Sept. 25, 2024

■ News outlets brace for chaos on election night (and perhaps beyond) (New York Times) / History exposes the peril of political polling (TIME) 

■ ‘Vice President Kamala Harris will join MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle in Pittsburgh for her first one-on-one network interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. …’ (MSNBC) / Who is Stephanie Ruhle, the only TV anchor Kamala Harris wants to face right now? (Daily Beast) / Trump and Harris to appear at separate Univision town halls with Latino voters (Variety) / How 'Frontline' filmmakers scrambled to make 'The Choice' about Harris vs. Trump (Los Angeles Times) 

■ WGA East slams ‘shameful’ CBS Broadcasting layoffs as ‘a blow to…already stretched-thin newsrooms’ (Deadline)

■ The Olivia Nuzzi-RFK Jr. story is still spinning out — and New York mag staffers have questions (Business Insider) 

■ International Fund for Public Interest Media looks to raise $150M (Axios) / Bari Weiss’s media start-up valued at $100mn in funding round (Financial Times) 

■ Empire State Local News Coalition celebrates the launch of three newspapers in communities that previously lost local outlets (Empire State Local News Coalition via Editor and Publisher) 

■ WSJ names Lydia Serota to deputy head of digital reporting (Talking Biz News) / Telemundo taps Joaquin Duro to lead sports division (Hollywood Reporter) 

■ Anna Wolfe won a Pulitzer for a Brett Favre scandal story, now she could face jail (ESPN) / Inside the four-hour U.S. House hearing on welfare reform featuring Brett Favre (Mississippi Today) 

■ Journalists at The Journal Times in Racine, WI, announce union (The NewsGuild - TNG-CWA) 

■ Alex Jones' Infowars set to be auctioned off to help pay victims of Sandy Hook defamation case (USA TODAY) 

■ Mark Zuckerberg: Creators and publishers ‘overestimate the value’ of their work for training AI (The Verge) / SFChronicle publishes Kamala Harris News Assistant, powered by AI and vast archive (SFChronicle)

■ Aubrey Plaza watched 'a lot of Fox News' to prepare for her role in 'Megalopolis' (The Wrap) / 'Stripped For Parts' trailer: Journalists fight back after a shadowy hedge fund ‘plunders’ American newspapers (Deadline) 

■ What would Project 2025 do for (or to) journalism? (Nieman Journalism Lab)

Press freedom

National Press Club awards Mississippi Today with its highest press freedom award

Mississippi Today is currently involved in a legal case to protect privileged documents used in producing a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation and named in an ensuing defamation case brought by the state’s former governor. The case has wide-ranging implications for press freedom in the United States, including journalist-source protections.

■ Thinking the unthinkable about the First Amendment (Columbia Journalism Review) / The First Amendment: Where America Stands 2024 survey results released (Freedom Forum) 

■ N.J. high court will hear reporter's challenge to law shielding public officials' addresses (New Jersey Monitor)

3 tips for covering polls without bias, from The Journalist’s Resource

“Polls and surveys vary in quality, sometimes significantly. Because biased data is bad data, journalists need to be aware of factors that can influence results. A key source of bias is question order — the sequence in which researchers ask questions can elicit different responses, a phenomenon experts refer to as question order effect or question order bias. ...

1. If the results of a poll or survey differ significantly from what others have found, examine its methodology — including its question order.
2. Ask researchers what steps they took to avoid question order problems.
3. Don’t rely on press releases to describe survey and poll results.”

-- Denise-Marie Ordway, managing editor of The Journalist's Resource, excerpt from “5 tips to help journalists spot question order bias in polls, surveys”

Resources

• AI in Action: Empowering production (Sept. 26, 12:30 pm ET)
• Building Bridges: Success stories in closing the gap in public health and care systems (Sept. 27, 1 pm ET)
• Tips for handling the mental load of international watchdog reporting (Global Investigative Journalism Network)

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

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