI to produce illustrations for this blog, which seems to draw more objections than other AI applications, probably because it’s right in people’s faces.

Just the other day, someone complained to me on social media that she was not going to visit a local news outlet I had mentioned because she had encountered an AI-produced illustration there. When I asked why, she replied that it was because AI relies on plagiarism. Oh, I get it. Sometime this year I’m hoping to receive $3,000 as my share of a class-action lawsuit against Anthropic because one of my books, “The Return of the Moguls,” was used to train Claude.

And let’s not overlook the massive amounts of energy that are required to power AI. On a recent New York Times podcast, Ezra Klein and his guests observed that AI is deeply unpopular with the public (sub. req.), even though they’re using it, because all they really know is that it’s going to take away jobs and is driving up electricity costs.

But AI isn’t going anywhere, and if we’re going to use it (and we are, even if we try to avoid it), we need to find ways to do so ethically and responsibly.

Fewer posts, less politics, more news about local news: What’s ahead for Media Nation in 2026

At the Pistachio Café in New Haven, Conn. Photo (cc) 2021 by Dan Kennedy.

I launched Media Nation in 2005. If you count two predecessor blogs that I wrote solo and for The Boston Phoenix dating back to 2001, then Media Nation is among the oldest such projects in the country. It was also part of a dying breed until the past few years, when the rise of newsletters — blogs by another name — gave an enormous boost to independent media reporting and commentary.

Over the years, I’ve made several changes, and I’m planning to reposition Media Nation again in 2026. I had considered a hard reset but decided instead on a change of emphasis, which I can ignore as the news and my interests dictate.

First, I hope to cut way back on politically oriented media commentary. Nothing drives clicks like a post slamming Donald Trump, or slamming some failure in the way the media are covering him. But you can get that anywhere. My goal is write fewer such posts in favor of solutions to the local news crisis (my research specialty, after all); Boston- and New England-oriented media news (note to Boston Globe staffers: Keep those internal memos coming!); and music, books and whatever quirky stuff catches my eye.

Second, I plan to write less frequently. Counting this post, I wrote 306 blog posts in 2025, which adds up to nearly six per week. When I started doing this, I never intended to write so often. A lot of that comes from feeling like I’m obliged to write about every major news development that’s at the intersection of media and politics. As I said, I’m going to cut back on that. I think that two or three posts per week, more or less, is the right number, and I’m going to try not to feel guilty if I write only once. In exchange, I’ll aim to lean into substance and topics that you won’t find elsewhere.

Third, the collapse of social media led me to write a number of multi-item posts so that I could post short updates and observations as I used to do on Twitter. With the rise of Bluesky, I don’t feel like I need to do that. Bluesky is tiny, but that’s OK; you can use it without joining. I’ve embedded my Bluesky feed in the right-hand rail on Media Nation, which is easy to access if you’re reading on a laptop. On a phone, just scroll all the way down. You can also follow my feed without actually registering for Bluesky by clicking here — although if you do register, you can follow other worthwhile feeds as well.

Finally, a note about commenting: I have not changed my policy. You can still post comments here. But if you look at my revised policy, you’ll see that I’m emphasizing Facebook as the place where the deepest, most interesting conversations are taking place. For some reason, people are much more likely to weigh in on Facebook about something I’ve written than they are here. So why scream into the void? I post links to all of my Media Nation content on my public (that is, we don’t need to be “friends”) Facebook feed, which you can access here.

And if you’d like to support my work for just $6 a month, you can do so by visiting my Patreon. You’ll receive a weekly newsletter with exclusive commentary, a roundup of the week’s posts, photography and music. Media Nation itself will remain free.

My new supporters newsletter is now up. Please join today!

An artist’s rendition of Onesimus, the father of modern vaccination.

Why an 18th-century slave and a witch-hunting minister knew more about vaccinations than RFK Jr. Plus photography, a roundup of the week’s posts and a tribute to the late, great Steve Cropper. It’s all in my supporters newsletter. Please sign up today for $6 a month!

Why Duke Ellington wants you to become a paid supporter of Media Nation

Duke Ellington performs for patients at Travis Air Force Base in 1954.

Whether you’re a major news organization like NPR or a solo blogger like me, you know that converting readers into paid supporters is a major challenge. Since starting Media Nation in 2005, I have offered it as a free source of news and commentary, and that’s not going to change. I think folks working in academia have an obligation to freely distribute at least some of their work, and I’d lose a lot of reach if I put up a paywall.

But generating some income from this blog has proved to be an uphill climb. Nearly 2,500 readers have signed up to receive new posts by email for free, and nearly 108,000 visitors have accessed more than 186,000 pages so far in 2025. I don’t disclose my number of paid supporters, but I’ll just say that it lags well behind those numbers.

