Richard J. Tofel's profile photo

Richard J. Tofel

New York

now consulting at Gallatin Advisory, teaching at @HarvardChanSPH, author of Second Rough Draft on Substack; former president of ProPublica

Featured in: Favicon substack.com (+1) Favicon medium.com Favicon nytimes.com Favicon wsj.com Favicon cnbc.com Favicon theatlantic.com Favicon digg.com Favicon thehill.com Favicon salon.com Favicon propublica.org

Articles

  • 3 weeks ago | dicktofel.substack.com | Richard J. Tofel

    Welcome to Second Rough Draft, a newsletter about journalism in our time, how it (often its business) is evolving, and the challenges it faces. The Trump tax bill, narrowly passed last month by the House of Representatives, is a breathtaking hodge-podge.

  • 1 month ago | dicktofel.substack.com | Richard J. Tofel

    Welcome to Second Rough Draft, a newsletter about journalism in our time, how it (often its business) is evolving, and the challenges it faces. One of the emerging trends in American journalism is an effort to establish what are being called “multi-local” outlets, digital newsrooms covering different communities but having a common corporate parent and gaining efficiencies through shared services.

  • 1 month ago | dicktofel.substack.com | Richard J. Tofel

    Longtime readers of this column may recall that I raised questions about President Biden’s age and the journalism being done (or mostly not being done) around it starting in the Fall of 2023. I returned to that issue the following winter. So when Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s book, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, was announced in February, I was especially eager to read it.

  • 1 month ago | cjr.org | Richard J. Tofel

    Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. In June 2023, more than seven months before the first Democratic primary of the presidential election, the Daily Mail asked a thousand voters for a word to describe each of the announced candidates.

  • 1 month ago | dicktofel.substack.com | Richard J. Tofel

    Welcome to Second Rough Draft, a newsletter about journalism in our time, how it (often its business) is evolving, and the challenges it faces. I don’t go to as many journalism conferences these days as I did when I had a real job, but three of the four or five I expect to attend this year happen to have been in the last month, and I saw a common emotion at them that I want to address this week. That emotion is fear.

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Richard Tofel
Richard Tofel @dicktofel
20 Jun 25

Happy to join this distinguished crew https://t.co/4dVfpRxeBK

Vital City
Vital City @VitalCityNYC

New at Vital City: a panel of experts including @errollouis, @dicktofel, @JulieSandorf, Thomas Dyja, Bhairavi Desai and others dissect the NYT' decision to outsource its mayoral endorsement to a panel of experts — and then to publish a non-endorsement endorsement.

Richard Tofel
Richard Tofel @dicktofel
19 Jun 25

RT @chrishendel: AI, Search and the Future of News by @dicktofel Once again, distinctiveness is the best defense https://t.co/njpXfIqWvC…

Richard Tofel
Richard Tofel @dicktofel
19 Jun 25

RT @dankennedy_nu: New at Media Nation: How @SahanJournal is using AI to streamline its operations. Plus, @dicktofel says the best way to p…