The Weekly Wrap: April 25, 2025 From the week
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| Like the economy and crime before it, perceptions of First Amendment freedoms are largely seen through a partisan lens. By Joshua Benton. |
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| Local news is declining and AI is on the rise, but an old-school form of accessibility persists. By Neel Dhanesha. |
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| “We’ve worked in autocratic regimes our whole life. Keeping your head down doesn’t work.” By Hanaa' Tameez. |
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| A study of the 6,500 state legislators in Facebook and Twitter finds the spoils of low-credibility information are not evenly distributed. By Yu-Ru Lin. |
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| Tom Wiley will join the nonprofit as CEO on May 12. He’ll start with a road trip visiting the Trust’s local newsrooms in Maine, Colorado, and Georgia. By Sarah Scire. |
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| Hundreds of grants, fellowships, and awards were terminated because they are no longer “aligned with NSF priorities.” By Sarah Scire. |
Blue checks (Bluesky’s version): What journalists need to know Highlights from elsewhere
Press Gazette / Bron MaherPolitico Europe reports “significant growth” as its team reaches 350 people →Politico Europe is growing “particularly” quickly in the U.K. and celebrating its tenth birthday on the continent.
Bloomberg / Lucas ShawParamount+ will be profitable for the first time this year →Paramount Global co-CEO Chris McCarthy is the mastermind behind the Yellowstone universe and lured Jon Stewart back to The Daily Show.
Search Engine Land / Danny GoodwinYouTube is testing AI Overviews in its search results →“Only a small subset of U.S. YouTube Premium members will see the feature.”
The New Yorker / Kyle ChaykaMark Zuckerberg says social media is over →“The company, Zuckerberg said, has lately been involved in ‘the general idea of entertainment and learning about the world and discovering what’s going on.’ This under-recognized shift away from interpersonal communication has been measured by the company itself. During the defense’s opening statement, Meta displayed a chart showing that the ‘percent of time spent viewing content posted by ‘friends’’ has declined in the past two years, from twenty-two per cent to seventeen per cent on Facebook, and from eleven per cent to seven per cent on Instagram.”
The New York Times / Benjamin MullinCJR faces the kind of crisis it usually covers →“The magazine, founded in 1961, has historically relied on donations and university funding to survive. Both have lately come under strain, with a cash reserve drying up and Columbia’s funding situation complicated by its clash with President Trump.”
The Washington Post / Scott NoverJudge says Voice of America staffers can go back to work →“U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction halting part of President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at dismantling the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the independent agency tasked with running Voice of America. More than 1,200 federal employees and contractors from Voice of America — including about 1,000 journalists — were placed on administrative leave as a result of the order.”
Axios / Sam SabinAnthropic promises/threatens that fully AI “employees” are a year away →“Agents typically focus on a specific, programmable task. In security, that’s meant having autonomous agents respond to phishing alerts and other threat indicators. Virtual employees would take that automation a step further: These Al identities would have their own ‘memories,’ their own roles in the company and even their own corporate accounts and passwords.”
Star Tribune / Brooks JohnsonThe New York Times’ Kathleen Hennessey is the new editor of the Minnesota Star Tribune →“Hennessey’s first day leading the Midwest’s largest newsroom will be May 12. As editor and senior vice president, she’ll help guide a media company determined to grow digital subscriptions and better understand its audience amid a continued decline in print readership.”
The New York Times / Michael M. GrynbaumThe head of 60 Minutes just resigned, saying Trump and his corporate bosses were stripping away its independence →“In an extraordinary declaration, [executive producer Bill] Owens — only the third person to run the program in its 57-year history — told his staff in a memo that ‘over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for ’60 Minutes, right for the audience.'”
New York Times / Matina Stevis-Gridneff and Stuart A. ThompsonAs election nears, Canadians confront news void on Facebook and Instagram →“This type of online content — hyperpartisan and often veering into misinformation — has become a staple in the Facebook and Instagram feeds of Canadians as the country heads toward a crucial federal election on April 28. While such posts have become familiar in political campaigns everywhere, the content is especially prominent in Canada during
its first-in-the-world, long-term news ban on Facebook and Instagram.”
The Washington Post / Drew HarwellThe 40-something single dad shaping liberal media from his laptop →“The liberal Center for American Progress’s database tracking roughly 2,000 of the top political groups and influencers across the internet shows that Torabi’s posts have been seen hundreds of millions more times in the last 30 days than news giants like MSNBC and CNN. Ranked by views, or ‘total impressions,’ he is the only nonconservative voice in the top 10.”
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