In deze aflevering
Weinig mensen overzien de mondiale nieuwsindustrie zo goed als Nic Newman: medeoprichter van de BBC-nieuwswebsite in 1997, hoofdauteur van het Digital News Report van het Reuters Institute (inmiddels 48 landen) en van het jaarlijkse trends-en-voorspellingenrapport dat de basis vormt voor dit Engelstalige gesprek.
Newman verbindt de twee grote krachten die traditionele media in de tang nemen. Aan de ene kant de creator economy: een kwart van de Amerikanen krijgt wekelijks nieuws via Joe Rogan, vertrouwen verhuist van instituties naar personen, en bedrijven als Goalhanger (The Rest Is Politics) laten zien hoe persoonlijkheid, lidmaatschappen en live events samen een mediabedrijf vormen. Zijn advies aan hoofdredacties die gezichten willen bouwen: begin bij het waarom, gebruik data van wat al werkt, en haal jonge makers van buiten die de taal al spreken. Aan de andere kant de AI-disruptie: zoekmachines worden antwoordmachines, en al verwacht hij geen totale “Google Zero”, de macht verschuift onmiskenbaar naar de poortwachters.
Verfrissend nuchter is Newman over AI op de redactie zelf: uitgevers praten op congressen alsof hun redacties getransformeerd zijn, maar in zijn onderzoek noemen de meesten het effect vooralsnog beperkt. De echte kansen ziet hij in nieuwe producten die eerst onrendabel waren, zoals de wielersite die één oud-hoofdredacteur met AI-infrastructuur runt, acht verhalen per dag, inclusief factcheck-bot. Zijn waarschuwing: er komt een vloedgolf van slecht AI-materiaal aan die het imago van de technologie zal schaden, en juist dan wordt menselijkheid het onderscheid. Zijn slotles voor 2026: stop met nieuws maken voor iedereen, weet precies voor wie je er bent.
Deze aflevering is Engelstalig.
“You have to work out how to be human, and at the same time automate the things that are not journalistic, to make yourself more efficient.”
Nic Newman · 35:07
Hoofdstukken
- 0:00 Nic Newman: van BBC-pionier tot Reuters Institute
- 4:22 Van 5 naar 48 landen: het Digital News Report
- 5:37 De creator economy: van MrBeast tot Joe Rogan
- 7:36 Vertrouwen verhuist van instituties naar personen
- 11:13 Goalhanger en The Rest Is Politics
- 13:33 Wat is tegenwoordig nog een journalist?
- 19:45 Drie kogels voor de hoofdredacteur: zo begin je met gezichten
- 24:13 Van zoekmachine naar antwoordmachine: komt Google Zero?
- 26:33 Deals met AI-bedrijven: wie profiteert?
- 30:45 Huxe en de gepersonaliseerde AI-ochtendbriefing
- 33:17 AI op de redactie: veel congrespraat, beperkt effect
- 41:04 De wielerredactie van één man
- 46:23 De AI-backlash komt eraan
- 50:46 Slotadvies: weet voor wie je er bent
Transcript Lees het volledige transcript
Dit transcript is automatisch gegenereerd en licht geredigeerd; er kunnen onnauwkeurigheden in staan. Tijdstempels linken naar het fragment op Spotify.
So, Philippe Remarque, here we are again in a new episode of the Media Innovation podcast. And today.
Why are we speaking English then?
And today the show is in English because we have a guest from Britain. So we have to adapt our accents, I guess. Let's dive right in. Nic Newman, welcome to the show. Great to have you here. First let me properly introduce you. You are an author and a researcher focused on the news industry. You have been working at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. You are the lead author of the highly anticipated Digital news report. 14 years in a row. You also published the Journalism and Technology Trends and Predictions Report. The last edition was from January, and it will be the basis for this for this podcast. You were a founding member of the BBC news website. You were also a world editor covering international affairs. You were the head of product for the BBC and now also a consultant for many news outlets around the globe, Nic Newman. Did I forget anything? Did I leave anything.
Out of that long introduction? It sounds more impressive than I think it probably is. But yeah, it's great to be here. And I worked in Hilversum as well.
Yeah, yeah. Nick works in our country, with a, with the World Service.
He worked in Hilversum.
Yes. I did, a, a producer in the English section. So, I learned a little Dutch, but only a little.
Tell me a little bit about the founding of the BBC website. I mean, did you, like, buy the URL and activate like the server or.
Yeah, somebody else actually had a BBC URL. We had to buy it a few years later.
Because that was my second question. Was there some tech savvy little boy who.
Was in America and had to be brought back?
How much did you pay for it?
I can't remember and I didn't pay out of my own money. But going back, yeah, 1997, that was really, really exciting time. So we kind of internally been lobbying Actually, the BBC was not the first. So some of the other big news organisations like the Telegraph, the Times had already built up substantial digital presence, but probably a little bit early. And then in 97 we went in a big way and invested a lot of money. And it was really successful, partly because the BBC brand. But it was also just the timing. That was the time when the internet was really taking off and people were starting to get interested.
