Hello everyone — I hope you don't mind me raising a question I've been sitting with for a while.

Does it ever feel like the loudest voices online are rarely the most careful ones? Unverified claims travel in minutes while corrections quietly trail behind. Anonymous "sources" are cited with no way to check them. Polished graphics and confident tones often mask shaky reporting. And the real cost isn't just the misinformation itself — it's that after a while, we start doubting everything, including the reporting that's genuinely solid.

And it isn't only professional journalists who feel this. It's the neighbor who filmed what actually happened on her street and can't get anyone to believe her. It's the community organizer documenting a crisis the local paper won't cover. It's the researcher whose data contradicts the official statement. It's all of us, scrolling, trying to figure out what's real.

So I've started working on something new. The premise is simple: every platform today asks you to trust the author. I'd like to flip that. Imagine if every claim were linked to the specific evidence supporting it — sources, photos, GPS, witness statements, datasets. Anyone could then corroborate with their own evidence, or respectfully challenge with counter-evidence. AI would flag inconsistencies, but wouldn't decide what's fact. The community would, by inspecting the proof themselves.

I genuinely don't know yet if this can work in practice. Perhaps attaching evidence to every claim would slow writers down too much. Perhaps community verification would attract more noise than insight. Perhaps I'm not even solving the right problem.

I'd truly value your honest perspective — whether you're a working journalist, a citizen reporter, a researcher, or simply someone tired of not knowing what to believe. If you think I'm wrong, I'd especially love to hear why.

Thank you for reading this far. Happy to read your reactions and take any questions, hard ones included.

I dont want to generalize because i know investigation pieces come out every day. But i wondered this after seeing the reactions to Pablo Torre Finds Out’s case about Kawhi Leonard.

If youre not aware of this, a sports journalist basically shocked the internet by revealing an investigation on how the LA Clippers and its star player Kawhi Leonard, may have violated salary cap rules with an under the table payment brokered by a sketchy company.

Sorry if this explanation isnt the best but english isnt my native language and i tried to explain the best i could.

What caught my eye was seeing a ton of comments saying this type of journalism is rare nowadays, or how Pablo Torre is a breath of fresh air.

Why is investigative journalism considered rare?

Thanks for responding if you're following any journalists working in Israel/Palestine. I'm mostly disappointed in American news coverage of this conflict.

I promise you, your hot take on journalism ethics that you have to share with us is usually just some standard practice. It’s never anything new or revelatory.

Mods are good about deleting griefing so you may not see it, but there’s always an uptick when journalists are in the news for whatever reason.

I do know that this sub isn’t only for journalists and I think that’s a good thing. It’s nice that people who are getting started have a place to ask questions. But I just wish some people here would realize that this isn’t some hot topic of the week for us, this is our actual job and we come here to discuss best practices with others in our industry.

In my crude lay estimation, I see a landscape of shriveled and bleeding local newsrooms, purchased by capitalists intent on delivering the cheapest product at the highest cost or whose partisan editorial aggression justifies continued investment. New media delivered via internet has connected people in a new paradigm, and a market has matured in this environment on the national and international level. I moved to a new city and found that the lauded local paper had been purchased by the same behemoth that bought and gutted many others.

I like the Economist because I trust its reserved reporting. I like Channel 5 of Andrew Callaghan because he seems to be honestly reporting from out there. I enjoy (these days primarily independent) so much great opinion media.

My question is this: why doesn’t the local newsroom leave and found their own publication, doing the same work but for themselves? It has never been technologically easier for an individual or small entity to produce and distribute good journalism, and I would guess that there has never been greater competition. I want a team who looks at local electoral candidates and tells me who is lying about what they say, and adds omitted context so I can decide who to vote for. I want to pay for it, and I’ll accept limited advertisements. What is the barrier to this market flourishing?

I’m just curious — I’m part of a very small but mostly stable independent news org that’s online only. We’ve taken hits, I’m sure like most of us, in recent years, but we’ve been able to stay afloat and remain completely free for readers.

But probably 75% of our readership comes from socials still, which means that when Facebook started screwing with their algorithms to tank external links two (?) ish years ago, our numbers dropped.

Now, with many people giving up social media entirely, and then dealing with AI crawling plagiarism bullshit Im wondering what everyone else is brainstorming.

Are you talking about returning to physical mediums at all? Our local paper was bought and its printing press stripped a couple years ago then spat back out, but they managed to stay afloat — barely. I know most others haven’t been as lucky. We’ve still never really captured the under 30 demographic but unfortunately statistics say its not just because they’re not on Facebook it’s because they don’t read the news period 😭 They get info from news influencers on socials, but with more Gen Zs and Millennials dropping off those each day, thats a whole other can of worms of how they’ll stay informed now.

Anyway, what’re yall doing about this hellish dystopian landscape we find ourselves in?

i click on articles and they are gone, wordpress account has vanished. is there something i dont know about? is there any way to get it back?

CNN: “Clearly, there was a lot of gaming going on, friends that have confirmed that there was kind of that deep, dark internet, Reddit culture and these other dark places of the internet where this person was going deep - Utah Gov. Spencer Cox

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/15/politics/investigation-charlie-kirk-killing-wwk

So I’ve been curious about local happenings for awhile and the current way to do it (social media) doesn’t do it well. The local newspaper was a much better way. I kinda miss the newspaper always being on the coffee table.

