In the past year, Nieman Reports published interviews with reporters, founders of new news outlets, and media experts on the ongoing challenges facing journalism and the various strategies for overcoming them. The interviews highlight the urgent need for transparent and reliable coverage in conflict zones like Gaza, and how reporters can combat the alarming spread of misinformation on social media. Here are five of Nieman Reports’ most thought-provoking conversations in 2024.
As public officials become increasingly evasive or even hostile toward members of the press, journalists must adopt new strategies for covering politics and alleged government malfeasance. Freelance journalist Marigo Farr joins Fernanda Camarena, a Poynter Institute faculty member, and Mel Grau, Poynter’s director of program management, in discussing how to build relationships with sources, share resources across newsrooms, and increase transparency with audiences. Camarena and Grau are authors of the 2024 Poynter report “Shut Out: Strategies for good journalism when sources dismiss the press.”
In the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election, Sally Buzbee, former executive editor of The Associated Press and The Washington Post and a 2024 visiting fellow at the Nieman Foundation, spoke with Nieman Reports’ assistant editor, Megan Cattel, about what goes into covering election night. During her time at the AP, which she left in 2021, Buzbee oversaw the organization’s race-calling, election analysis, and exit poll work. She spoke about recent changes in political polling, the challenge of reporting on close races, and covering elections in a climate of growing distrust.
On Nov. 3, 2023, the BBC World Service and BBC News Arabic launched an emergency radio service in Gaza, 27 days into the current conflict. The broadcast is a BBC Lifeline program — a radio newscast specifically for people in the midst of a humanitarian crisis — providing Gazans vital information on aid deliveries, air drops, medical care, safe shelter, clean water access, and more. Ibrahaim Abdelbaki, editor of the BBC Lifeline Service in Gaza, spoke to Nieman Reports about the Lifeline Service’s operation during the Israel-Hamas war, navigating a conflict zone without safe areas, working around internet blackouts, and gathering firsthand accounts of civilians.
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, up to 65 million people around the world are still struggling with long Covid symptoms. Some have organized advocacy groups and communities to discuss the latest research, treatment options, and pain management. But comprehensive, consistent, and trustworthy information about long Covid can be difficult to track down. To fill this gap, journalists Betsy Ladyzhets and Miles Griffis co-founded The Sick Times, a digital publication launched in November 2023 to “[chronicle] the long Covid crisis.” They sat down with Nieman Reports to discuss The Sick Times and their approach to centering and highlighting patient experiences.
Joan Donovan, an expert on media manipulation and disinformation, discusses the darker side of the internet, including online threats, conspiracy theories, and extremist rhetoric. In this Live @ Lippmann discussion at the Nieman Foundation, she emphasizes the need for critical engagement with social media platforms to understand and address the spread of harmful content.