So I wanted to add to the introduction that I follow Nick for years now, because this digital news report is really giving us food for thought every year, and also the Trends in Prediction report. And because Nick is such a knowledgeable scholar of journalism and started out as our colleague, but now you are into science or what they call social science or journalism studies. And the Reuters Institute is part of the University of Oxford. And it's really the foremost institute for the study of journalism in, in, in all the world. There are some American universities that do this, but that's mostly about the United States. And you really cover the whole world. Also the southern hemisphere, Brazil, India, East Asia, and, and of course Europe. And, I really love the way you, you keep in touch with, with our developments. How do you, how do you manage? I mean, I mean, there's so many things happening.
There's so much going.
On in our business and in journalism and society. And you seem to keep pace of it all.
I'm not sure about that. But, but certainly when we started it, we felt it was a real gap in the market because as you say, there was great research coming out of the US. A lot of individual companies had their own research, but there was nothing that really allowed you to see what was happening in different parts of the world. And that's really been our mission, is to try and bring that together, to make it open so that anybody can use that research as well. So that's what we started in 2012, I think, you know, keeping up with trends and developments, as you know, in terms of this innovation podcast is really hard because there is so much going on and it's so hard to know what it means for business models, for journalists, disruptions from AI, disruptions from the creator economy. You know, these are some of the things we're talking about at the moment.
Was it easier to write a report in 2012 compared to now?
It was certainly easier because there were only five countries when we started. And now in the digital news report, which is the audience facing one, there's 48 countries. So that's just in terms of the scale and the differences much harder, I think, in terms of trends. I think, I think 2012 was also a time when there was a lot of change. So I think between 2012 and 2016, we really saw mobile and social media really coming together. And that's really been the disruptive force for the last ten years or so. And right now we're in this middle of another disruption point, which is driven by AI. And we don't know how that one's going to end, but there's a lot of pace involved.
So we're gonna discuss like three major topics with you. One is the creator in economy. We want to start there. Also changing content strategies. What's the influence on that? Also based on the on your prediction report. And last one is the impact of AI in news. And I think if we if we tackle them all, we also do a lot of sub topics like video and social media.
Everything is woven together, right?
Yeah, yeah. It is. So, yeah, let's start with the creator economy.
Yeah, it's a, this is a very favorite subject of mine. I always, egging on our newsrooms to do more about this and to show more personality of the journalists as a reaction to what is happening, in media consumption worldwide. And you have always been, somehow my ally in this, although you didn't know, because you were writing on this for years now and ever more with ever more good examples. And so, could you describe the trends towards creator economy? What's, what's happening there?
Yeah, I mean, I think, I think, some of these, as you say, trends have been going on for a long time. So networks like YouTube that provide free distribution. But I think what's happened recently is it's not just the free distribution to millions of people, it's also the creator tools, which are getting better and better through YouTube, TikTok, etc.. And it's the monetization. It's the fact that it's not just about advertising revenue, but there's all these new forms of monetization. If you look at MrBeast, for example, you know, it's not just the advertising, it's everything he's building off the back of that, including, you know, merchandise and, and, you know, physical studios that he now has deals with, with streaming companies as well. So, you know, the creator economy in general. But in terms of news, we've seen the last few years the growth of podcasting, the growth of video podcasting, and that has enabled these personalities to build huge audiences independent of traditional media companies. And so, you know, Joe Rogan, for example, in our digital news report, we saw that almost a quarter of people in the United States said they got some kind of news from Joe Rogan in the previous week, which is, you know, as much or more than many big media companies. So the power of personalities, individuals, and a lot of trust, of course, that was resting in institutions. It's also increasingly moving towards these personalities with lots of implications.
So that's a very important move of movement for us because the trust was in our institutions, our brand names, our newspaper, traditional newspaper titles. And nowadays, you say younger people, they tend to look more to people and put their trust in people. So what should a traditional brand do then?
Yeah, I mean, in some ways this is not completely unknown. You know, I started my career in radio and television and the host, as we called them, is not very different from the host of a video podcast. So it was about that, that relationship. We talk about parasocial relationships. So this idea that you're building a connection with somebody you don't really know or who doesn't know you, and you feel a sense of intimacy and trust as a result. And that's what, you know, television news readers have had for years. So some of this is not new, but it's really powerful and it's driving a lot of attention and it's driving some of these changes in trust as well.
Yeah. So for instance, radio and TV, they don't have to change so much because they have done this for ages. But, if you're working in a newspaper and just used to write articles.
I think you do have to change. So I think that, if you just put out radio programs or television programs on YouTube, they basically don't work. So there's something else which is about, genuinely taking your audience seriously. And building connection. There's something about, personality that has authenticity and relatability. Maybe some television hosts that have had that to some extent, but I think ones that are really willing to engage in that conversation, I think that's one of the big differences.
Yeah.
If you look at the industry of the creator economy, what changes are people are news, organizations making to, to adapt to this. And are these changes, bold enough to be successful? For example?
