The Latest: California wildfire coverage; Italian journalist freed; HuffPost layoffs

Jan. 8, 2025

Top stories

■ Watch how local TV is covering the Palisades fire (Deadline) / ‘When the fires are at their worst, southern California's TV stations are at their best …’ (Brian Stelter) / Los Angeles Times live fire coverage is non-paywalled . Support local journalism. (Ryan Faughnder) / CNN team describes fleeing Southern California wildfire as flames surrounded their vehicle (CNN) / ABC TV reporter battles ‘vicious’ winds amid L.A. fires (ABC News) / ‘KTLA 5 News reporter Chip Yost was on live television as homes … in Pasadena went up in flames on Wednesday.’ (KTLA) / NBC News reporter breaks down how journalists safely cover wildfires (NBC News)

■ The good, the bad, and the stupid in Meta’s new content moderation policies (Techdirt) / Meta exempted top advertisers from standard content moderation process (Financial Times) / Does crowdsourced fact-checking work? Experts are skeptical of Meta’s plan (Poynter) / Facebook is censoring 404 Media stories about Facebook's censorship (404 Media)

■ Trump allegedly did a town hall that was ‘rigged’ — in his favor (Vanity Fair) / Trump camp was fed questions for Fox News town hall in advance from person inside network, new book says (CNN)

■ An Italian journalist is freed from detention in Iran and is returning home (Associated Press) / ‘Italian journalist Cecilia Sala got off the plane and hugged her partner , Daniele Raineri, as well as her parents Elisabetta Vernoni and Renato Sala following her release from Tehran's notorious Evin Prison .’ (Iran International)

■ HuffPost to lay off 30 editorial staffers , citing 'growing challenges to our business' (The Wrap) / ‘Memo from editor-in-chief Danielle C. Belton.’ (Ben Mullin)

■ ‘A writer at the Root died a few days ago. Today, the publication emailed staff telling writers they would have to increase the number of stories they publish a day in part to "help us offset the tragic loss of Stephanie." ’ (Max Tani)

■ American Public Media Group shuffles leadership (Current) / X hires former WSJ editor and bureau chief to lead news group (TechCrunch) / TEGNA names Scott Dempsey president and general manager at WLTX in Columbia, South Carolina (TEGNA) / Amy Gardner and Annah Aschbrenner lead The Post’s White House team (Washington Post) / Naftali Bendavid named senior national political correspondent (Washington Post) / Jacksonville Biz Journal names Drew Schrimsher its publisher (Talking Biz News) / Marisa Fariña joins the Times’s Events Team as vice president, event partnerships and operations (New York Times)

■ Why more and more journalists are launching worker-owned outlets (Poynter)

■ ‘During a town hall meeting today, CNN CEO Mark Thompson said that CNN has received an investment of “more than $70 million” from WBD to invest in the company’s digital pivot’ (Ben Mullin)

■ 'The View' expands to weekends with streaming series on ABC News Live (Deadline)

■ LAist, CBS/Los Angeles expand local coverage in partnership (Radio Online)

■ The Athletic is starting a sports business newsletter (Talking Biz News)

■ Daytime Emmys will move to October this year, as News & Documentary Emmys take its spot in June (Variety)

CBS News correspondent on finding sources during natural disaster coverage

“Sourcing begins with engagement and trust. In television news, what people say on camera is only a fraction of the whole story and usually by design. I find the best information comes when the camera stops rolling . If someone is not willing or able to say it on camera, don’t push. But do stay engaged. Exchange phone numbers. Seek guidance. Communicate. And what’s said on background stays on background.”

-- Jonathan Vigliotti , CBS News correspondent. Read the Institute’s interview with Vigliotti on covering natural disasters with empathy .

How The Haitian Times improves workflow with generative AI

“Our biggest success is that we’ve created a workflow for publishing stories and photo essays that cuts the publishing process in half . We created a submission form template to be included for all stories that includes key information like headline, subtitle, excerpt, meta description, etc., and fed that to our custom GPT AI editor with instruction to populate that information for any story draft submitted and to consider key words and phrases we rank for, for SEO purposes. For photo essays, we trained our custom GPT to write culturally sensitive cutlines. Our biggest challenge is getting everyone on the team to factor this in their daily workflow seamlessly. It’s a lot to ask people to change their habits and so, with any process change, you have to bake in the transition time for your team to adopt a new process.”

-- Vania André , editor in chief & chief operating officer at The Haitian Times and assistant professor of journalism, media studies, and public relations at The Lawrence Herbert School of Communication at Hofstra University. See more tips from André on creative ways journalists can use AI .

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This newsletter is written & edited by the National Press Club Journalism Institute staff: Beth Francesco, Holly Butcher Grant, Elliot C. Williams, and Mitch Harle. Send us your questions and suggestions for topics to cover.

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The National Press Club Journalism Institute promotes an engaged global citizenry through an independent and free press, and equips journalists with skills and standards to inform the public in ways that inspire a more representative democracy. As the non-profit affiliate of the National Press Club, the Institute powers journalism in the public interest. The Institute's tax ID number is 52-1750908.