Neal Notes

The first class of Neal Conan Laureates is taking shape. The names come in September.

Black Box, from Mississippi Today and Deep South Today, turns a public-finance paper trail into narrative audio. Three portable techniques for making document-driven accountability worth listening to.

In Kashmir and Zambia, two journalists sit in custody under routine-looking procedures. How statutes, forms, and time do the work of silencing reporters.

The 2026 Digital News Report names platforms and AI chatbots as journalism's new gatekeepers. Also this issue: a Mississippi podcast makes a $400 million paper trail audible, and two journalists sit in custody under quiet bureaucratic procedure.

When answers arrive without the reporting attached, human judgment about whom and what to trust becomes more valuable—not less.

Social platforms and AI chatbots now stand between reporting and its readers. The 2026 Digital News Report makes the case that distribution is no longer a traffic problem — it is an editorial one.

At WAN-IFRA's congress in Marseille, NYT publisher A.G. Sulzberger condemned AI's “brazen theft of intellectual property” and backed the SPUR coalition.

Global trust in news fell to 37% — the lowest the Reuters Institute has ever recorded — and platforms and chatbots now outrank news sites as the way people find the news.

The June issue gathers five dispatches on trust, AI, press freedom, and investment in local news.

Casey Newton is steering Platformer toward original reporting; Sharon Goldman launched Ground Level AI. Two more journalists betting that the durable moat isn't the platform — it's the work.

A breakthrough year for public funding: ~$74M reaching local newsrooms via new state laws, plus Lenfest's $1.8M in Philadelphia, a $20M California fund, and $500K in Washington fellowships.

France's Alice Froussard was deported by Israel amid a broader lockdown on West Bank press access; CPJ reports a four-year sentence for Tunisian journalist Khaoula Boukrim.

A poll to help shape the first cohort of Neal Conan Laureates intended to honor journalists who have innovated and adapted throughout their careers while maintaining the highest standards of journalistic rigor and ethics.

Inaugural Neal Conan Prize winner Jane Ferguson shares an update on Noosphere: the first deal with Sky News, the launch of Sky News Defence, and a new head of engineering.

Neal Conan Prize Committee member Gretel Ehrlich reports from three days at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia — on the people who still do this work.

The May issue shares updates from the Prize community and reporting from the field.

The April issue introduces Neal Notes and the work of the Prize community.