This afternoon I’ll be sending out my weekly newsletter to paid supporters in which I recommend a terrific book about how Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Count Basie overcame racism and helped create the culture we live in today. There are other goodies as well: a roundup of the week’s posts, photography and a song of the week. For just $6 month, you can become a supporter as well. I hope you’ll consider it. Just click here.

Please support this free source of news and commentary for just $6 a month

I’m sure you’ve noticed that more and more newsletters written by independent journalists are disappearing behind paywalls. It’s hard to know where it’s going to end. Subscription fatigue is real, and I can’t imagine that anyone except the most hardcore news consumer is going to pay for more than one or two newspapers, one or two magazines and a few newsletters. Even that’s a lot.

Since launching Media Nation in 2005, I have kept it free and open to all. That’s not going to change. Several years ago, though, I started a supporters tier so that readers who value my work could pay a small monthly fee in return for a weekly newsletter with exclusive commentary, a roundup of the week’s posts, photography and a song of the week. The newsletter is strictly an extra — a thank you. The real work continues to take place here, where anyone can access it.

I hope you will consider supporting this free source of news and commentary. The cost is $6 a month, and you can sign up by clicking here.

The Emancipator is leaving Boston and following co-founder Ibram X. Kendi to Howard University

Ibram X. Kendi. Photo (cc) 2019 by Tony Turner Photography.

The Emancipator, a digital magazine covering racial justice that was launched with great fanfare four years ago, is leaving Boston.

The project was originally a joint venture of The Boston Globe’s opinion section and the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University. The Globe ended its involvement two years later. The Emancipator will now be based at Howard University, the leading historically Black university.

The move was actually announced back in February, but it will formally take place on Monday, the last day of the academic year. Co-founder Ibram X. Kendi, the well-known antiracism scholar, is leaving BU to take a position at Howard, and The Emancipator is following him to Washington.

Amber Payne, The Emancipator’s publisher, announced on Thursday that she’ll be stepping down, writing:

After June 30, The Emancipator will transition from Boston University to Howard University as part of our co-founder Ibram X. Kendi’s Institute for Advanced Study, which will be dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of racism in the global African Diaspora. The Emancipator will be part of the institute’s larger mission to enhance the general public’s understanding of racism and evidence-based antiracist solutions through academic and publicly accessible research, public lectures, events, workshops, and outreach programs.

Payne was originally hired as co-editor along with Deborah Douglas, who now teaches journalism at Northwestern’s Medill School and is director of Medill’s newly created Midwest Solutions Journalism Hub.

Introducing a Bluesky news feed

I’m trying something new with Media Nation: I’ve embedded my Bluesky feed in the right-hand rail (scroll down), and I’m using it to post shorter items of news and commentary that aren’t worth a full blog post. I should say that this is what I used to do with Twitter before Elon Musk (1) turned the place into a toxic cesspool and (2) changed the API so that embedded feeds no longer worked.

Admittedly this will work best for readers who are using a computer. If you’re reading Media Nation on your phone, you’ll need to scroll to somewhere near the bottom. Of course, you can also follow me on Bluesky.

This might mean that I’ll write fewer multi-item posts, since the short items I was including often were the sorts of things I used to post to Twitter. I also realize it’s not of much help to folks who get new Media Nation posts delivered by email. But as I said, the solution to that is to join Bluesky and follow me there. I promise to try to be substantive.

How local news outlets are covering the antisemitic terror attack in Colorado

The Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colo. Photo (cc) 2009 by Lee Coursey.

The FBI got ahead of the story on Sunday, claiming that an outburst of antisemitic violence in Boulder, Colorado, was a “targeted terror attack,” even as local police were saying it was too soon to tell.

As it turned out, the suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, really did appear to be motivated by his hatred of Jews. But it wasn’t a good sign that Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip FBI was claiming to know what was behind the attack even as Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn was holding a news conference in which he said it was too soon to ascribe any motives.

Boulder Police: “we are not calling it a terror attack yet.” They say they are still identifying motive and would be irresponsible to say motive at this point FBI already claimed it’s a “targeted terror attack.”

— News Breaking LIVE (@newsbreakinglive.bsky.social) 2025-06-01T22:09:30.046Z

Soliman is accused of using what Chief Redfearn called “a makeshift flamethrower” to burn people who were walking in support of the Israeli hostages still being held by the terrorist group Hamas. The walks, a regular event in Boulder, are sponsored by an organization called Run for Their Lives.

