Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Meet the change Leaders: Jaisal Noor

Jaisal Noor

Jaisal Noor is the Solutions Journalism Network’s democracy cohort manager, helping newsrooms reinvent the way they cover politics, including deepening their election coverage beyond the horse race. A graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, Noor has reported for Democracy Now!, The Atlantic, Bolts Magazine, The Real News Network and Baltimore Beat.

Noor leads the Advancing Democracy Fellowship with the goal of finding ways to support more newsrooms in improving their important role in our democracy. In 2025, SJN plans to move the program away from a fellowship model to focus more on the support newsrooms need to thrive. In doing so it will continue to support reporters and editors advancing democracy through innovative approaches that build civic engagement, equity, trust in journalism and healthy discourse.


The program is run by three journalism support organizations — SJN, Hearken and Trusting News — and also supported by the experts at Good Conflict. The goal is to help newsrooms shift their political reporting away from horse-race narratives focusing on candidates and opinion polls, toward stories that prioritize the key concerns of communities and highlight problem-solving approaches to address them, as well as adding transparency and nuance to their reporting. Participating news organizations gain skills in the Citizens Agenda approach, solutions journalism, Engaged Elections, Good Conflict and building trust with audiences.

I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Noor a couple of weeks ago for the CityBiz “Meet the Change Leaders” series. Watch to learn the full extent of his democracy reform work:

www.youtube.com

Balta is director of solutions journalism and DEI initiatives for The Fulcrum and a board member of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, the parent organization of The Fulcrum. He is publisher of the Latino News Network and a trainer with the Solutions Journalism Network.

Read More

The Importance of Being Media Literate

An image depicting a group of people of varying ages interacting with different forms of media, such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

AI generated

The Importance of Being Media Literate

Information is constantly on our phones, and we receive notifications for almost everything happening in the world, which can be overwhelming to many. Information is given to us in an instant, and more often than you think, we don’t even know what exactly we are reading.

We don’t even know if the information we see is accurate or makes sense. Media literacy goes beyond what we learn in school; it’s a skill that grows as we become more aware and critical of the information we consume.

Keep ReadingShow less
Fox News’ Selective Silence: How Trump’s Worst Moments Vanish From Coverage
Why Fox News’ settlement with Dominion Voting Systems is good news for all media outlets
Getty Images

Fox News’ Selective Silence: How Trump’s Worst Moments Vanish From Coverage

Last week, the ultraconservative news outlet, NewsMax, reached a $73 million settlement with the voting machine company, Dominion, in essence, admitting that they lied in their reporting about the use of their voting machines to “rig” or distort the 2020 presidential election. Not exactly shocking news, since five years later, there is no credible evidence to suggest any malfeasance regarding the 2020 election. To viewers of conservative media, such as Fox News, this might have shaken a fully embraced conspiracy theory. Except it didn’t, because those viewers haven’t seen it.

Many people have a hard time understanding why Trump enjoys so much support, given his outrageous statements and damaging public policy pursuits. Part of the answer is due to Fox News’ apparent censoring of stories that might be deemed negative to Trump. During the past five years, I’ve tracked dozens of examples of news stories that cast Donald Trump in a negative light, including statements by Trump himself, which would make a rational person cringe. Yet, Fox News has methodically censored these stories, only conveying rosy news that draws its top ratings.

Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. Flag / artificial intelligence / technology / congress / ai

The age of AI warrants asking if the means still further the ends—specifically, individual liberty and collective prosperity.

Getty Images, Douglas Rissing

Liberty and the General Welfare in the Age of AI

If the means justify the ends, we’d still be operating under the Articles of Confederation. The Founders understood that the means—the governmental structure itself—must always serve the ends of liberty and prosperity. When the means no longer served those ends, they experimented with yet another design for their government—they did expect it to be the last.

The age of AI warrants asking if the means still further the ends—specifically, individual liberty and collective prosperity. Both of those goals were top of mind for early Americans. They demanded the Bill of Rights to protect the former, and they identified the latter—namely, the general welfare—as the animating purpose for the government. Both of those goals are being challenged by constitutional doctrines that do not align with AI development or even undermine it. A full review of those doctrines could fill a book (and perhaps one day it will). For now, however, I’m just going to raise two.

Keep ReadingShow less
An illustration of AI chat boxes.

An illustration of AI chat boxes.

Getty Images, Andriy Onufriyenko

In Defense of ‘AI Mark’

Earlier this week, a member of the UK Parliament—Mark Sewards—released an AI tool (named “AI Mark”) to assist with constituent inquiries. The public response was rapid and rage-filled. Some people demanded that the member of Parliament (MP) forfeit part of his salary—he's doing less work, right? Others called for his resignation—they didn't vote for AI; they voted for him! Many more simply questioned his thinking—why on earth did he think outsourcing such sensitive tasks to AI would be greeted with applause?

He's not the only elected official under fire for AI use. The Prime Minister of Sweden, Ulf Kristersson, recently admitted to using AI to study various proposals before casting votes. Swedes, like the Brits, have bombarded Kristersson with howls of outrage.

Keep ReadingShow less