I mean, as Philippe Remarque says, I think what a lot of publishers are doing is trying to bring out more the personalities, particularly print based publications, you know, how can we, how can we build some of that authenticity and relatability? And video is one of the ways in which they're doing it. So in our in our predictions report, 76% of the publishing executives that we talked to said that they this year, they were planning to invest more in the personalities. You see that in New York Times. For example, if you go to the front page of the New York Times, a couple of videos, they've been training their journalists to talk directly to the camera. Wired has a policy, you know, print publication, essentially creating platform personalities. So this idea that you can, take these writers and turn them into, beacons of trust and relationships with audiences.
Your face seems a little bit ironic when you say this. Why?
I think it's, I mean, it's not just putting a camera in front of people. It's actually a proper change of mindset. And it's a sort of belief in, in trying to build those relationships. You know, I think, just generally in media, we, we think of it as, you know, reach it's about numbers or in the past, you know, that's how we thought of it increasingly media companies are thinking about how you can build deep, long lasting relationships, and that is something that requires long term change. It requires culture change within organizations.
Yeah. So it's hard to do.
Basically, it's hard to do. It's not just about putting a camera in front of people. Yeah, yeah. A lot of interesting experimentation going on.
Do you have examples where this is working really nicely?
I mean, I think, so a lot of, I guess one of the, one of the best examples is probably, a new company called Goalhanger, which started with, with audio and podcasting and is now really branching out and has embraced the video, and is also really embracing the business models behind the, the creator economy as well. So it's not just, you know, getting money for advertising, it's also building membership, it's building merchandise, it's building live events. So it's really.
Their most famous title is the rest.
The rest is politics. The rest is science. The rest is entertainment. The rest is football. So I think they have around 12 different publications right now. They've just done deals with Netflix. So it's, it's really embracing that power of the personality, but in a way that is trying to build long term relationships and, and informed conversations, not just, you know, trying to push people apart through partisan content.
Yeah. So I'm a, I'm a client of theirs. I pay for, for the audio, access to, the rest is politics.
Oh. So even though it's free, you're paying for the membership?
Yeah. No, you got extra.
Oh, you get, you get bonus.
There was one episode I wanted to hear, and they lured me into their nets. I of course resent this, but it still happened.
But you haven't canceled yet.
I haven't canceled yet. That's the main business model, as you know. Forgetting to cancel. But, the point I want to make is that these are two people that are former politicians or spin doctors. Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell. And, so they are not actually journalists. But they're so nice to listen to and they're very well informed and, and actually, knowledgeable. We have a lot of new competition from people who aren't from our, business or from, from, from, from journalism, but, but they still provide good journalism. And one of the most popular podcasts in the Netherlands is, a former member of parliament and a, and a professor of international politics doing the geopolitics, a lot going on right now. So they're doing daily podcasts and they are not journalists, but they, they do well.
Well, the big question is, what is a journalist these days? It's really hard to tell the difference because those lines have been blurring for a number of years, as you say. You know, anyone can start a podcast. The barriers to entry to distribution to creativity are down. So journalists don't have that gatekeeping role anymore. They share it with, with anybody, ordinary people.
We are thinking about journalists right now, but it's also about what does the public want? I mean, if the public wants like good stories from this political, knowledgeable people and who tell them really good stories, then that's, that's pretty fair to, to be popular and to listen to. Right?
Yes. I mean, we, one of the things that, we are uncovering in our work on creators is that, people like them, not just because they're authentic or knowledgeable, but because they're entertaining. Yeah. And, everyone will agree that a creator is more entertaining than a journalist. Journalist often deals in bad news. Yeah.
But and also feels limited to give its opinion about certain developments because he needs to be, objective, independent a reporter. You always blow the whistle on me, like: Lars, you can't say that like that. This is activism. And I'm like, yeah, let's do activism. Yeah.
So there are lots of challenges. There are some old school challenges.
Yeah, I know.
So another of those reasons why traditional media is really finding this hard, because that sense of having a point of view is also really important appeal for a lot of people listening to podcasts and podcasts. And that often comes up against these traditional notions of objectivity and impartiality. So, you know, I think there are ways in which people still want that, by the way, they do want that neutrality and impartiality and objectivity from journalists. But they also want it to be combined with a bit more relatability and authenticity as well.
And, but the entertainment part you were, touching upon, is that a worrying development in a way? I, I think they are right to want some entertainment or as reading something which is a good read or with humor. It's always better than without.
In a way, yeah. I think we take in information in lots of different ways, don't we? And, you know, a lot of us are just trying to get up to date with the latest news in an efficient way. And that, I think, is where AI comes in increasingly. That's going to make that process much more efficient. But you also want that entertainment. You want to spend time luxuriating, discuss opinions, you know, have a range of different opinions, and that's where the creators are fitting in. So it's really these two different trends going on. And the danger is traditional media gets squeezed by these powerful forces.
In the middle. In the middle. Yeah.
Not empathetic enough on the one hand and not, quick or efficient enough on the other.
So there is a chance if you are as authentic and a personality and are entertaining as well. And some journalists are there already. They, they.
Yeah, in the pub, they're very entertaining.