Soliman reportedly yelled “Free Palestine!” as he carried out his assault at the Pearl Street Mall. Eight people were injured, ranging in age from 52 to 88. I haven’t seen much in the way of details yet, but The Colorado Sun reports that one of those injured is in critical condition.

When local news goes national, it’s always worthwhile to check in on what is being reported on the ground by journalists who really know the area. Here’s a quick roundup, starting with two news outlets in the city of 106,000 as well as a few statewide media organizations.

• The Daily Camera of Boulder is the city’s paper of record. It is also owned by Alden Global Capital, a cost-slashing hedge fund that has consolidated much of its operations at The Denver Post, the state’s major metro; Denver and Boulder are separated by about 30 miles. The Camera and the Post covered the story with a team of four reporters, three from the Post and one from the Camera. Their story was updated at 6:52 a.m. Colorado time. Notable:

Videos showed people rushing to pour water on one victim while others lay collapsed nearby.

“It’s almost like it was a gun of fire,” said Lynn Segal, who witnessed the attack. “It’s like a line of fire.”

• The Boulder Reporting Lab, a nonprofit newsroom, also reported on the attack. The story says it was updated today, but there is no time stamp on it. Notable:

Henry Bonn-Elchoness, 18, was inside Into the Wind, a toy store at 14th and Pearl, when the attack occurred.

“We walked by the crime scene right when it happened,” he said. “We saw smoke…. I didn’t see any fire, but I know that there was fire. They were clearing out people really fast and no one knew what happened for a while.”

He and his friends left and returned about 30 minutes later.

“We saw three older women being put in ambulances,” Bonn-Elchoness said. “It looked pretty bad. They were all awake and coherent, but it seemed worrisome. It was very scary. It was a shock.”

• The Colorado Sun, a large statewide nonprofit based in Denver, posted an updated story today at 6:47 a.m. local time. Notable:

Aaron Brooks, a Jewish Boulder resident, arrived at the Run for their Lives demonstration late Sunday — just moments after the attack. He found a grisly scene.

“I saw smoke on the ground. I saw blood on the ground. I saw smoke coming from a person — literally a human being burning,” he said.

• Colorado Public Radio, a network of stations that reaches about 80% of the state, posted the most recent version of its coverage at 11:06 p.m. Notable:

Boulder City Councilwoman Tara Winer has participated in past Run For Their Lives events and said several of the victims were friends of hers.

“The Boulder Jewish community is close,” she said Sunday. “We’re not monolithic, but we support each other and we’re close.”

Winer said she’s been cursed at and called a ‘Jewish supremacist’ during city council public comment sessions and that the level of vitriol has increased over the past six months.

On Sunday she planned to go ahead with a preplanned event that night marking the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, on the topic of “How our lives have changed since Oct. 7.”

• Axios started a Boulder newsletter late last year, and its story has a good roundup of what people are saying on social media — including a claim by President Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, that Soliman had “illegally overstayed” a tourist visa.

We are in the midst of a frightening outburst of high-profile terrorist attacks in the U.S. As The New York Times notes, the Colorado incident follows arson on the residence of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and the murder of two Israeli embassy aides in Washington.

Regardless of your position on the war between Israel and Hamas, it is textbook antisemitism to use it as a pretext to assault people who are Jewish. We will see whether FBI Director Kash Patel has any intention of fighting this wave effectively — or if he is content to preen about it on social media.

More: This post has been updated to add Axios Boulder.

Public broadcasting giant WNET doesn’t want you to see this Art Spiegelman cartoon

WNET, the New York public broadcasting giant, doesn’t want you to see this cartoon — at least not on public television.

The New York Times reports (gift link) that 90 seconds have been butchered out of a documentary about the artist Art Spiegelman that is scheduled to be shown as part of the “American Masters” series on PBS. It is, as you can see, wildly unflattering to President Trump, and it comes at a moment when Trump is trying to eliminate all funding for public media.

WNET vice president Stephen Segaller told Times reporter Marc Tracy that the 9-year-old drawing of Trump, with feces and flies on his head and a swastika superimposed over the image, was a “breach of protocol,” adding, “I don’t think we’d have made a different decision if it had been a year earlier.” Yeah, probably not. Last year at this time, Trump was leading President Joe Biden in the polls, so the incentive not to antagonize him was just as strong then as it is now.

Spiegelman was quoted as saying, “It’s tragic and appalling that PBS and WNET are willing to become collaborators with the sinister forces trying to muzzle free speech.”

But at least you can see Spiegelman’s cartoon in the Times. And here.

Targeting comment spam

I’ve been deluged by comment spam the past few days, so I’ve turned on a toggle that requires users to be registered and logged in before they can comment. In case you are prompted to take an extra step to post a comment, that’s the reason.