Kate Szumanski

This is my Tess! ♥️ Thank you, @NASA_TESS, for inspiring #STEM and #STEAM learning for our children who dream of discovering beautiful new worlds! #exoplanets #NASA twitter.com/KateSzumanski/…

Almost all of these news influencers build their brand by commenting on reporting done by real journalists at legacy outlets.

Happy Last Day of Classes, Class of 2026! 🎓 You’ve made it to the finish line—now it’s time to crush those finals and get ready for an unforgettable Commencement! Good luck, Wildcats! 🏆 #NovaGrad2026

Voters have stopped trusting their election officials, their newspapers, and their doctors. They trust a friend's group chat instead. But I still think news coverage misses is when this breakdown first appeared. Not 2024. But COVID. The conspiracy ecosystem grew into the empty space. On Raging Moderates with @JessicaTarlov

an extraordinary piece of writing and reporting

Three months later, this is my last @washingtonpost story — delayed because nearly everyone involved in it was laid off. I am very grateful to newsroom friends who made sure it published anyway, and to brave Roman Mongold and his family for their time. wapo.st/4cNY7Cm

This essay undervalues our agency. Let me explain. After the printing press, pamphlets with shock value spread rumors, dehumanized opponents, and caused years of war. After Europe faced devastation, Enlightenment thinkers and practitioners developed newspapers and journalism, and they institutionalized the value of political tolerance for political dialogue. This helped make the printing press a tool for deliberation as opposed to an obstacle to it. In our social media age, the problem is not the technology itself but the absence of liberal democratic values in the design of platforms. That trolling and sensationalism drown out reasonable exchange suggests a failure of imagination and ethics in how to build communication spheres in a digital age. There is nothing inevitable or predestined about the end of rational discourse. What matters is whether we can build digital forums that are not only more inclusive than traditional ones, but value understanding and dialogue over attention-grabbing clickbait. This is not the first time humanity has had such a challenge, and history will judge us for how well we met it in our time. theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/…

Jessica Winter has been raising her children to detest A.I. Then her daughter’s public middle school began receiving Google Chromebooks, which came pre-installed with an all-ages version of Gemini, a suite of A.I. tools. “When my daughter, who is in sixth grade, begins writing an essay, she gets a prompt: ‘Help me write,’ ” Winter writes. “If she is starting work on a slide-show presentation, the prompt is ‘Help me visualize.’ She shoos away these interruptions, but they persist: ‘Help me edit.’ ‘Beautify this slide.’ ” Proponents of generative A.I. in elementary and middle schools argue that such early exposure will foster digital-media literacy, and prepare them for a future in which most professions are steeped in A.I. But the technology also poses significant cognitive and social-emotional risks to young people. Read Winter’s report about A.I.’s infiltration into schools—and what it could mean for young minds: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/NSWuBG

...and not for the better. "Researchers found that AI pushes users toward a more standardized speaking and writing style, reducing variations in sentence structure and vocabulary."

AI is changing how we write and speak axios.com/2026/05/02/ai-…

NEW: The @chronicle's @emmajanepettit talks about the importance of journalists giving true curiosity to the critique of higher ed, as well as the dangers of media bias on the ed beat: Covering the critique of higher education (The Education Show) alexanderrusso.substack.com/p/covering-hig…

“Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments” examines how a fictional fighter became a real-world symbol, placing the statue within the sweep of art history and Philadelphia’s identity. spotlightpa.org/news/2026/04/p…

Proponents of generative A.I. in elementary and middle schools argue that early exposure to the technology will foster digital-media literacy. But A.I. also poses significant cognitive and social-emotional risks to young people. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/oatrzG

Vintage Wheels 🔥

BREAKING: Leon Botstein, the embattled president of Bard College, has resigned -- one day after an investigation by a firm commissioned by the college revealed his longtime ties to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, the Miami Herald has learned. His resignation letter, which makes no reference to Epstein, was sent out to students this afternoon by the college's PR department. 1/

Look, y'all... this is eight minutes. I know that's far stretching the bounds of social media attention. But you should watch @AmbassadorRice completely dismantle Trump's foreign policy. It's comprehensive. It's precise. It's a wake-up call for those who need it.

We added new terms to AP Stylebook Online last week: * jumpscare * fanbase * lipsync * offside * primetime All of them are styled as one word with no hyphen.

I am among the McClatchy journalists withholding my byline from AI-generated content. I cover sensitive stories that should never be repackaged or altered in any way by artificial intelligence. Whether the story is about sexual abuse or immigrants caged at Alligator Alcatraz, our journalists take great care to ensure that their material is accurate, fair and conveys invaluable aspects of humanity that AI simply can't do.

I was interviewed by Dana Goldstein for the NYTs about how writing instruction is responding to AI. It’s true many are returning to analog techniques to curb AI misuse. Some are also trying to incorporate AI to help students develop discernment about AI use.

Please read our incredible media writer @dbauder's final piece in his illustrious career at the @AP: A photographer has captured some 50 newsrooms to document places and lives endangered by the industry’s collapse apnews.com/article/newspa…

New: McClatchy journalists at newspapers in 4 states are now withholding their bylines from A.I.-generated content as tensions grow over a "content scaling agent" tool that the company rolled out nytimes.com/2026/05/01/bus…