This? Yeah. And some did know how to do it. In their journalistic work. So. So, this is a huge chance in a way that even if people are informed in a very efficient way of the news, maybe through their glasses in the future or whatever, that they still want to share time with you to, a knowledgeable person you meet in the pub who, who, who talks funnily.
Sure. I think, I think a lot of journalists are just great storytellers. And, and I think that's why some of the most successful podcasters actually are run by journalists or people who come from a journalistic tradition. And whether that's, you know, they're doing that through Substack, through a video podcast or an audio podcast, I think there's a lot of opportunities for journalists here too.
But do we allow ourselves to be these, these content creators enough? I mean, how should we do this? What kind of liberties can we take without, eroding, for example, the trust that people have in the institutions behind it, which is already eroding. Right? So, so what's, what's the mix? What's the balance? How do we do that?
It's a delicate balance. I mean, I think a lot of it comes from what is the vision or mission of your organization in the first place. So I think that the, you know, the ethical guidelines, what it is you're trying to do as a publication, you know, really comes first and then and then after that, it's saying, how can we adapt the style of what we do? How can we adapt the formats of what we do without changing the values? So it's really trying to find that sweet spot.
Sounds very easy, right?
It always sounds so well formulated and then it's easy, but, but it's hard to do.
But it also sounds very easy. And we've been, we've been pushing well, not pushing. Well, maybe we are pushing it. We, I mean, we are kind of convinced that like the faces program, as we call it, is, is helping editorial departments to change to this more creative economy thinking. Right. And we started with this with a project for like three years ago. And some developments have been going on, but it's also it's a tough battle. It's a tough journey. The progress is not as fast as probably we have hoped that it would be. So I mean, we are experiencing in day to day life that this is a hard change to, to get to.
Yeah, I think, I mean, the reason it's hard because a lot of these things are not obvious and they, they speak to the culture of the organization. And so that takes a lot of time. Sometimes the way you change that is by bringing in sort of young creators who already understand the language of this from outside. So bring in some external change agents. Some of it is just working with people who naturally, love being in front of the camera and want to bring out their personalities who already work for you. And I think both of those strategies are good ways to accelerate this.
So imagine you are the editor in chief of one of our titles. What would your plan be? You got three bullets. What would you start with and how would you approach it?
You mean the change to faces?
Yeah, yeah, because you have to change something on your on your floor. You want to be more like a content creator. You want to have more faces, be the brand for your institution. How do you convince them? How do you find them? What, what, what would your strategy be?
I think you have to start by, getting people on board with the strategy in the first place. You know why this change needs to happen? The need to be more entertaining, to bring audiences in and to keep them, and then, you know, maybe use specific examples of people who are doing that in your organization and show with data that's, that's a really effective way of building trust building, reach and then you sort of move out from there.
Mm. And how would you select the journalist, to do this? Because, probably there are a lot of journalists who want to do this, but maybe are not like the.
Best ones.
The best ones for video or for the way that we're publishing. So how would you how would you approach that?
It's like, you know, when podcasts came along, everyone wants podcasts very.
Sensitive.
On.
On the floor.
Yeah. But those are choices, right? Those are editorial choices that you want to make. So maybe, maybe around a particular area that you want to focus on it. Maybe you want to really amplify a particular voice that you think represents your brand really well. So these will be editorial judgment calls, essentially.
What did you want to say about podcasting when it started?
When it started? That every, every journalist wanted a podcast because, you know, a lot of journalists have egos, right? They want to get there. And actually, you can tap into that, that desire of journalists to tell stories in different ways. Many journalists feel really constrained by 800 words by what they're currently doing. So I think unlocking that latent creativity is something that actually is not only valuable from a business point of view, but it's really important for journalist retention as well.
Yeah.
And makes work more agreeable and, and nicer for, for the journalists. Yeah.
So can I, can I, can I just add your, one of your conclusions, for example? But sometimes you sound like a.
I hate it when people read out from something.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I understand because you don't remember what you read what you've written. Right? So one of your conclusions is the news industry remains in transition with old models fading and new ones not fully yet formed. Big platforms, tech platforms remain in the driving seat, armed with new tools that can aggregate and remix contents in a way that often look like magic. That's one. Continuing here, let's see where I have my notes. Existential challenges about, declining engagement for traditional media, bypassing the Passing the media entirely in the creator economy. It's kind of the Trump 2.0 playbook. It often comes bundled with a barrage of intimidating, intimidating legal threats. The narratives are finding fertile ground with audiences, especially younger ones who don't find us anymore. They prefer convenience of accessing the news on the platforms have weaker connections with traditional news brands, raising fears that referral traffic for publishers could dry up.
A depressing picture, isn't it?
Are you a sombre man, Nic Newman?
I think you just picking out picking out words here. I'm sure there's loads of positivity in there as well.
But there is also there is also a but.
But those words, existential challenges. I kept it in my mind as well.
