Nieman Lab daily news digest

The Daily Digest: October 14, 2026 Two creators went to NYU’s business school, then decided to make a show about the news “Our videos are what we wish we could consume more of.” By Hanaa' Tameez. What we’re reading “I’m not going to work for a gambling company and have blood on my hands.” → —Nicole Noren, a decorated ESPN producer, on why she quit the sports network (Columbia Journalism Review / Danny Funt) ⁂ uvm-ccn.github.io A new project tracks college newspaper coverage across the country → The Student News Mapping Project, from the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont, tracks about 1,000 new stories a day from nearly 1,000 college papers across the U.S. and sorts them by topic. More here. Financial Times / Anna Nicolaou CNN launches international streaming push as David [First name] takes control → “The service, which launched in the U.S. a year ago, offers subscribers a live news stream separate from CNN’s traditional television channel, alongside on-demand video and unlimited access to its online journalism. It will cost £4.99 a month in the U.K. and C$7.99 in Canada, with plans to expand to other countries next year.” CNN wouldn’t disclose U.S. subscriber numbers, but “[chairman and CEO Mark Thompson] said the service was performing ahead of internal forecasts.” ⁂ $90,593 The average base reporter’s salary at a nonprofit news outlet, according to an INN survey of 111 of its members. “This cohort of 111 news organizations had a median annual operating budget of $960,000 and a median age of 10 years.” (Institute for Nonprofit News) ⁂ Financial Times / John Paul Rathbone Turkish authorities take over country’s most-watched news channel → “The takeover of Halk TV further narrows the availability of news sources critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government in Turkey, which ranks 163rd out of 180 countries, according to the Reporters Without Borders world press freedom index. Several other major broadcasters, including Habertürk, Bloomberg HT, and Show TV, have been placed under state trusteeship in recent years.” ⁂ “With enough attention and self-motivation, you can teach yourself how to become a decent journalist.” → —Elias Kemp, co-editor-in-chief of The Echo, the independent student newspaper at Colby College. Colby is one of many colleges with a student newspaper but no journalism school. (CollegeJournalism.org / Sophie Levenson) ⁂ STAT / Andrew Joseph Helen Branswell, whose reporting on infectious diseases and public health drew acclaim, dies at 69 → “She always asked the one question nobody else asked, and it just happened to be the most important one,” said Michael Osterholm, the director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Branswell was a 2011 Nieman Global Health Fellow. Associated Press Japanese journalist arrested in Russia’s Sakhalin region on spying charges → “The arrest comes amid a spike in tensions between Russia and Japan following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s August trip to the Kuril Islands, the Moscow-controlled Pacific archipelago that is claimed by both countries.” Military.com / Adam Gramegna Pentagon names one of its own PR officials to run Stars and Stripes → The decision “places a single official inside both the office that shapes the military’s message, and the newsroom charged with covering it independently.” TechCrunch / Amanda Silberling Pretend you’re sitting at Elizabeth Holmes’ desk on this weirdly detailed website → “With over a thousand emails, slides, texts, and documents unveiled during the United States v. Elizabeth Holmes trial, Extend engineer Bo Lau created a website that simulates what it might have been like to be the chief executive of Theranos before everything came crashing down.” The New York Times / Erik Wemple Federal judge again blocks Trump’s ban on CNN, MS Now, and Politico → “Judge Kelly’s ruling doesn’t resolve all of the media companies’ access prob