☀️ Happy Thursday! The Briefing is your guide to the world of news and information. Sign up here!
In today’s email:
- Featured story: Telegram founder and CEO arrested in France
- New from Pew Research Center: Americans’ experiences with local crime news
- In other news: How journalists competed with influencers to cover the DNC
- Looking ahead: Vice President Kamala Harris to sit down with CNN for first interview since launching presidential campaign
- Chart of the week: The gap between Americans’ interest in and access to local crime news
🔥 Featured story
The messaging and social media app Telegram has been in the news this week after its founder and CEO, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France. Durov was released from custody Wednesday but is facing allegations that Telegram was used for illegal activities such as drug trafficking, child pornography and even terrorism. The arrest has sparked debate about content moderation and whether tech companies are responsible for the content posted on their platforms.
Most Americans (71%) said last year that tech companies should take steps to restrict extremely violent content online, even if it limits freedom of information. Telegram identifies itself as a platform for free speech, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center study of seven alternative social media platforms. At the time, we found that 27% of U.S. adults had heard of Telegram, and 2% said they regularly got news on the app.
Read more key findings about Telegram.
🚨 New from Pew Research Center
Crime has long been a major area of focus in local news coverage. More Americans get news and information about crime than any other local topic except the weather, according to a new Pew Research Center report. Among the key findings:
- Most Americans turn to friends, family and neighbors and to local news outlets for local crime information.
- Views of local crime news quality vary depending on where people are getting it.
- Most U.S. adults say they are interested in several types of local crime coverage, but far fewer say information on each is easy to find.
- Americans who consume local crime news most often are the most likely to say they are concerned about crime in their community affecting them or their family.
This report, the third in a series focused on local news, is part of the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program funded jointly by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Read the full report.
An accompanying analysis explores why Americans might believe crime is on the rise in the U.S., even when government statistics show the opposite.
📌 In other news
- How influencers and journalists competed for access at the DNC
- Sarah Palin granted another trial in defamation suit against The New York Times
- Ex-politician found guilty of murdering an investigative reporter in Nevada
- An analysis of Elon Musk’s political transformation through posts on X
- A journalist is being sued by a top tennis player after covering the athlete’s alleged abuse
- Venezuelan journalists use AI avatars to report news that may put journalists at risk
- How publishers are using puzzles and games to boost engagement
📅 Looking ahead
Vice President Kamala Harris’ first media interview since she became the Democratic Party’s nominee for president will air tonight on CNN. Harris, who will be interviewed alongside running mate Tim Walz, has received criticism for providing little access to journalists during the campaign thus far.
According to a Center survey conducted during the leadup to the 2020 presidential election, two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said they trusted CNN as a source for political and election news, compared with just 23% of Republicans and GOP leaners who said the same. Democrats also were much more likely to personally use CNN as a news source: Roughly half (53%) said that they got political and election news from CNN in the week before the survey, versus 24% of Republicans.
📊 Chart of the week
This week’s chart is from a new Center study on how Americans get local crime news. About three-quarters of U.S. adults or more say they are at least somewhat interested in several types of local crime coverage, but far fewer say it is easy to find news and information about each topic.
For instance, most Americans (85%) say they are at least somewhat interested in what local officials are doing to address crime. But among those who are interested in this element of crime coverage, only 22% say it is at least somewhat easy to find this information, while almost twice as many (41%) say it’s very or somewhat hard to find.
👋 That’s all for this week.
The Briefing is compiled by Pew Research Center staff, including Naomi Forman-Katz, Jacob Liedke, Sarah Naseer, Christopher St. Aubin, Luxuan Wang and Emily Tomasik. It is edited by Katerina Eva Matsa, Michael Lipka and Mark Jurkowitz, and copy edited by Anna Jackson.
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