Rhonda Prast

Managing Editor @CascadiaDaily| Past: AME/Investigations & Projects @reviewjournal | also @IdahoStatesman, @kcstar and @mujschool | Work hard and be nice

[Rhonda Prast @prast24]

It’s been a year since we lost my friend and colleague @JGermanRJ - remember him for his impact and investigations, not his slaying. You can hear his distinctive voice in this podcast, and admire his deep #lasvegas knowledge ❤️ We miss you
https://t.co/CNB7zOqaCn

[Ken Bensinger @kenbensinger]

Paid influence is increasingly rampant. I found out that:

Tom Steyer paid TikTok star Carlos Espina $100K to endorse his campaign

Jessica Reed Kraus was paid to attack an NYT reporter on X

Dom Lucre was paid as much as $15K to support Trump's BBB

https://t.co/0aszVSGCv1

[Paige Cornwell @pgcornwell]

How did a close-knit Washington beach community pull off the Herculean effort of moving a 40-ton fin whale carcass? My story about Earth's second-largest animal and how the tiny Samish Island stepped up when NOAA couldn't

https://t.co/HQJcU9Xwig

[Investigative Reporters & Editors @IRE_NICAR]

Congratulations to the winners and finalists of the 2025 IRE Awards!

We’re so proud to recognize these journalists, whose work represents the very best in investigative reporting.

Awards will be presented at the 2026 IRE Conference in National Harbor, MD on Friday, June 19, during the Awards Luncheon.

Full list of winners and finalists: https://t.co/SvgrsEHDgI

[ProPublica @propublica]

In 1993, Trump signed a mortgage for a Florida home, pledging it would be his principal residence. Seven weeks later, he attested a neighboring property would also be his principal residence.

In reality, he does not seem to have lived in either home.
https://t.co/PI2bSTSM8t

[Weijia Jiang @weijia]

The Hilton donated the ~2600 dinners that went unserved at WHCD. They freeze dried the steak and lobster for longer shelf life before giving them to 2 shelters for abused women and children. HUGE thank you to the staff that worked through the night under terrible circumstances.

[The New York Times @nytimes]

All 16 pages of confidential memos were expected to remain secret for decades to come, but The New York Times has published them. See the documents here. https://t.co/dUdr0iW30A

[AAAS Mass Media Fellowship @AAASMassMedia]

🎉 Welcome to the 2026 class of @AAAS #MassMediaFellows! These 15 scientists will be sharpening their #SciComm skills with news outlets across the country this summer. We can’t wait to see the impact they’ll have!

Learn more about 2026 class here: https://t.co/kpAYxY1RUR

[ProPublica @propublica]

The DOGE team was acting like “a bunch of people who didn’t know what they were doing, with ideas of how government should run — thinking it should work like a McDonald’s or a bank — screaming all the time,” former SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek said.
https://t.co/TUMsqot1Do

[Rhonda Prast @prast24]

@greenblattmark @IRE_NICAR @ddfonline She was amazing, truly compassionate and empathetic. I lost a good friend and colleague. Just devastating.

[Edward Wong @ewong]

A group seeking donations for Trump sent out a mass email showing the president at an air base watching the somber transfer of US troops killed in the Iran War. The email says donors can get "private national security briefings and "the inside scoop DIRECT" from Trump.

[Alec MacGillis @AlecMacGillis]

Incredible @BaltimoreBanner story about a 9-year-old boy, Tristan King, who has been living out on his own, eluding authorities, since September, through the harsh winter. The government even sent armed US marshals looking for him.

[Jason Kint @jason_kint]

“The concern that a filter team may err by neglect, by malice, or by honest difference of opinion is heightened where its institutional interests are so directly at odds with the press freedom values at stake.”

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

The New York Times made news the loss leader for a $2 billion digital revenue machine, and this chart is the receipt.