I mean, the truth is that, you know, a number of publishers in Northern Europe are actually doing quite well financially. And, and, certainly those that invested heavily in subscriptions. More upmarket news organizations are building sustainable business and can see a sustainable path to the future. I think there are a lot of challenges in the media environment as described there, around the loss of young audiences, around the threat from AI in terms of where future audiences are going to come from. And clearly, these are things that all publishers need to take seriously.
Yeah.
So let's start with the AI. So you, you, think that the delivery and the distribution power of, of, of big tech companies now developing AI, how will this affect, the publishers and the journalists?
I mean, this is the big, the big change right now is how people access information. So the change to the gateways from search engines to answer engines essentially. So instead of having ten blue links, you put the query in and right there in the browser, you're getting the answer. You're getting enough information that you don't feel you need to click further into the publisher itself. And of course, there's currently no business model to reward publishers for the content if they produce that in the first place. So that's the sort of existential challenge, if you like. And so a lot of publishers in the industry are talking about this idea of Google zero, that current Google traffic will go from where it is now to zero. I don't think that's going to happen. I mean, clearly there will still be a need to click through to see sort of narrative stories, to have video content, etc. In its entirety. People will still want to do that. But publishers.
In your report, you already said it's declining for more than 40%. So there is a real effect.
That's a fear. That's a fear. So that is a publisher expectation that they'll lose. You know, getting on for half their traffic in actual real data, we see the effect has been less particularly on news traffic because Google is currently not showing news overviews against news traffic, but it is showing it against a range of other traffic, and that's only likely to increase.
Yeah, but that's Google. So it's not included. The other companies like ChatGPT or.
Well, we have data from ChatGPT. So we, we know that more people are using it for news queries, and we know that very few of those click on and refer to like.
0.02%.
20%.
Yeah. 90%.
But, isn't there a chance for publishers when, when these, like you saw at Google search has been developing over 15 years and, they have a big, great interest in, the contents that we, the content that we produce and we have deals with them because they want to show the best results in search. Wouldn't you get the same incentive for AI firms or big tech firms, using AI to get a better results and to have some original reporting because about what's happening right now. Of course, there are a lot of free sources, but if you want to delve deeper or bring more quality, you need some live journalism that's is happening now.
Right. So I think this is, you know, the incentives for platforms is going to be different from the social media age. So in social media, it's about content that entertains or attracts attention. And that's really where the incentives were in AI. It's about trusted up to date information that's going to be at a premium. Currently, the AI engines don't have that unless they scrape it very quickly or unless they do deals with media companies. The challenge is that the frameworks and licensing arrangements are not in place yet. So what's been happening so far is, you know, the AI companies have done a few deals with a few big companies to try and buy them off. And there is nothing that is sort of systematic, if you like, that benefits the whole ecosystem and whether that will ever emerge. Who knows. But you know that you'd like to think that might be possible.
Because it only benefits like the big players who are able to call them, and that OpenAI picks up the phone because it's big enough.
And big countries. Yeah. Yeah.
But in essence, they already have enough data points to bring the news. As it is right now because.
Of these deals. Yeah. The challenge is they don't need all publishers. So Google's model was to try and index, you know, the whole web and all publishers and then show those for AI companies. You know, maybe just doing a deal with a news agency or with a couple of upmarket publications will be enough to provide the quality answers to the questions that they're being asked. And that is the challenge. You know, this is going to be a different model to, to the Google model we've seen in the past.
What is your view on, should we or should we not, anticipate, for example, a deal with one of these companies? Or should we just because I'm, I'm, for me, my sense is we should block them all. We should block the hell out of them. Just keep them, keep them at bay. Keep them away from us. What do you think?
I think I think that, you know, each company is making their own decisions on this at the moment. It's a delicate balance. If you if you cut yourself off from all platforms, then there's a danger that you will lose that advantage of getting whatever referral traffic is still available. Mhm. And if you take the money, the danger is you become dependent on that money, and then the money dries up. And we've been in that situation before. So but.
Also.
It's pocket money. It's like not really a lot of money.
We haven't, we don't know exactly how much money some of.
The extra spending.
Is getting. Like what, 10 million a year.
For many of the publications, it's not just about money. It's also about learning and cooperation and having access to technology that helps, your own efforts for efficiency or innovation internally. And both of those are important.
Yeah.
And let's take a look at, the public in this question. Do you think, the, okay, you talk about asking questions about the news getting an answer. That's one use case. But will an AI overview may be integrated in your operating systems or your glasses or whatever in the in the future? Will that be enough for people to follow the news?
I think, I think that's a really interesting point. So, you know, currently people go who are interested, go to ChatGPT. And that is a subset of, of the user base. And so the integration within Google, for example, within, mobile phones, operating systems, I think that clearly that's where it's going. And we've seen previously that the thing that people really care about is speed, flexibility, convenience, and if it's really quick to get the information, then that's how it will work. As I say, I do think people will still click on to narrative storytelling and particularly if publishers adapt the content. But, there's definitely going to be more power in the hands of those gateways.
Yes.
And you were even talking on the Reuters Institute podcast about a kind of morning start you can have with AI scanning your email and WhatsApp and messages and maybe mixing it with some news.
