Editor's Note: This newsletter will return to your email boxes on July 16.

July 11, 2024

• Axel Springer (POLITICO owner) and KKR in talks to break up media empire (Financial Times)

• Behind the Curtain: Mad media vs. beat-up Biden (Axios) / Milwaukee radio station says it agreed to edit interview with Joe Biden (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) /  Biden’s high-stakes moment: Tonight’s NATO news conference (New York Times) 

• Some smaller news outlets in swing states can't afford election coverage. AP is helping them (Associated Press) 

• TV news salaries beat inflation in 2023 (Radio Television Digital News Association) 

• The strange backstory of how AI content ended up at Sports Illustrated (The Verge) / Why The Atlantic signed a deal with OpenAI (The Verge) / Two 80-something journalists tried ChatGPT. Then, they sued to protect the 'written word' (Associated Press) / Making sense of science: Using large language models to help reporters understand complex research (Nieman Journalism Lab) 

• What will get Americans interested in international news? (Poynter) 

• NATO Summit: TikTok, Instagram influencers help aging group connect with Gen Z (Bloomberg)

• Introducing Ragebait, Zeteo’s biweekly newsletter written by senior media reporter Justin Baragona (Zeteo)

• Veteran media critic Brian Lowry to exit CNN amid layoffs (Variety) / Bill Belichick to join 'Inside the NFL' as analyst (The Wrap) 

• The Copa, Euro, and Wimbledon finals collide on July 14. Here’s how The Athletic is preparing for its 'biggest day ever' (Nieman Journalism Lab) 

• Another historic Mississippi newspaper set to close. See the location of this one (Clarion Ledger) 

• Nashville newspaper ‘The Contributor’ hires and helps secure housing for the unhoused (WKRN)

Press Freedom

• Turkish journalist detained by Saudis over alleged Khashoggi remarks released, source says (Reuters) 

• Mexican journalist Victor Morales found dead on highway (Committee to Protect Journalists) 

• Police in India book journalists after posts on alleged Muslim lynching (Al Jazeera)

The ‘essential ingredients’ for a strong relationship between editor & writer

“To cultivate that trust, you have to be available to people. That means when my reporters are on the road reporting all day, they call me in the evening. I sit there with them on the phone for an hour and they tell me what they’ve got. It can be incredibly time-consuming. But when they’re ready to structure the story, I know what their reporting shows because we’ve already talked about all of it — not in one conversation, but in a series of conversations.”

-- Lynda Robinson, local enterprise and projects editor at The Washington Post, excerpt from Nieman Storyboard Q&A “Effective editing: Mutual trust and knowing the heart of a story”

Join us for a lunch with L.A. Times editor Steve Padilla to learn tips for inspired writing, Aug. 2

Re-energize how you view writing — and the way you do it — with tips from nationally sought-after writing coach Steve Padilla. Padilla is editor of Column One, the L.A. Times’ showcase for storytelling.

Padilla has once again partnered with the National Press Club Journalism Institute to guide you out of your writing ruts with sentence-level, achievable techniques to invigorate your writing.

Padilla will share his advice over lunch at the National Press Club from noon to 1:30 p.m. ET Friday, Aug. 2. Join us for lunch — and lots of learning — as we celebrate writing and ways to sharpen our approach to this important skill.

National Press Club news

• Club's Journalism Awards contest winners to be recognized at awards dinner (Aug. 28, 6 pm ET) 
• Podcast: A senior journalist discusses his new book about covering the president 
• Interested in becoming a Club member? Learn more.

Resources

• Science Writers Roundtable: Journalism in crisis — How did we get here and what comes next? (July 25, 1 pm ET)
• Getting started with a gun violence prevention beat (Reynolds Journalism Institute) / Video: Covering Firearm Violence — How journalists can reframe their reporting (NPCJI/AHCJ)
• Nationally Representative Sample: 5 things you need to know to cover research accurately (The Journalist’s Resource)

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

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