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Neal Notes
Dispatches, updates, and field notes from the Prize community — a living record of the work, and of the people who keep faith with it.
Field Notes
Reporting on the reporters - dispatches from festivals, newsrooms, and the field.


How to Make a Spreadsheet Audible
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.

The Neal Conan Prize
Jul 252 min read


The Paperwork of Repression
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 Neal Conan Prize
Jul 252 min read


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

The Neal Conan Prize
Jul 253 min read


Distribution Is Now an Editorial Problem
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.

The Neal Conan Prize
Jul 252 min read


Sulzberger Draws a Line on AI
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.

The Neal Conan Prize
Jun 271 min read


Reporting Your Way Out of the AI Trap
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.

The Neal Conan Prize
Jun 271 min read


The Shrinking Door to the West Bank
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.

The Neal Conan Prize
Jun 271 min read


Perugia 2026 — A Festival of Journalists
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.

Gretel Ehrlich
May 293 min read
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