Yeah, this is.
The perfect audio morning start for anyone.
Right? And so there's a, there's an app I use called Huxe, H-U-X-E, which was founded by some of the people behind NotebookLM. And that's exactly what it does. So essentially provides a morning briefing, which includes news, it includes schedule for the day, emails I need to attend to, etc. In audio. So this is, you know, we're going to see many more of these kind of aggregators that know a lot about you and are trying to personalize that news experience. And combine it with, you know, the latest news you might be interested in.
On the other hand, it doesn't mean that it's like a like a like a replacement. I mean, it can still be both of them. Like in the morning when you're shaving, you get an update, but then in the afternoon you want to go to the New York Times or to a publisher where you have a subscription and read, what they were.
Yeah.
But this will more be needs more motivation as a, as a novel, you are turning to, for instance, and we all know how.
I think it is both. I mean, I think that sort of morning state that you talk about Lars Anderson is very much about sort of, efficiency. It's about getting a briefing in a, in a short period of time. But then at the same time, you might want to luxuriate and spend two hours with a video podcast, which is a completely different thing.
Yeah, definitely.
So that's what you meant before saying like, like news is becoming efficient. And the other thing is becoming more personal, more entertaining, more opinionated, more, yeah. And, and so we, so as a traditional publisher, you do. Both. Or you mix it all.
You're trying.
To. And should we do. Still do both or.
Yeah, yeah. I think you ride. You ride two horses. And you also try and use your scale and your brand, which is still important to people. You know, that institutional trust, to, to sort of increase the value.
In the trends reports, a lot of news rooms, they start working behind the scenes with AI, the editorial component. What do you, I mean, like 98% will, invest this year heavily, probably in the AI, like an editor or whatever on the background. What is your view on, how successful these, these projects are? Because I, I think I noticed in your report that, there is also some skepticism, skepticism.
Increasing skepticism, I think. Yeah, yeah. Broadly, the publishing industry talks a great, great game about its AI initiatives at conferences. Yeah. So they got up on stage. I mean.
It's endless, right?
It's transforming their newsroom. I think the truth is that in the report, most people say the impact so far has been limited or maybe promising. So not transformational yet. And, you know, that applies to things like, you know, how many jobs have you saved? Well, for most publishers, zero. And in some cases added jobs. It's added cost. Of course, it's still very early stages, but I think that also shows how integrating AI into news specifically is not the same as doing it with banking or some other automatable jobs, because a lot of the processes are really difficult to automate or have already been automated in different ways. So there are definitely, obviously a lot of back end things that people have done, and that's freed up a bit of time, but fundamentally hasn't moved the dial, I would say. And I think, you know, that will come, but I think we're all still struggling to work out exactly what that is in a news context.
So is this.
Reassuring for journalists and for the journalistic world, that it's that these changes are not that fast for us, are we? Are we tougher on this issue? Can we can we just ignore it a little bit longer?
What would you say is what journalists would like to do? Right.
Of course, of course.
I think I think it's, I think it's really challenging because on the one hand, you know, journalists and journalistic leaders go out and say, we need to reject AI. Ai is unreliable. We need more human. The other than the other side, they turn to their staff and say, you need to go harder on AI. You need to embrace it. So there's a real sort of, I would say, almost hypocrisy in or certainly confusion in terms of the messaging.
It's contradicting each other.
It's contradicting each other. But that is kind of the path you have to work out how to be human. And at the same time, automate the things that are not journalistic to make yourself more efficient. And I also think there are opportunities to use AI to create new kinds of products. That wouldn't have been economically viable as well. So it's a, you know, a great example of that is the BBC's experiments with, with, football, audio briefings in the morning. So under the old model, you'd have needed, you know, producer a studio, you know, somebody to edit it. So three people maybe. And that's just all now done with AI. It's a service they couldn't offer before. It's an offshoot from stuff they've already checked, from a human point of view. And it's done with a regional accent, through an AI, avatar. So this is just an experiment, but it's maybe one way in which additional value can be provided with AI without undermining editorial values.
So what would you imagine you are again, one of our editors in chief. What would you tell your staff, your colleagues, your, your journalists, about AI and, and, what skills should they have, according to you? How should they embrace it? What place? What role should it have in their daily job? In the in the in the way of working of the editorial department. Well, how would you bring them into this?
You ask such difficult questions.
I know.
But I mean, these are the questions that we that we.
Yeah. I think the first thing is, you know, if you're the editor of a publication, you can't just say, I'm the editor of the publication. You have to understand the technology. So I would say go on a course and understand more about how AI actually works and the implications, both externally in terms of the gateway effects that I talked about earlier, but also internally about what you want to do and how you want to use it. And then you need to make some choices. So, you know, the New York Times, for example, say that the main way, having done a lot of experimentation and done some back end stuff, what we're going to focus on is news gathering. So we, we found that we can do our investigations quicker. We can do more investigations through, AI helping us sift through all these big data, for example. So we're going to make a big bet on investigations, or we're going to make a big bet on packaging new kinds of content or whatever it is. But the first thing you need to do is to really understand what the, what the implications are.
