I was having one of those weeks where it felt like I was falling apart.

My left thumb joint recently developed a deep, mysterious ache that made it almost impossible for me to grip anything. And then Tuesday night, while attempting to separate and repot some snake plants, I sustained a particularly gruesome injury to my right ring finger nail. I will spare you the details. Suffice to say, I would have made some Bond villains proud of my torturing skills.

With both hands injured, typing became somewhat difficult, so I downloaded an AI tool that offers really spectacular voice dictation (Willow, if you’re interested).

I was blown away by a simple tool that was saving me so much time — and frankly, some pain. And it would have taken me a while to consider using this particular tool had I not been injured.

All that to say: This is your nudge from the universe to play with, test and experiment with different AI tools as back-to-school kicks off. Lord knows your students are.

And who knows? Maybe you'll happen upon a tool that is particularly useful to your time and circumstance. 

It couldn't hurt! Unless you are talking about me trying to open a jar of pickles.

Headlines

New York University professor Hilke Schellmann wrote in CJR about two types of AI tools that are widely being used by journalists: Chatbots that create summaries of meetings, and scientific research models. Her rigorous testing of both yielded some surprising results that I think every journalism professor should read.

The Freedom Forum has partnered with Arizona State University’s NEWSWELL to produce the First Amendment Academy, a free online hub of quizzes and courses — perfect for reinforcing your 1A lessons.

The Nutgraph talked to student media personnel, pitching their fellow students on why they should join.

Vince Filak, the professor behind Dynamics of Writing, has a pile of exercises for you this fall.

Here's The Washington Post's list of the 10 best college football towns in America. You may now fight amongst yourselves.

Town and Country has this eye-opening look at students who are side-hustling on OnlyFans. I'm dying for your students to find some of their participating peers on campus and write about this phenomenon.

Here's some inspiration for your sports media students: How a college student launched one of the most influential B2B sports media companies (Simon Owens's Media Newsletter)

Classroom/Newsroom

Check out this piece in The Washington Post that’s essentially about viewpoint discrimination in the coverage of federal troops taking to the streets in D.C. This one would make for a good classroom discussion.

What a fabulous idea from Texas A&M professor Jennifer Mercieca: Hopescrolling. There's even the potential to make an assignment out of this.

Feedback

Welcome new readers, and congrats on kicking off the new semester! And now for the bad news: Next week, this content will be behind a paywall.

Asking for money is one of the toughest parts of producing this newsletter, but here I am!

I believe that if you value this work, you will find it in your hearts to kick me a few bucks. I truly appreciate it, and I promise to make it worth the investment.

Maybe you need more than a stellar newsletter? Book a free 30-minute consultation  or you can email me at [email protected] anytime. 

Now get out there and change some young lives. I’m cheering for you!