Journalists’ impact on racial injustice:With race yet again a front-page issue in the U.S., from Black Lives Matter marches to inequality, what can journalists do to help solve some of these knotty issues? Ashton Lattimore in Poynter explains how journalists can do more than just report on racial injustices. Journalists can also tell stories with impact that can inspire empathy in their readers, to help build community values for fighting injustice.

CNN vs Tucker Carlson: It’s not pretty: It is no secret that Tucker Carlson’s show has been very controversial in regards to many topics, most including politics. In this story written by the Washington Post’s reporter, Erik Wemple, it is explained how CNN stepped in to clear up some research that was showcased in Carlson’s show. Carlson invited Chinese virologist Li-Meng Yan onto his show, where she shared that China had engineered SARS-CoV-2 and unleashed it on the world, something she said she found upon research. Although Yan was invited by Carlson, Carlson himself admitted that he did not have the “grounding to properly vet Yan’s claims,” which resulted on CNN stepping in to debunk Yan’s claims within her research.

Newspapers lose their “iron core”: Joshua Benton for Nieman Lab writes how local papers are giving up on covering local government — in essence, dropping a beat that is essential for democracy. They are losing focus on their “iron core,” a phrase created by Alex S. Jones that represents the “big and unwieldy, reflecting each day’s combined output of all the professional journalism done by news organizations.”

The Next Generation of Media Owners: Lauren Harris writes for CJR about a program trying to connect the owners of profitable local papers who want to sell, with a new generation of local news entrepreneurs. Owners of some of these newspapers, often nearing retirement age, are worried about succession. The NewStart local news ownership initiative is a year-long fellowship program out of West Virginia University, whose goal is to connect interested future-newspaper owners with buyers looking to sell their newspapers.

Newsrooms on Climate Change: While many organizations are focusing heavily on climate change, The Atlantic is taking the focus a step further. Sarah Scire for Nieman Lab tells how The Atlantic is trying to prioritize climate change by having its entire newsroom work on the topic through a newsletter called “Planet.” She writes: “The Atlantic hopes can help readers make decisions about what to pay attention to when it feels like the whole world is on fire.”

El Timpano reporting on Latin Immigrants: Local news outlets are creating different ways on how to connect more with their readers. El Timpano (The Eardrum) is Oakland’s reporting lab on how to engage more deeply Latino immigrants. It’s not enough to provide phone numbers for services — if no one answers the phone. So to try to ease the many frustrations of readers, El Timpano has become a coronavirus rapid response unit and provides: clear, accessible information on everything from testing sites to renter protections, paid sick leave policies, and remote learning…. The vast majority of audience members who write in express gratitude for keeping them informed.”

Who wants to travel with Trump?: Usually traveling with the president — any president — is something journalists fight to do. Not any more. Wary of a White House that flouts safety precautions in the coronavirus epidemic, news organizations are backing away from traveling with President Trump, as three journalists got sick. So far, NYT, WSJ and the WaPo are among the major newsrooms that have stopped traveling with the president and his entourage. It’s gotten so bad, it’s hard to scrounge up outlets to go with him. 

Local news & tracking disease: Local newsrooms have been going through many different stages of skepticism from their readers during the outbreak of COVID-19. This has resulted in the decline of newspapers in cities across the U.S., affecting the essential surveillance role of journalists.But Lauren Harris, explains how the closing of newsrooms can affect the detection of future disease outbreaks as many disease-monitoring resources around the world rely on the data of local journalists. This story also contains databases on the current outbreak and also provides a list of media outlets hiring due to the decline.

Local newsletter for communities: Simon Galperin writes how an aggregation newsletter in a “news desert” can pull news from multiple sources to help a community. The newsletter harvests news from other news sources, which helps residents stay informed. It’s a far cry from locally-sourced news, but does represent maybe a half-step forward.

NYT on ‘Caliphate’: The New York Times stated that they are conducting a “fresh examination,” on their ‘Caliphate’ podcast where they featured a man named Shehroze Chaudhry who called himself Abu Huzayfah under terrorism hoax laws. Chaudhry appeared in several episodes of the podcast where he claimed he was involved in terrorism acts in Syria representing the terrorist group, ISIS. A Times spokeswoman said that they are examining his history within the podcast and the way they have presented him in their series. Times reporter, Katie Robertson explains more in this excellent story.

Fact checks on COVID disinfo: There has been a lot of information regarding Covid-19 during the last couple of months it has been in the U.S, especifically information regarding the virus origin. A draft was conducted by NiemanLab where 9,722 facts checks were gathered from the members of the International Fact Checking Network, organizations using Claim Review and Full Fact’s API to understand how fact checkers responded. Bethan John wrote all about it in this story and even explained the nine categories that were captured to be misleading or false claims made about COVID-19

Covering Trump’s coronavirus: Trump’s medical team seems to be giving information to an audience of one: Trump. With a cheerleader doctor, it’s been harder than ever to get accurate information about what is the president’s condition. It’s also made the media’s role more critical.