I think, I.
Think like the investigation is a, is, is a very good point to sell. And I think it's also an easy point to sell as an editor in chief because it helps you with the investigation. But what if it's about like an AI copy editor or what if it's about,
Is it affects jobs, right?
Is it. No. Well, not necessarily. It also affects the output.
There's one newspaper in Ohio I read about last week, and this guy wrote a blog, the editor, saying, well, my journalist, they don't write anymore. They do what journalists are for. They do the reporting. They go out in the field. They talk to people, build trust and get information that nobody else has and that AI doesn't have. But why would they? Right? Because AI can do this for them, and it saves them one day in which they can go out in the fields. And so he got a lot of, people objecting to this in, from our industry.
We're going to have a lot more of that. I mean, if you use these tools and I'm also using these tools as a researcher. Yeah, it's really good at making suggestions for how you might conclude things or some bullet points. Right? And, and I think we're all going to have to wrestle with this question of how do we incorporate it into our work without losing the humanity and the individuality of what we do?
Yeah, that's.
Of course important.
Yeah.
Because the thing is, I've been, I've been giving a lot of training sessions to journalists, like already 150 probably. And it's prompting for, skilled, skilled prompters already. So it's like, it's not the basics, but it's a little bit, upfront. And we also do a little bit of vibe coding and they, they just get to see what is possible, right? And I can see, I can see the light in their eyes. Like, oh my God, if I can do this, this, then everything basically is possible. So there is so much, so much to learn and to win. But also these people who come to me for training sessions, it's just like a small part of the editorial department. These are the, these are the, the front runners, right? And I'm hoping like this, their enthusiasm will spread around like the editorial department, but it probably stays a little bit more with them and the people that they also know that use the AI. So a lot of, I think even 60, 70% of the, of the, of, of the journalistic colleagues, they are not very into AI right now because either they, they lack the time or they lack the interest. And I think that they will, have a problem like in the next two, three years because they don't know how it works.
I mean, I think it's as you were talking, I was thinking about, the changes around social media, which are very similar, which happened about, you know, a decade ago, slightly over. Yeah. Which again, was sort of some, some early first mover advantage, some people who were really interested in it who kind of showed the way. And then you do, explain the different ways of three different ways in which it's relevant to your job, whether you're an investigative journalist or a writer, whatever it is. Then you do training around those things. And then gradually over time, you're building a culture where everyone understands why it's important, which tools you're using and why. And it's difficult at the moment because the tools are changing all the time. People are still experimenting. We're still really in the experimental stage, I would say.
Yeah.
Nick, tell us about the cycling guy. You wrote about it in the report.
The cycling guy.
Yeah, that's, that's an interesting story because the you were talking with podcasts about the threshold of market entry, lowering because of the technical progress in a way, and AI and vibe coding lowers the threshold even more in.
A way.
Right? So this is a company called Valora Cycling. And it's run by a former editor of cycling magazine. So he had a team of people that were creating digital output and a magazine output every week. And now he does just a newsroom of one. It's just him working with AI infrastructure to create a whole website, updating stories eight stories a day. And the AI selects those stories. So essentially monitors what's going on in the world of cycling, decides what's worth covering, writes the prompts for those stories with some human oversight. So he checks these stories. And then there's another bot, another AI bot that is essentially a fact checking bot that understands cycling brilliantly and all the language of it, and basically alerts the editor to any problems that might be from a cycling enthusiasts point of view. And so, that, and it's a really nice website. It's got visualizations. And this is essentially one part of the future. We're going to see more companies that are essentially run by individuals creating content that is actually pretty valuable to a cycling community.
And adds his own authority, to personal, things on, on cycling on top in which he is, is a pro.
Exactly.
So, so this, this is a good combination.
It's a combination of very powerful technology and a human who really understands and is passionate about, about the subject total democracy. It will be very disruptive for a lot of media companies, particularly in those sort of niches actually, where they've built very successful businesses. And now they're just much cheaper ways of doing that.
But this is.
I mean, in the sense it is new, but like, Norwegian news operations have already, installed like, AI generated, stories about real estate, right? Right. In the morning they come to work and there are like 2 or 3 stories published on the front page and they're, doing really well converting people to become a subscriber because the information is relevant to them.
There's a lot of this going on already, and it's been going on for about ten years. I mean, company reports.
But this is the key.
To being relevant. And if you can create like a page about cycling. I mean, I'm not very much into cycling, but a lot of people are. And if it's but it does it interest you enough to read these articles? Is it good enough? Is it like 500 words with facts and a short story or news, elements?
I would think I mean, I mean, if it scrapes well and it's research as well and it writes well, then it's a good overview of what's new in cycling country. And then if he asks some of his, point of view with that you want to hear, like in the Netherlands is a cycling influencer then. Then I think for a lot of people, that's exactly what they're looking for.
I think also what a lot of these, small publishers will do is combine it with podcasts and with newsletters and other types of media as well. And I think that combination we're going to see a lot more of.