News-only subscribers dropped 65% since June 2022. Bundle subscribers grew 227%. That looks like a news collapse. But the NYT deliberately killed its standalone news product. They stopped marketing it. They made it nearly impossible to buy a news-only subscription on their website. They priced the full bundle (News + Games + Cooking + Athletic + Wirecutter) at $2/month introductory, cheaper than a standalone Games subscription.

News-only ARPU is $13.33. Bundle ARPU is $12.92. Single non-news product ARPU is $3.36. Those 4.3 million single-product subscribers paying $3.36/month? They’re not the business. They’re the funnel. The NYT CEO said it explicitly on the earnings call: single products are “funnels to get people to subscribe” to the bundle.

Games now accounts for over 50% of time spent inside the NYT app. Wordle, Connections, and the Mini pull 10+ million weekly players who never intended to read a news article. But half of all NYT subscribers now pay for the bundle, and bundle subscribers retain longer, engage more, and accept price increases. The bundle just went from $25 to $30/month.

The result: digital revenue crossed $2 billion for the first time in 2025. Free cash flow hit $550 million. Adjusted operating margins reached 24% in Q4. Berkshire Hathaway just took a billion-dollar position. While the Washington Post cut 300 journalists last week, the Times added 1.4 million subscribers.

This chart shows a news company that built an attention ecosystem where Wordle gets you in the door, Cooking keeps you at breakfast, The Athletic owns your commute, and by the time you think about canceling, you’d lose four products instead of one.

The NYT figured out that the way to fund journalism in 2026 is to make sure you can’t quit the crossword.

[Rick Steves @RickSteves]

Understanding the State of Our Democracy and Christian Nationalism: Lessons from a Traveler and a Bishop

I’m very concerned about the political pickle our country’s in — and so is Bishop Shelley Bryan Wee, a Lutheran bishop who is responsible for 120 ELCA churches in Northwest Washington. So, we recently invited our neighbors to gather together for an evening with us so we could explain, in the words of the great Elvin Bishop, “What the hell’s goin’ on.” I gave my take, and Shelley gave hers. And we filled the Edmonds Center for the Arts… twice.

It was an exhilarating evening, and we’d like to share this very timely message with a much broader audience — and that includes you. (And if you can help us broadcast this even further, it can also include your own network of family and friends.)

My talk about the current state of American democracy — including a step-by-step rundown of how the Trump administration is following the classic playbook used by fascist autocrats — is available here: https://t.co/DhwYGU9jbo

And Bishop Shelley’s talk, which shares a hard look (inspired by scripture) at the perversion of Christianity called “Christian Nationalism,” can be found here: https://t.co/49BSv9iG9Y

In Solidarity,
Rick (and Shelley)

[Niall Harbison @NiallHarbison]

My 2 rescue dogs in their Sunday best today. Hank and Chance.

Wouldn’t it be cool if everybody who had a rescue shared them in this thread to show the world that rescue dogs are the best option.

Shelters and rescues all around the world full of great dogs. Go for it👇

[Natasha Korecki @natashakorecki]

NYT: FBI agents equipped with a signed warrant prepared to document blood spatter and bullet holes in Renee Good's SUV received orders to stop, including from Kash Patel.

The fear? "a civil rights investigation would contradict Trump’s claim that Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer” who fired at her as she drove her vehicle."

https://t.co/z6u2F2dkPx

[julie k. brown @jkbjournalist]

(GIFT@nyt): The Unraveling of the Department of Justice https://t.co/vk395qLuSk

[WIRED @WIRED]

Since last year, we’ve been reporting on ICE extensively. But every week brings new information, and it’s getting harder to keep track of what’s happening, let alone remember what’s already happened.

So here’s a quick thread to help.

[nxthompson @nxthompson]

Must reading from @AdamSerwer on what's happening in Minnesota. https://t.co/Kr9RaDzBbt

[ProPublica @propublica]

ProPublica reporter @nicolemfoy found that more than 170 U.S. citizens had been detained by immigration agents.

“The number became an important, irrefutable fact in the conversation about the immigration crackdown,” our editor-in-chief writes.
https://t.co/RqNpnkUwBB