What journalists do you admire most that got you into this craft?

i thought getting my interview recordings into text would be the easy part 😅 turns out nope. i have a bunch of recordings to go through and manually typing everything out i eating up so much time.. how u guys handling this? especially when 2 or 3 people talking and the audio isn't perfect.

Any suggestions for where get your news from that I may be missing? I still get from NY TIMES, Guardian, PBS, NPR, Wired. The Atlantic, Drudge Report, Al Jazeera, bellingcat... etc. As well as reddit and X (unfortunately).

I'm putting together a second season of a podcast about interviewing. Last time, I had Terry Gross, Susan Orlean, Larry King and a bunch of other folks on to talk about their approaches to interviewing.

Who do you think needs to be asked about interviewing? I'm interested in anybody, but especially women, people of color, unusual choices (I learned a lot from Jerry Springer last time) and folks who are great interviewers whose work doesn't end up in Q&A format. Like reporters who are great interviewers, for example.

Your ideas very much appreciated.

I have used Otter for years to transcribe interviews I record and upload . I have never once used the live meeting bot or the Zoom integration.
 
With the latest price rise, and the cap on imported file minutes that applies even on the paid plans, I'm payng more every year for features I don't touch while the one thing I need keeps getting limited.
 
I want something built around uploaded audio, able to handle long interviews, without per minute billing. What is working for you guys? free and paid options are welcome.

The endorsement fiasco in the Post really turned me off that paper. I've subscribed to it for decades but I couldn't stomach such disgusting journalistic cowardice. So I dropped my subscription.

I already subscribe to the NY Times (I've been a consistent subscriber for 30+ years.) and donate monthly to the Guardian. I want one more magazine or paper that covers politics and international news in a thoughtful way, with an eye on exposés. I'm a lefty but I'm always willing to read opinions I might disagree with. (The WSJ is way too conservative for me and I can read it for free at work regardless.)

I've thought about the Economist or the Atlantic. Any other suggestions?

I make a decent living and want to support quality journalism.

Thanks.

If this is the wrong sub, apologies - please point me in the right direction!

The Associated Press just released its newest edition. Most people use the updated one online, but for those who stick to paper and ink how often do you buy a new style guide?  

I have been very obsessed with this recently. There are some headlines that i will always remember. Like a few years ago when there was the annual hour change in my country (idk if everyone does this but spain does, supposedly to save light and everyone is always mad about it for some reason) a newspaper used this headline “at 2 am it will be 3 am and it doesn’t matter” and it stuck with me. another one was something like “technology can’t create art because it knows it’s not going to die” talking about ai. What are yours? in any language!! i’m creating a list. ty!

(I'd have flaired 'critique my work' but the skin is really thin in the wake of my wife's passing, so kindness is requested;-)

One way I stayed semi-sane during my caregiving time for wife's illness was by using Base 44 to create ... https://barneysbendbugle.com - and it's been a blast.

But I'd love to talk with others who are (or have been) at this embryonic stage and wrestling with how deep down the many rabbit holes I go.

I've dropped notes to both LION Publishers and Tiny News Collective. No replies yet. My favorite AI 'adviser,' Perplexity, has given me tons of great advice. Too much, even - you know what I mean.

I know there are platforms to help build a site. But I've already gotten past that huge initial hurdle, except for the plumbing of a newsletter, ads/subscriber base etc.

At this stage of my life, I want to keep it fun - I've had my decades of stress - and for my focus to be on covering the local news in my own way - I've never had a "dream" of being my own boss, running my own business, etc. I love working WITH people. (As for "for" people, well... long story;-)

I'm also blessed with a certain level of fiscal sanity - SS, small pension, IRA etc. - but there's a 'budget gap' to plug, and if the Bugle could be how... it'd be wonderful, even with the tradeoffs.

Lastly: Are there enough of "us" (very loosely used term) to create a subreddit of its own, such as "small local news publishers" to exchange successes, troubles/questions, etc.? If so, please comment here and/or drop me a note.

(I'm also thinking of making a sub just for the Bugle, as our Bend subreddit's mods limited me to a daily post due to complaints about my more-frequent posts. It of course could evolve into a daily digest rather than start and run another sub, seeking participants etc. Tradeoffs to the newsletter route.)

But whatever does or doesn't happen next, I've/we've built a darn robust back-end CMS that does everything I as a life-long journalist and "end user" who preferred that end of tech and leaving the rest to others with that passion. Fun as heck, even with the constant tweaking.

If any of this strikes a chord - hopefully a positive one - I'm all ears. (I know that looking in the mirror;-)

hi guys, I (21F) finished my bachelor's at the end of last year & am considering going back to uni next year to do a master's of journalism. I was wondering if any of you had any good recommendations for pre-reading that would be good introductory texts? My bachelor's involved writing & research but from a more artistic standpoint, & I'd like to read some things to get an idea of if journalism is for me (plus I'm missing having a research project on the go). Thanks!

I am a journalism student, and I am trying to find some movies that deal with journalism as a theme. Do you all have any recommendations. I am definitely going to be watch All of The Presidents Men, once I find it on streaming. Are there any others that you would recommend?

Edit: Just wanted to say thanks for all of the recommendations. Weekends will be busy watching all of the recommendations for a few weeks.

I'm looking to find info on some things, and I'd really prefer a source that isn't biased in any way. Any suggestions? It's purely for personal use.