Yeah, because we are talking about a live blog already for a couple of weeks, right? How can we change the live blog? And, if you have a live blog and like your, your, stadium watcher, your, journalist, I don't know what you call them.
Football, the.
Football pundits.
Exactly.
Football.
So, but I mean, if he delivers the material, if he delivers, something happened. This happened. He scored a goal. Here's a small analysis of me. And in the end, when the live blog is finished, you press a button and like the AI, converts it into an article of like 500 words. And it's written by, Alex, whatever his name is, but just the credit, the byline of the author. What's against that?
And well, we're going to be submerged by AI generated content in the next few years. Whatever it is, live blog, cycling websites, some of it will be good and done. Well, a lot of it will be done badly, and a lot of that bad stuff will give AI a very bad name.
So I think there's a lot to the thing. It won't.
Replace.
Really, really.
Good journalism.
The thing is, all the journalism has been done by a real person, by real journalists. The only thing the AI does is, is connecting the dots and, and embedding all these real life, notations into, into the story.
That could be an example of good AI. But, but your warning is really important because you say there will be some good AI use and there will be a lot of bad AI.
There.
Will be a lot.
Of AI. And so the name, the image of AI generated content will be very bad.
We're already seeing that. We're already seeing, you know, in the report, I talk about sort of AI backlash, well, actually a backlash against technology generally, whether that's social media or AI, it's really gathering steam. And I think,
But the backlash.
Has started to be affected as well. I think that will just snowball.
So sorry, is it.
The backlash in the report by the people who responded to the to the.
Report like the editor or the.
No, this is just.
A general societal.
Change that we're seeing. You see it in the pressure on legislation against, big tech companies, for example, around AI, around, you know, phones.
And so what you're saying is we should.
Be really careful.
We should definitely be careful. But even if publishers are careful, other people won't be careful. And we, and there just will be a lot of people using AI to try and make money apart from anything else to do scams. And I think that is definitely going to affect me just more widely, unless the platforms themselves can find a way to control that.
Yeah.
So here we come on the on the subject of trust, right? Because trust is going to be everything for us in the next.
Upcoming.
Because this is a chance for traditional journalism that is human made and, has some added value in this, ocean of, dubious content.
Yes. I mean, that's the hope, right? The problem is that a lot of people don't trust journalists. And in fact, when you do surveys of trust, quite often journalists come down pretty near the bottom along with politicians. And you have scientists and others at the top. But, so the fact is it's different in different countries. And, you know, actually in the Netherlands and Belgium, trust is reasonably strong, but in many other countries, it's not obvious that's what's going to happen, that if, trust declines in general, it's not necessarily they're going to go to journalists, they might go to influencers, they might go to ordinary people, they might go to politicians. And we're seeing, you know, politicians trying to build those audiences directly in many countries.
Mhm.
What I thought was funny in the report, was that, the people who responded, they were, lacking confidence for journalism as a whole, but they are much more positive for journalism for their own business. Help me out here. What's this?
I think a lot of that is to do with, what people see in the way in which politicians are attacking and undermining journalism all over the world. So it's not necessarily what's going on in a small northern European country, though. There's probably some of that too. But, in, you know, in other countries, we're seeing powerful businessmen clearly affecting editorial lines. We're seeing politicians deliberately trying to undermine traditional media, inviting their friends or influencers in to ask questions, excluding traditional media companies from press conferences, etc.. So there's real sort of increasing worries about press freedom and what that means for journalism, combined with that uncertainty over AI and the extent to which they're still going to be able to get audiences as search engines become answer engines.
Mm.
Would you say that in countries that are more based on advertising models, trust is lower, like, Spain or South America or even America, the United States?
I mean, there's certainly correlation between, countries which have high subscription percentages.
And trust.
And levels of trust in those countries. Yeah.
And.
Confidence in the business.
And confidence in the business, but there's a lot of other things going on as well. It's not just that, it's also the size of the market. It's the extent to which platforms have been able to or been interested in pushing into that market. It's to do with levels of education in some countries as well. So there's a lot of reasons which are not necessarily purely due to that correlation.
So you are glad that you're out of journalism since 2012.
Journalism, is still in my blood. I love reading journalism, watching journalism, consuming journalism in all the different forms, but it's certainly a challenging time.
Can you send us away with like, a visionary, optimistic, view of journalism?
I think that the vision is, is really for the, for the leaders of the organization to set because there's no one journalistic organization anymore. You know, the, there are many, many ways to build relationships, whether you're a startup, a Substack, a, the editor of a traditional Additional publication, and it's about being much clearer about who you're for, what you're for, and then who you're for in terms of which audiences you're going for, rather than trying to produce, you know, journalism for everybody. I think it's about being much more specific and then using technology like AI to make it more relevant for different groups of people.
Well, Philip, there was.
The Media Innovation podcast with our guest this time, Nic Newman. Philippe Remarque, co-host, director of journalism. And Lars Anderson, that's me. I'm the manager of innovation for DPG media. Thank you for listening. Keep listening. And, well, hope to meet you next time.