Americans are down on AI. These two caricatures are to blame.; The Washington Post, April 28, 2026

 

Russell Wald

 and 

Sha Sajadieh

, The Washington Post; Americans are down on AI. These two caricatures are to blame.

"America is all-in on artificial intelligence. Americans are not. 

That is clear enough from domestic polling alone. But the 2026 AI Index, released this month by Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI, puts this skepticism into a global context. 

While the United States and China are nearly matched in their aggressive investment and economic stakes, they are worlds apart in public sentiment. About 84 percent of respondents in China say they are excited about AI, versus just 38 percent in the U.S., a gap with profound implications for how each country builds, adopts and governs the technology.

Public opinion does not merely reflect the AI debate. It decides whether democratic societies can govern the technology wisely, adopt it productively and distinguish between real risk and manufactured panic.

The U.S. now stands out with its distrust. Americans reported the lowest trust in their government to regulate AI responsibly of any country surveyed: just 31 percent. The global average was 54 percent. In Singapore, that number was 81 percent."

(Some of) The newest stuff at the Library!; Library of Congress Blogs, April 28, 2026

 Neely Tucker, Library of Congress Blogs; (Some of) The newest stuff at the Library!

"Walk into the Library’s annual showcase of new acquisitions and the question always hits you right in the face: Where to start?

What about with this slim copy of Silver Surfer No. 1, the origin story of Marvel Comics’ “Sentinel of the Spaceways,” from the groovy year of 1968? How about this massive law book that’s more than 500 years old? The “Tombstone Edition” of a Philadelphia newspaper from 1765, which documented and amplified the American Colonies loathing of the Stamp Act and presaged the American Revolution?

There’s never really a wrong place to start. This year’s two-hour show-and-tell, held last week, brought hundreds of staffers and guests to look over intriguing displays of the Library’s recently acquired treasures, items spanning the nation, the globe and centuries of time. Many added to already impressive collections of historic figures...

It was a crowded, noisy, upbeat afternoon of discovery and explanation. Conversations buzzed and overlapped; staff experts and curious viewers leaned over display tables from opposite sides, heads together, talking loudly to be heard, gazing down at maps, manuscripts, records, artifacts and things you couldn’t have known existed."

Wife of LA Clippers owner and billionaire Steve Ballmer steps in to help save the future of NPR with $80M gift; Independent, April 19, 2026

 Graig Graziosi  , Independent; Wife of LA Clippers owner and billionaire Steve Ballmer steps in to help save the future of NPR with $80M gift

"NPR received its largest-ever donation from a living donor this week when billionaire philanthropist Connie Ballmer gave $80 million to the media organization.

Ballmer — a former member of the NPR Foundation's board — told the Wall Street Journal that she poured money into NPR because “we need fact-based journalism, and we need local journalism.”...

"I support NPR because an informed public is the bedrock of our society, and democracy requires strong, independent journalism," Ballmer said in a statement on Wednesday. "My hope is that this commitment provides the stability and the spark NPR needs to innovate boldly and strengthen its national network."...

Her donation comes at an important time for NPR. Last year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending federal funding for public TV and radio organizations."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Saved From Closure by Nonprofit; The New York Times, April 14, 2026

 Katie Robertson, The New York Times; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Saved From Closure by Nonprofit

[Kip Currier: What great news to learn that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will not be closing on May 3, 2026! Instead, one of America's oldest newspapers will continue through the non-profit Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism. 

Newspapers are still essential sources for access to information. They also promote literacy, free expression, and informed citizenries -- crucial elements of functioning democracies.

Sadly, three print newspapers serving Northwestern Pennsylvania have ceased publication in the past two months -- Clarion News (1840), (Franklin's) The News-Herald (1886), and (Oil City's) The Derrick (1871); The Derrick is continuing as an online only publication.]

"The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which had been set to shut down in May, will keep publishing after all. A nonprofit journalism organization has stepped up to acquire the newspaper, which has survived for more than two centuries.

The Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, which runs The Baltimore Banner and is financed by the hotel magnate Stewart W. Bainum Jr., said on Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with the newspaper’s current owner, Block Communications, to buy the assets of The Post-Gazette and run it as a nonprofit. The transaction is expected to take effect on May 4, ensuring there is no gap in publishing.

The deal is a rare spot of good news for the media industry, which has endured waves of metropolitan and local newspaper closures and widening local news deserts around the country for the past two decades. A 2025 report by Northwestern University found that more than 130 papers had shut in the preceding year alone.

The Post-Gazette is one of the oldest newspapers in the United States, tracing its history back to The Pittsburgh Gazette, which was founded in 1786. It has been owned by Block Communications since 1927, and has won multiple Pulitzer Prizes. Its closure would have made Pittsburgh one of the largest metropolitan areas without a major newspaper."

AI Is a Threat to Everything the American People Hold Dear.; The Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2026

 Bernie Sanders , The Wall Street Journal; AI Is a Threat to Everything the American People Hold Dear. It kills jobs, equality, connection, democracy and maybe the human race. Congress must act.

"The American people are deeply apprehensive about the impact that artificial intelligence will have on their lives. A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 55% of Americans think AI will do more harm than good, 70% think AI will lead to fewer jobs, and only 5% think AI development is being led by people and organizations that represent their interests.

In the midst of all of this deep concern about the future of AI, 74% of Americans think the government isn't doing enough to regulate the use of AI."

Exclusive: Trump's DOJ says he's not required to turn over official records; Axios, April 1, 2026

 Alex Isenstadt , Axios; Exclusive: Trump's DOJ says he's not required to turn over official records

[Kip Currier: This is an appalling anti-democratic determination by Trump 2.0's DOJ. The post-Watergate Presidential Records Act of 1978 was enacted through bipartisan legislating, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, to curb government corruption and promote transparency, in the wake of actions by Pres. Richard M. Nixon and his administration. The Act codifies that presidential records are the property of the federal government, not the President and the Executive Branch, and are public records.

Democratically-elected officials must be accountable to their citizenries. The Presidential Records Act represents a vital means, among others, for holding Presidents and their administrations accountable for their actions by ensuring preservation of and access to their records by present and future generations.]

"President Trump's Justice Department has concluded that a federal law requiring presidential records to be turned over to the government is unconstitutional, a senior White House official tells Axios.

Why it matters: The finding is an indication Trump will be reluctant to give all of his official records to the National Archives at the end of his term, as presidents have done for nearly a half-century under the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

The law, passed in the post-Watergate era as a hedge against government corruption, states that every official record regarding a president's decisions or policies belongs to the U.S. government, not the president."

America's Newspapers emphasizes importance of protecting publishers’ intellectual property; Editor & Publisher, March 25, 2026

Staff | America's Newspapers , Editor & Publisher; America's Newspapers emphasizes importance of protecting publishers’ intellectual property

"America’s Newspapers has issued the following statement in response to the comprehensive national legislative framework on artificial intelligence released by the Trump administration...

Specifically, the framework affirms that the creative works and unique identities of American innovators, creators and publishers must be respected in the age of AI. At the same time, it recognizes that artificial intelligence systems require access to information to learn and improve, and proposes a balanced approach that both enables innovation and safeguards the rights of content creators.

“America’s Newspapers strongly supports the administration’s recognition that high-quality journalism and original content are essential to the continued strength of our democracy and economy,” said Matt McMillan, chair of America’s Newspapers and CEO of Press Publications."

Trump Administration, in Apparent Reversal, Tries to Continue Fight Against Law Firms; The New York Times, March 3, 2026

 Michael S. Schmidt,Jonah E. Bromwich and Devlin Barrett, The New York Times; Trump Administration, in Apparent Reversal, Tries to Continue Fight Against Law Firms

The administration told a court on Monday that it was abandoning its defense of executive orders targeting the firms. But on Tuesday, the Justice Department appeared to abruptly change its position.

"The Trump administration indicated on Tuesday that it planned to renew its defense of executive orders that it had leveled against law firms, a sharp reversal a day after indicating that it would drop that fight in court, according to people familiar with the matter.

The situation remained fluid Tuesday morning. It was not immediately clear what legal strategy the administration would ultimately embrace or whether a court would allow the Justice Department to reverse course.