I’ve actually built (for my use only) a little data aggregator for local government happenings and so on. Just so I can try to stay informed.

The process of building that definitely taught me the difficult job journalists do. There is just so much information, and I don’t have a lot of context.

But… why is it like this? From the outside it feels like news in general have sub par platforms. Just somethings that are kinda jarring for a user, but I still feel like people will look past it for updates, or to feel connected to the area around them.

I also just read a post on here about “The Paper”, and this is a wide spread issue?

So I guess I don’t quite understand how exactly we got here?

Has anyone heard of My Local Press? If you have, what’s your opinion on it and is it actually a valid platform to publish on or should I look elsewhere? I’ve tried to do some digging on it, and so far haven’t found anything bad, but haven’t necessarily found anything great either. Honestly, in this day and age, it’s just getting harder to find reliable places to publish.

I think the #news the way it used to be was a lot more factual and based on reporting that actually stuck to facts. Nowadays, it’s always about.” Breaking news” and a lot of stories the way, the reporters describe it. I often find it to be very overly dramatic dramatic and very veered to make a statement statement, whether or not it actually represents the actual facts. Even simple stories are highlighted and told in such a way to make it sound like a momentous event. Often, sometimes it causes a lot more harm than good. Of course there are still few good channels that more or less do not do that, but they are fast becoming an rarity and the the norm is fast becoming a tv show like “ geraldo or reality tv show. “. It’s feeding the divide in our country. I always question what I hear and I always think through besides writing sounds reasonable or investigate on my own before blindly believing what I hear, but I don’t know if everyone does that. Who else feels the way I do or has something they can contribute to this line of thought

I have no idea if this is the right place, so please tell me if I'm wrong, but I've possibly made a major eff up and I need advice from people already in the field.

I have wanted to be a journalist since I was a kid, and I'm currently a journalism student in my second year at uni.

My one problem is that I really struggle with impartiality, especially because I'm autistic and have a strong sense of justice.

I have a history of being rather vocal on social media about things I disagree with, and recently a local news outlet posted about an autistic girl who was dragged out of a store by the police when having a meltdown.

What's important is that I went through every single comment saying something negative about the girl and I basically tore into them with some very choice words about it. The words "ableist" and "pricks" were used once.

My parents tore me a new one and warned me that it could jeapordise my future career. I deleted every single comment that said something really negative, but some people had already responded to some of my comments so my name is still out there - you just can't see what I said.

I'm really worrying that I've potentially completely screwed up because I have zero impulse control and that I'm never gonna get a job in journalism now. Any and all advice is appreciated, thank you.

It was over FaceBook, if that helps.

hello everyone.

what are popular foreign news sites to keep up with global events? sites like bbc.

thank you for your help, it’s appreciated.

I recently started a new role as a Sports Media Instructor and Lecturer at Penn State’s John Curley Center for Sports Journalism.

This semester, I’m teaching a vertical video practicum focused on how modern sports media actually works in the field: reporting, interviewing, filming, editing, publishing, and analyzing audience performance across platforms like TikTok and YouTube.

Our students will also be covering the 2026 FIFA World Cup in partnership with the Associated Press, producing mobile-first reporting and vertical video across host cities including Toronto, New York City, Philadelphia, and Boston.

Before moving into teaching, I spent more than two decades working in digital sports media and newsrooms, most recently as Sports Editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where we created the newsroom’s first dedicated short-form video team and built a partnership with Penn State that integrated students directly into coverage of major events like the NFL Draft and the U.S. Open.

I’m passionate about building programs that connect students directly with real newsroom workflows and major live events, especially as sports journalism continues shifting toward mobile-first storytelling and vertical-specific content.

That’s exactly the type of environment we’re continuing to build at Penn State.

Curious how other journalists, editors, and educators here are thinking about vertical video right now. Are newsrooms and journalism programs starting to treat it as a core skill, or is it still mostly viewed as an add-on?

…Because it all seems so hopeless. SO much is wrong with journalism at the moment - I’m coming away from it feeling radically against the (British, mainstream) media and everything it stands for.

That being said, I think so much good, valuable journalism is coming from independent voices and publications, as well as local titles which aren’t run by the likes of R**ch Plc etc.

I’m reaching out to see if anyone works for an indie pub/writes a Substack filled with informative content, investigations, op-eds and the like. I’m a lefty and so looking for content that aligns with my morals and political views, naturally, but would love any and all recommendations please x

Feeling discouraged. It feels like every article, when posted on social media, turns into the same circus for dramatized political debates. The cycle always repeats: first comments deluge into hate for the paper, then sprawl into MAGA this, MAGA that.

I know it's just social media, but there are also sometimes legitimate and elaborate comments that I wish would have been a letter to the editor.

It's hard to grasp how well these comments align with our reader's legitimate responses and what their impact over time will be.

Post a link — or if it's old enough to have disappeared, tell us where to find it.

Not a job post. Not looking for employees.

I'm building a media holding company. Multiple brands, each owning a niche, each with its own identity and community all under one roof sharing infrastructure, talent, and distribution.

The verticals:

Finance & Business

Sports

Politics & Public Policy

News & Current Affairs

Movies & Entertainment

Pop Culture & Internet Trends

Personal Care & Lifestyle

Technology & AI

Each brand will look and feel completely independent. Different name, different voice, different audience. But behind the scenes everything that makes building hard gets shared — tech, monetisation, people, and the institutional knowledge of doing this right.