When successful creators reveal coverage gaps

Two major media outlets have produced stories about independent creators in recent days that caught our eye.

The first, in The Wall Street Journal, tells the story of a crossing guard in Vermont who captures insights and beauty through words and illustrations in print and sends them out as part of a mail club. “People want physical things,” the creator Christine Tyler Hill told Lindsay Gellman. The effort is bringing in about $14,000 a month, Gellman writes.

And The New York Times had a Q and A with Sari Botton, the creator of a newsletter called Oldster, which has more than 70,000 subscribers and explores the issues facing people as they age — and not just older folks. “Everyone who’s alive and aging is an oldster,” Botton told Kasia Pilat.

By now we know that successful creators often have proficiency with short video, or authentic voices, or a specific expertise or talent that can engage niche audiences, or all of the above. But stories like these pose the question of what else these creators’ success reveals about the topics, demographics or types of journalism that might be overlooked, as well as the formats and framing that can be successful.

If you’re a news person interested in further exploring the creator world and how you can learn from or work with it, please reach out to us, and we’ll put you in touch with the right expert for brainstorming and resources.

News In Focus
Headlines, resources and events aligned with API’s four areas of focus.

Civic Discourse & Democracy

>> How AP decided to describe US-Israeli strikes on Iran, and Iran’s retaliation, as war (Associated Press)

Can the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, and Iran’s retaliation, be called a war? Yes, the AP says, and put out this explainer to spell out why. “The decision by the Trump administration and Israeli leaders to attack and the subsequent destruction and casualties are enough to call the actions, and Iran’s response, a war,” the wire service wrote.

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Culture & Inclusion

>> Reporters seek comment. What happens next may surprise you. (The New York Times) 

Reporters reach out to company officials or politicians all the time for comment. But what happens after that? Sometimes they get ignored. Other times they try to steer you away from a story, in various ways. The Times’ Mike Abrams speaks with three members of the Times’ tech team on how they operate as they cover an industry that is often hard to penetrate.

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Community Engagement & Trust

>> How the experts figure out what’s real in the age of deepfakes (The Verge)

The process isn’t easy, writes Jess Weatherbed, but the experts who do deepfake detection use several verification tools such as checking digital footprints and cross-referencing locations. Everyday folks can use some of these tools, and need to be vigilant, too. “The average person needs to understand that the current information environment is tilted towards manipulation and deception,” disinformation expert Craig Silverman told Weatherbed.

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Revenue & Resilience

>> Newsonomics: Will national news shrink even faster than local news did? (Nieman Lab)

The erosion of trusted local news took years, but it could go faster on the national level, writes Ken Doctor. He marches through examples of consolidation on the national level — CBS, The Washington Post, NPR, Los Angeles Times and, now, CNN — and says it is “shrinking at a rate that no one is calculating.” He cites as a main cause “the political effort to stifle robust national journalism.”

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What else you need to know

🤝 News/Media Alliance and America’s Newspapers announce new partnership to strengthen news industry (NMA)

🗳️ Kalshi licenses election data from the AP (Axios)

🤖 Ars Technica fires reporter after AI controversy involving fabricated quotes (Futurism)

🤳  Use a quick video to show why you’re trustworthy (Trusting News)

📰 Lenfest Institute helping Ann Arbor library explore Observer’s possible future as nonprofit news (mlive.com)