The Justice Department did not immediately comment. The White House declined to comment...

It was not immediately clear on Tuesday what had prompted the about-face. But one question that the administration’s decision a day earlier to abandon its cases raised was whether the deals it made with nine law firms would survive and whether those contracts — which were not made public — were considered unconstitutional given that the district court ruling would be final."

Nine Law Firms Surrendered. Four Law Firms Won.; The New York Times, March 3, 2026

 THE EDITORIAL BOARD, THE NEW YORK TIMES; Nine Law Firms Surrendered. Four Law Firms Won.

"The four law firms that last year chose to fight President Trump’s illegal intimidation campaign have won vindication. Federal judges had already struck down Mr. Trump’s executive orders trying to punish the firms for representing or employing people he considered to be his political enemies. On Monday, the Trump administration abandoned its appeals of those rulings, accepting defeat.

The victories of the four firms — Jenner & Block, Susman Godfrey, Perkins Coie and WilmerHale — are a triumph for justice and democracy. The executive orders that Mr. Trump signed early in his second term were based on the lie that the firms had done something wrong. In fact, their lawyers were merely doing their jobs. They happened to represent Democrats and liberal groups or participated in prior investigations of him. And his would-be punishments of the firms had the potential to damage them badly. The executive orders barred the firms’ lawyers from entering federal buildings and meeting with federal officials, activities that are a necessary part of many legal cases.

The larger goal of the executive orders was chilling. The president attacked a bedrock principle of the law, which is that everybody deserves legal representation. He sought to frighten lawyers from representing people who had the temerity to criticize him. By extension, he sought to frighten any Americans who might criticize him.

Fighting the executive orders took courage, and the four firms deserve praise and gratitude for standing up to the president. They all risked losing clients and even having their firms collapse. Nine other firms folded and struck deals intended to mollify the president. The deals included promises to perform millions of dollars of pro bono work on behalf of Trump-friendly clients.

These nine firms all failed a high-stakes character test. Their leaders faced a choice between submitting to a bully and doing the right thing. The firms are not household names to most Americans, but it is worth listing them here. We hope that clients looking for fearless attorneys and law students deciding where to work will remember which elite firms were unwilling to fight back. Meekness is not a quality most people seek in a lawyer.

The first firm to fold was Paul Weiss, whose chairman at the time, Brad Karp, undertook what Ruth Marcus of The New Yorker described as a “desperate” campaign to reach a deal with Mr. Trump. The other eight firms were A&O Shearman; Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft; Kirkland & Ellis; Latham & Watkins; Milbank; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Skadden Arps; and Willkie Farr & Gallagher...

The four law firms that fought the White House read the situation correctly. They insisted on due process and relied on judges to protect their rights under the Constitution. The American legal system depends on due process. Nobody, not even the president, should be able simply to assert that a person or organization has behaved wrongly and then exact a punishment for that behavior."

I Trusted Jeff Bezos. The Joke’s on Me.; The New York Times, February 14, 2026

  Lydia Polgreen, The New York Times; I Trusted Jeff Bezos. The Joke’s on Me.

"At the end of the century, a journalism scholar published a fascinating comparative study of regional newspapers in the early 1960s and the late 1990s. “Papers of the 1960s seem naïvely trusting of government, shamelessly boosterish, unembarrassedly hokey and obliging,” Carl Sessions Stepp, the researcher, wrote. Newspapers of the ’90s were “better written, better looking, better organized, more responsible, less sensational, less sexist and racist and more informative and public-spirited.”

This sounds, you might think, salutary for the health of democracy. But it may have been precisely this move, away from deferential stenography and toward fearless investigation, that led to declining trust in the news media. Aggressive, probing and accountability-oriented journalism held up a mirror to American society — and many Americans didn’t like what they saw.

“As news grew more negative and more critical, people had more reason to find journalism distasteful,” the media scholar Michael Schudson wrote in a provocative essay on the problem of assessing trust in journalism. “What people do not like about the media is its implicit or explicit criticism of their heroes or their home teams.” No one, famously, likes the bearer of bad news.

