☀️ Happy Thursday! The Briefing updates you on what’s happened and what’s coming in the news and information world – and what our data tells us about it. Not a subscriber yet? Sign up here!
In today’s email:
- Top story: Elon Musk announces rebrand of Twitter as X
- Under the radar: Investigative news outlet Reveal lays off all but one Black editorial employee
- Looking ahead: AI’s impact on the journalism industry
- Chart of the week: How U.S. journalists view diversity at their outlets
🔥 Top story
Elon Musk is rebranding Twitter as X. Musk has said he hopes to turn the platform into an “everything app” that would include social networking as well as banking and shopping.
Recent Center analyses show that since Musk has taken over the platform, users have changed how often they tweet and many have reported taking breaks from the site. Read more about how Americans use Twitter as it rebrands to X.
🕵️ Under the radar
- Investigative news outlet Reveal lays off all but one Black editorial employee
- How some journalists monitor and use police scanners
- Google Search is making it easier to find information on women’s sports
- How a local Oklahoma newspaper exposed a county sheriff’s office
- A look at some of the world’s last internet cafes
- Hyperlocal news website in Vermont launches disaster response boards
📅 Looking ahead
This week, we look at AI’s impact on journalists and its potential future in the industry. Google announced that it is exploring an AI tool that would assist journalists in writing articles and has begun marketing the tools to various media outlets including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, among others.
Outlets have already started experimenting with AI in article writing and production – and have been subsequently met with criticism. Meanwhile, other newsrooms and media organizations have taken action to try to control how AI models use their content.
📊 Chart of the week
Multiple stories this week address issues of diversity, equity and inclusion, and our chart looks at how U.S. journalists feel about their outlet’s approach to diversity and inclusion. While many journalists say issues of diversity and inclusion are a priority at their organization, roughly a third (32%) say their organization has enough racial and ethnic diversity. You can read more about journalists’ views on diversity in their workplace here.
👋 That’s all for this week.
The Briefing is edited by Katerina Eva Matsa, Michael Lipka and Mark Jurkowitz, copy edited by David Kent and compiled by Pew Research Center staff, including Naomi Forman-Katz, Jacob Liedke, Sarah Naseer, Christopher St. Aubin and Emily Tomasik.
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