April 1, 2025

■ Center for Public Integrity is shutting down (Columbia Journalism Review) / ‘Charles Lewis is a hero. The work of CPI will live on and echoes of its impact will be heard for a long time.’ (Charles Sennott) / ‘Its board chair, Wesley J. Lowery, resigned today. CPI is trying to reach a deal with Project On Government Oversight to acquire its archives and keep them available to the public.’ (Sewell Chan) / ICYMI: What went wrong at the Center for Public Integrity? (Richard J. Tofel)

■ ‘The FOIA office at CDC has been completely eliminated in today's cuts, the agency's chief operating officer just told employees on a call’ (Isaac Stanley-Becker) / RFK Jr. purges CDC and FDA's public records teams, despite ‘transparency’ promises (CBS News) 

■ Cutting off NPR and PBS (New York Times) / ‘When NPR faced defunding a decade ago, the board was shown a secret report laying out the potential carnage. It's devastating. Up to 180 member stations would close down and $240 million would vanish from the public radio system.’ (Ben Mullin)

■ Journalists consider briefing room sit-in as Trump clashes with White House press corps (Semafor)

■ 73 members of Congress call on FCC to modernize ownership rules (National Association of Broadcasters) / FCC chair threatens ABC’s broadcast license over Disney DEI practices (The Hill)

■ Trump says TikTok sale deal to come before Saturday deadline (Reuters) / TikTok is shutting down its Instagram competitor TikTok Notes (TechCrunch) 

■ NYT case against OpenAI and Microsoft can advance (Axios)

■ New York state senator wants tax credit for pubmedia journalism jobs (Current) 

■ Vox has a new tagline, a new mission statement, and new perk for members (Vox) / Vox sees boom in paying readers for explainer journalism under Trump 2 (Press Gazette) 

■ Shares of conservative cable channel Newsmax soar another 60% after massive debut (CNBC) 

■ Fuji Media executives enabled culture of harassment, panel finds (Bloomberg)

■ Steve Kornacki exits MSNBC for NBC News, Sports as spin-off nears (Variety) / MSNBC taps Antonia Hylton, Elise Jordan to co-host The Weekend: Primetime (The Wrap) / Betsy Riley to oversee production of NBC's primetime coverage, beginning with Milan Cortina (Associated Press) / NBCUniversal appoints Javier Pons to chief content officer and head of Telemundo Studios (The Wrap) 

■ Chicago Public Media announces new leadership appointments (WBEZ) / iHeartMedia appoints Jennifer Stocker as Nebraska-Iowa area president (RadioInsight) / The Free Press adds more columnists as paid subscriber base expands (Axios) / Bernard joining Vanity Fair to write about tech industry (Talking Biz News) / Fast Company hires Gluck as a senior editor (Talking Biz News)

■ John Thornton, founder of The Texas Tribune, co-founder of the American Journalism Project, and venture capitalist, has died at age 59 (American Journalism Project)

■ ESPN’s Pat McAfee and others amplified a false rumor. A teenager’s life was ‘destroyed’ (The Athletic)

How to choose a narrative style

“When reporters tell me they want to write a narrative, my first thought is what kind? Though there are overlaps, there are journey narratives and destination narratives. In the destination narrative, we don't know the ending and keep reading to find out what happens. In other words, the purpose is the destination. More common in journalism is the journey narrative. We know the ending — the hurricane hit the town, the detective arrested the murderer – but we keep reading to find how and why things happened. The purpose is the journey.”

-- Steve Padilla, Column One editor, Los Angeles Times, advice shared via LinkedIn

Resources

• AP Writing Workshop: What journalism can teach you about effective communication (Four-part webinar series, April 1-10) 
• AI tools for journalists (April 3, 2 pm ET)
• Safeguarding your journalism against legal threats (April 7, 1 pm ET)

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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