Thinking back to that dinner with Bezos, I realized that something similar had happened. He flattered my chosen profession, reassuring me that it was not a cynical undertaking but something much more noble. He told me, in short, what I wanted to hear — and won my trust. In the intervening years, Bezos has apparently decided that his flattery is better aimed at a very different audience: Donald Trump.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Bezos notoriously demanded that The Post spike its planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, at great cost to the paper. After the election, he donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee and joined the row of plutocrats at the inauguration. Amazon paid $40 million for the rights to a documentary about Melania Trump, spent tens of millions more to market the movie and donated to Trump’s absurd White House mega-ballroom project. It’s certainly one way to win trust.

The Post’s loss is others’ gain. Its best-known journalists have streamed out the door, joining thriving news organizations like The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal and The Times. These companies’ success, built on aggressive and independent reporting, makes me wonder whether the hand-wringing about trust is misplaced. In this new gilded age, maybe we should set aside trust and — as Bezos himself once urged — embrace skepticism."

As goes the Washington Post: US democracy takes another hit under Trump; The Guardian, February 8, 2026

 Ed Pilkington and Jeremy Barr, The Guardian; As goes the Washington Post: US democracy takes another hit under Trump

Jeff Bezos’s axing of more than 300 jobs at the storied newspaper has renewed fears about the resilience of America’s democracy to withstand Trump’s attacks

"The email landed in Lizzie Johnson’s in-tray in Ukraine just before 4pm local time. It came at a tough time for the reporter: Russia had been repeatedly striking the country’s power grid, and just days before she had been forced to work out of her car without heat, power or running water, writing in pencil because pen ink freezes too readily.

“Difficult news,” was the subject line. The body text said: “Your position is eliminated as part of today’s organizational changes,” explaining that it was necessary to get rid of her to meet the “evolving needs of our business”.

Johnson’s response may go down in the annals of American media history. “I was just laid off by The Washington Post in the middle of a warzone,” she wrote on X. “I have no words.”

The Washington Post’s Ukraine correspondent may have been rendered speechless over Wednesday’s move by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon billionaire and Post owner, to cut more than 300 newsroom jobs. The bloodletting, which has raised renewed fears about the resilience of America’s democracy to withstand Donald Trump’s attacks, swept away the paper’s entire sports department, much of its culture and local staff and all of its journalists in such arid news zones as Ukraine and the Middle East.

Others, though, managed to find their tongues. “It’s a bad day,” said Don Graham, son of the Post’s legendary Watergate-era owner Katharine Graham, breaking the silence he has maintained since selling the paper to Bezos for $250m in 2013.

“I am crushed,” was the lament of Bob Woodward, one-half of the paper’s double act with Carl Bernstein that exposed Watergate.

“This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations,” said Marty Baron, the Post’s lionised former executive editor. Not one to mince his words, Baron castigated Bezos for his “sickening efforts to curry favor with President Trump”, saying it left an especially “ugly stain” on the paper’s standing...

The cumulative malaise that is descending over US media leaves the country’s democratic institutions vulnerable to attack. It can’t be exclusively blamed for Trump’s excesses.

There are plenty of other willing accomplices and capitulators, including universities like Columbia, corporate law firms and the gung-ho conservative activists who now control the supreme court.

But from Trump’s perspective, a media on its knees surely helps. The results are present everywhere you look.

Trump is unleashed, unchained. He feels so comfortable in his regal skin that he can berate a respected female CNN reporter questioning him on the Epstein files for never smiling.

He can peddle unashamedly in racism, posting a video depicting the first Black president and his first lady as monkeys.

He can send a masked paramilitary into the streets of Minneapolis, resulting in Americans getting killed for exercising their first amendment rights. And when the polls for November’s midterm elections look challenging for him, he can prepare for another blitzkrieg on the very foundations of American democracy: the ballot box.

There’s a paradox in all this. Many of the democratic norms that Trump is obliterating – take for example his destruction of the norm of Department of Justice independence in his persecution of his political opponents – were laid down in the 1970s in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

That’s the same Watergate scandal that was brought into the light by that pair of courageous reporters at a newspaper called the Washington Post."

