The Best of Nieman Lab
20+ most popular Nieman Lab articles, as voted by our community.
We are the Nieman Journalism Lab, part of @niemanfdn at Harvard. We're trying to figure out the future of news.
Trending
These are currently making the rounds on Refind.
This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!) » Nieman Journalism Lab
Shared by 52, including Nieman Foundation, Adam Tinworth ☕️
News fatigue shows us a clear path forward » Nieman Journalism Lab
Shared by 22, including Nieman Foundation
Nieman Lab on Fake News
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales launches Wikitribune, a large-scale attempt to combat fake news
The crowd-funded news platform aims to combat fake news by combining professional journalism with volunteer fact checking: "news by the people and for the people."
Yes, it’s worth arguing with science deniers — and here are some techniques you can use » Nieman…
Plus: A fake news game that seems to inoculate players against fake news.
Nieman Lab on Jeff Bezos
5 things publishers can learn from how Jeff Bezos is running The Washington Post » Nieman Journalism…
“I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that’s not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.”
Newsonomics: The Washington Post’s ambitions for Arc have grown — to a Bezosian scale
It is increasingly the tech stack of choice for major news publishers. But now Arc wants to be the backbone of your digital advertising and subscriptions, too.
Nieman Lab on Journalism
Want to see what one digital future for newspapers looks like? Look at The Guardian, which isn’t…
It's a remarkable turnaround for an institution that's been losing money for what seems like forever, and there are lessons to be had for other digital publishers.
The New York Times has a course to teach its reporters data skills, and now they’ve open-sourced…
You can now VLOOKUP the SUMPRODUCT of the Times' training efforts. It's SORT of a TREND; even AVERAGE journalists can CONVERT data skills TO_DOLLARS.
Nieman Lab on Media
The Atlantic spent two years studying what readers and listeners need. Here’s what they found » Nieman…
Shared by 303, including Florian Jungnikl-Gossy 🤖, Gay_Men_4_Life, Tactical Tech, Daniel Levitt, Nieman Foundation
An incomplete history of Forbes.com as a platform for scams, grift, and bad journalism
That "rapper" accused of billions in crypto fraud was also a Forbes contributor. Is it finally time to move past the contributor network?
Nieman Lab on Newsroom
All the newsroom’s men: How one-third of “The Watergate Three” got written out of journalism history
Some reporters can build a career around their own personal brands. But doing great work requires an infrastructure, including a lot of talented people who don't get bylines. Barry Sussman — the…
54 newsrooms, 9 countries, and 9 core ideas: Here’s what two researchers found in a yearlong quest…
Shared by 144, including Mark Little, Simon Wüthrich, Kevin_Indig, Mark Kaigwa, Javi Cantón @javicanton@mas.to
Nieman Lab on Russia
Nieman Lab on Subscription Business
One subscriber or 48,000 pageviews: Why every journalist should know the “unit economics” of their content »…
Shared by 177, including Mathias Menzl, Tom Connor, Kevan Lee 👋, Oscar MacDonald, AJ Ghergich
Habit formation: How The Wall Street Journal turned user-level data into a strategy to keep subscribers coming…
The Journal went on a quest to identify the user actions — an app download, an article share, repeat reading of a particular reporter’s stories — that can turn a new subscriber into a loyal one. Then…
Nieman Lab on Weather
As climate change intensifies extreme weather, local newspapers see a bright future in meteorology
Shared by 128, including Noah Chestnut, Gay_Men_4_Life, Carrie Brown, Nieman Foundation, Wolfgang Blau
Popular
These are some all-time favorites with Refind users.
Ukraine’s information war is winning hearts and minds in the West
Shared by 226, including Fabio Chiusi, Nieman Foundation, Tactical Tech
«Still, questions remain about the long-term viability of this strategy. Can Ukraine’s strategic use of information continue to offset Russia’s material advantages?»
“Puzzles pair well with reading the news”: Why news outlets are getting into games (again)
Shared by 215, including 👨✈️ AA-Admiral ⚓🚀🌌, Esther Schindler, Nieman Foundation, Jane
How Serena Williams forced sports journalists to cover tennis as more than a game
Early coverage sidestepped conversations about the unique kinds of gendered racism that a Black girl from a working-class California neighborhood might face on the professional tour.
How many bots are on Twitter? The question is tough to answer — and misses the point
Shared by 203, including Cyril Coste #DigitalTransformation, Nieman Foundation, Matt Navarra, Tactical Tech
The enduring allure of conspiracies » Nieman Journalism Lab
Conspiracy theories seem to meet psychological needs and can be almost impossible to eradicate. One remedy: Keep them from taking root in the first place.
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks 5 links from around the web that make you smarter, tailored to your interests. is one of more than 10k sources we monitor.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets 5 links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, add to reading list, save to «Made me smarter», «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
How can I report a problem?
When you’re logged-in, you can flag any link via the «More» (...) menu. You can also report problems via email to hello@refind.com
Who uses Refind?
100k+ smart people start their day with Refind. To learn something new. To get inspired. To move forward. Our apps have a 4.9/5 rating.
Is Refind free?
Yes, it’s free!
How can I sign up?
Head over to our homepage and sign up by email or with your Twitter or Google account.
Nieman Lab on Social Media
Can Mastodon be a reasonable Twitter substitute for journalists?
Adam Davidson: "I think we got lazy as a field, and we let Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and, god help us, Elon Musk and their staff decide all these major journalistic questions."
Post, the latest Twitter alternative, is betting big on micropayments for news
Shared by 130, including your #1 source for absurdist true crime 🐀 🐍👑 🌷, Matt Navarra, Carrie Brown, Nieman Foundation, Chris Messina