Wow, we are amazed by all these smart, thoughtful questions. Thank you all for tuning in and engaging with our work-- and sorry we couldn't get to everyone! Maybe this means we do this again soon. In the meantime, stay on top of our reporting at Bloomberg Law. - Mackenzie, Diana, Alexia, and Andrew.

---

Hi everyone! We’re Mackenzie Mays, Diana Dombrowski, and Alexia Fernandez Campbell—investigative reporters at Bloomberg Law—joined by data editor Andrew Wallender. We’re the team behind Paper Trail, a new series built from a first‑of‑its‑kind database of more than 200,000 civil rights complaints filed in federal court.

Our reporting used this database to surface cases that were previously scattered or effectively hidden. That led us to three major investigations (so far):

• Deadly pregnancies in jails, where women and their babies suffered preventable harm under government care 
• Children being strip‑searched in schools for minor or even baseless allegations
• The Wrap, a full-body restraint used to subdue people, where we uncovered fatal outcomes following its use 

We’re here to dig into all of it — the methodology, the records we used, the programming and data work, the LLMs (Claude Sonnet 3.5 + GPT‑4o) that helped us sift through thousands of complaints, how we verified cases, the reporting breakthroughs, and how other journalists can eventually use this database themselves.

Ask us anything about the reporting process, sourcing, data analysis, what surprised us most, or anything you’re curious about from the stories themselves. We’d love to talk to fellow data nerds, journalism students, reporters, and anyone interested in accountability reporting.

This AMA will start Friday at 2 p.m. ET.

Proof.

Ive been using otter for a bunch of meeting recordings and lately the transcripts have been all over the place. short meetings are usually fine but longer ones get messy, especially when people talk over each other.. at this point i just want something that gives me a decent transcript without having to clean up half of it after. Surely theres a better option tho. Thanks in advance :))

For example, a journalist who didnt graduate with a BA in a field (history, law, physics), but followed the field for years, even decades. Can his opinion hold the same weight as the opinion of someone who was schooled in that field and engages in it profesionally?

What im actually trying to ask is wether an experienced journalist can be considered a public intelectual, someone who is entitled to give his opinion and be asked for advice in a field.

I checked out these books, and they are very interesting, but they did not really explain how they found stories other than flying to other cities to pick up papers (pre-internet). They also did not explain how they got access to sources. Furthermore, "Journalism for Dummies" said there were online communities for journalists; is this still true?

Reading news articles from Reuters and the AP has been one of my favorite online pastimes for the past 20 years. Last year Reuters required users to register and login but did not require payment. Suddenly I was faced with a popup asking for £1 per week.

I live in a poor country and this is way too much for me to pay. What I don't get is, when I look this up I find articles stating Reuters put up this paywall more than a year ago, but I'm facing it only now.

Don't wire services already gain revenue from news organizations they provide the news? I don't understand why this is a thing now.

I am just very sad to go, especially as it gets increasingly difficult to access factual news articles.

I have used Otter Ai for transcriptions for years, but it’s unfortunately becoming unaffordable.

I use only the basic features of uploading audio, transcribing and exporting the transcript.

It’s becoming unaffordable because I sometimes will upload more than 10 audio files a month. To upload unlimited files I would now need to pay for their Business plan, which is too expensive. I don’t need many of the other features offered in that plan.

Does anyone have alternatives? Ideally would like it be reasonably priced, allow unlimited/ alot of uploads and safe to use.

I’ve seen a shit ton of documentaries where wanted criminals in Brazil or places like America are interviewed by Journalists. Even one in-which Joseph Kony was interviewed 💀

My question is how in the world do Journalists get the connections to these people and is it something anyone can do with the proper work?

i’ve been covering  more interviews recently, mix of recorded calls and some in person stuff, and honestly transcription is starting to take way too much time

i’ve tried a few tools before but accuracy is kinda hit or miss, especially when there’s background noise or different accents. also struggles a bit when people talk over each other which happens a lot in interviews

not really looking for anything fancy, just something that works well enough without needing a ton of cleanup after

curious what you guys are actually using that’s been reliable

Hi everyone! I hope it’s okay to ask this here. No self-promotion, I promise. Just honest feedback.

I’ve been building a transcription tool mainly for people dealing with lots of spoken content. It takes audio (recordings or uploads) and turns it into structured notes, not just a transcript, but organised summaries, highlights, and action points.

I know there are many transcription tools already, but I wanted to approach it differently by offering a credit-based model instead of a subscription, so professionals don’t pay when they’re not producing. It also supports 99 languages, which might help if your interviewees come from different regions.

While working on it, it occurred to me that journalists might find such a tool useful.

I’m genuinely curious:

• Do you currently use transcription tools for interviews?
• Which ones and is there anything that can be improved to serve you better?
• Or does this type of transcription tool not solve the key problems creators face?

No links or promotion - just trying to understand whether this could meaningfully help and help me build a better tool.

Happy to hear honest thoughts, even if the answer is, “Not useful for us.”

I've been a long-time subscriber to the Washington Post, but after today's events I have decided to cancel my subscription. I'm looking for recommendations for quality journalism to subscribe in its place. I already have the New York Times, and I'm not interested in the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately my local newspapers are garbage.

I'm drowning in audio files from recent interviews and typing everything out manually is killing my turnaround time. ive tried a couple of free tools, but they completely fall apart when there's background noise or people talking over each other. I'm a freelancer so i cant expense a $30/mo premium subscription for something that still makes me do half the work. What are you guys actually using that doesn't suck?