NBC appears to cut crowd’s booing of JD Vance from Winter Olympics broadcast; The Guardian, February 6, 2026

Tom Lutz , The Guardian; NBC appears to cut crowd’s booing of JD Vance from Winter Olympics broadcast

[Kip Currier: NBC's decision to edit out booing of JD Vance during the Winter Olympics' Opening Ceremony is not surprising, given prior instances of U.S. media editing of similar occurrences, as noted in this Guardian article. But it is nevertheless troubling. NBC is distorting and altering what actually happened, without informing viewers and listeners of its editorial decision-making.

The Opening Ceremony isn't a fictional movie: it's an historical, newsworthy event. As such, alterations to the historical record should not have been made.

Additionally, if a news organization like NBC decides to make changes to news reporting, like removing or suppressing sound for non-technical reasons, it should be transparent about having done so and explain the reasons for such alterations. Trust in news organizations is vital. Actions like sanitization and alterations of news reporting diminish public trust in the accuracy and integrity of news sources and disseminators.

NBCU Academy's website provides information on ethics in journalism. Its first principle "Seek the truth and be truthful in your reporting." is relevant to the editorial decision to edit out the booing of JD Vance:

What are journalism ethics?

Ethics are the guiding values, standards and responsibilities of journalism. At NBCU News Group, the following principles act as the foundation of ethical journalism:

Seek the truth and be truthful in your reporting. Your reporting should be accurate and fair. Ensure that the facts you gathered are verified, sources are attributed and context is provided. Journalists should be bold in seeking and presenting truths to the public, serving as watchdogs over public officials and holding the powerful accountable.

https://nbcuacademy.com/journalism-ethics/

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) also maintains a Code of Ethics. One of its four guiding principles addresses transparency and accountability:

BE ACCOUNTABLE AND TRANSPARENT

Ethical journalism means taking responsibility for one's work and explaining one’s decisions to the public.

Journalists should:

 

Explain ethical choices and processes to audiences. Encourage a civil dialogue with the public about journalistic practices, coverage and news content.

 

Respond quickly to questions about accuracy, clarity and fairness.

 

Acknowledge mistakes and correct them promptly and prominently.

 

Explain corrections and clarifications carefully and clearly.

 

Expose unethical conduct in journalism, including within their organizations.

 

Abide by the same high standards they expect of others.

https://www.spj.org/pdf/spj-code-of-ethics.pdf] 

[Excerpt]

"The US vice-president, JD Vance, was greeted by a chorus of boos when he appeared at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Milan on Friday, although American viewers watching NBC’s coverage would have been unaware of the reception.

As speedskater Erin Jackson led Team USA into the San Siro stadium she was greeted by cheers. But when the TV cameras cut to Vance and his wife, Usha, there were boos, jeers and a smattering of applause from the crowd. The reaction was shown on Canadian broadcaster CBC’s feed, with one commentator saying: “There is the vice-president JD Vance and his wife Usha – oops, those are not … uh … those are a lot of boos for him. Whistling, jeering, some applause.”

The Guardian’s Sean Ingle was also at the ceremony and noted the boos, as did USA Today’s Christine Brennan. However, on the NBC broadcast the boos were not heard or remarked upon when Vance appeared on screen, with the commentary team simply saying “JD Vance”. That didn’t stop footage of the boos being circulated and shared on social media in the US. The White House posted a clip of Vance applauding on NBC’s broadcast without any boos.

Friday was not the first time there have been moves to stop US viewers from witnessing dissent against the Trump administration. At September’s US Open, tournament organizers asked broadcasters not to show the crowd’s reaction to Donald Trump, who attended the men’s final. Part of the message read: “We ask all broadcasters to refrain from showing any disruptions or reactions in response to the president’s attendance in any capacity.”

Earlier on Friday in Milan, hundreds of people protested against the presence of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at this year’s Olympics. The US state department has said that several federal agencies, including ICE, will be at the Games to help protect visiting Americans. The state department said the ICE unit in Italy is separate from those involved in the immigration crackdown in the United States."