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Take a breath. Ok, now let’s figure out AI

May 18, 2023 Richard E. Brown – Senior Director of Retention, The Daily Beast

Generative AI has got folks in a frenzy. From excitement about everything it can do to concerns about biased algorithms, plagiarism, and potential job displacement, there’s a raft of optimism and concern around GAI.

Take a breath. Are you good? Ok, now let’s figure out AI together.

Sorry, with all the talk and emotion behind generative AI, I thought it may be a good time for everyone to catch a breather. While I understand the concerns, I happen to be a constant optimist. And as a digital media revenue leader, I’m always looking for optimal strategies at the highest level to secure the brightest future.

In that vein, even though AI in general has been around for some time, generative AI rings my “opportunity” bell – unlike many other developments in recent years. And I don’t think I’m alone. It’s not only because generative AI is the latest trending phenomenon but because it’s a resource that delivers applicable convenience spanning virtually all industries.

If you’re a curious optimist like me, you’ve noted GAI’s potential cost and time-saving implications by now. If you’re a futurist, you may have already concluded that AI will become mainstream, embedded within corporate culture, and likely governed in one way or another. It will also continue to evolve.

Yes, I’m fully aware and respectfully conscious of GAI’s prospective danger in infringing upon the authenticity, stylistics, and nature of writing, journalism, and creative arts as we know it. However, glass half full, I’m also confidently optimistic about our ability to address, structure, regulate, and develop solutions for varying segmented conventional concerns.

That said, AI’s current and developmental beta states still hold colossal potential for new applications, especially for those in leading digital media sales or revenue roles. To unfold the magnitude of what GAI could represent for the digital media industry, I took a step back to understand a broader scope of capability to illustrate how strategies may be developed and actualize its role in digital media organizations.

What it can do

If we assume that GAI is here to stay, it would be irresponsible not to consider the ways in which it will impact the revenue side of digital media. What if I told you I’ve seen GAI applications create custom sales scripts in seconds? What If I said GAI could develop cold email communication flows or custom marketing suggestions? Or that it can craft an elevator pitch or presentation about why a prospect should advertise with a specific organization?

If you can feel your chest tighten, believe me when I say I’m only scratching the surface of the impact GAI will have on the business of media. Take a breath. Are you good? Okay, let’s identify how GAI could help digital media revenue strategies by starting at the highest level and eliminating the noise.

What could it represent

A calculator doesn’t diminish the need to understand math; it enhances our ability to output more complex algorithms conveniently. Similarly, as a resource, GAI can improve the output of nearly all matters and tasks related to revenue growth for digital media. Therefore, the most straightforward digital media growth strategy in leveraging it may be to aid digital executives in making more sales.

GAI can help representatives articulate the benefits and features of products or services custom-tailored to specific businesses and industries. It can also create and send emails or assign process tasks that are traditional time and sales focus deterrents.

Once you take a step back and begin to digest the immensity and capabilities of GAI, the reactionary credulous grim outlook begins to wane. It is soon replaced by optimism around the opportunity it offers to enhance varying aspects of an organization, which clears a path for future strategies to formulate and blossom.

What AI’s role could be

Furthermore, I believe the key to leveraging AI, and generative AI specifically, for growth in digital media is custom automation in higher volumes, especially when it comes to sales. AI epitomizes the evolution of automating the proverbial “sales processes” or even replicating the techniques, communication tactics, and follow-up habits of top sales executives.

However, it is important to be conscious, balanced, and diligent so that you don’t fall into a silo of convenience alone. Keep an elevated perspective to implement AI tactics that affect and flow seamlessly throughout the entire revenue department.

The guiding north star in any AI strategy should be to deliver robust, sustainable solutions that enhance all processes and growth opportunities within an organization’s revenue sector and with advertising partners. Add value to products and services by leveraging AI to address advertisers’ specific needs at higher volumes. Don’t send recycled AI-generated communication about the organization’s history to new prospects.

Actualizing through prompting

The balance of knowing how to leverage GAI for growth or even enhancing sales communication and output is going to be important to brand value. As prevailing use cases for AI become more established and widespread, so will the need for understanding how to leverage the best prompts or the phrasing used to initiate a conversation or command with various AI technology.

If adequately equipped and informed, the impact of critical initial engaging touchpoints specific to an advertiser’s needs generated from AI may result in higher close ratios. Prompting may even become a future language or quintessential skill set to propel revenue growth within digital media. This requires the art and creativity in understanding how to position a command or question with AI versus using it to do something just because you can.

For example, the result generated by prompting an AI chatbot to create an advertising sales script for a local restaurant may seem compelling but needs to be more developed to position an organization as a solution provider. Begin with a prompt asking, “what a restaurant’s most important success metrics are” and then follow it up with a request to create a sales script based on that result. The difference should better convey the organization’s commitment to delivering a solution and not simply selling an audience.

Opportunity abounds

Generative AI is still in its early stages and is continuously adapting and evolving because it needs to. Now is the time to begin setting the stage for how digital media can configure and fine tune various applications of generative AI, particularly within the revenue vertical, to support advertising partners, organizations, and communities.

Certainly, AI is not without its flaws. And, much like the evolution of the internet and search engines, mass adoption will take time. The very existence of AI represents and embodies human creativity and ingenuity, and the optimist in me tends to applaud its boldness and innovation. If you’re concerned, you’re not alone, as I firmly believe in thorough risk assessment and evaluations. However, if fear of the unknown is causing hesitancy about AI, then take a breath, and know that we’re all going to figure this out together.

About the author

Richard E. Brown is a News/Media Alliance Rising Star recipient, the former director of renewals and digital sales strategy at LPi, and the former director of digital operations and sales of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He recently served as the head of digital subscriber churn for Gannett | USA TODAY NETWORK and is now the senior director of retention for The Daily Beast. He is also a member of the board of directors for the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation.

Advertising | Featured Post | Perspectives

Will tech’s “signal loss” be our opportunity?

May 11, 2023 Jason Kint, CEO – DCN

In media, “signals” have long driven the business, whether for must-see entertainment or brand-defining journalism. Unfortunately, these signals, which convey value, meaning and relevance, are becoming harder to distinguish amidst the increasing noise of modern digital media. Yet the ability to distinguish between signal and noise is just as important, if not more so, in the age of digital media given the abundance—and velocity—of information.

Today, there are fewer and fewer high-value signals that can cut through the noise without interference. Brands invest upwards of seven million dollars for a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl or six figures to run a page in the September issue of Vogue so that they can send a signal to a large and focused audience, not only about their product, but also make a statement about the significance of their market position. In other words, “we have so much confidence in our offering that we can spend this kind of money to tell you about it.” There is very little noise surrounding these types of advertisements. The message is clear. And everyone makes bank.

However, there are also high-value signals that must compete with endless noise. To see this in action, just take a stroll through Times Square in New York City, one of the busiest and noisiest places in the world, with a constant barrage of sights and sounds competing for attention. Amidst all this noise and the tens of thousands of people rushing about their days, one might think it would be challenging for any brand to resonate. Yet countless companies do just that by spending millions to share their message in this hub of entertainment and commerce. With their brand messages broadcast on LED screens hundreds of feet wide, or plastered on buildings that stretch to the sky, they send an unambiguous signal of value and importance.

The Super Bowl offers one of the year’s must-watch experiences—both on the field and in the ad breaks. The pages of September Vogue overflow with lush photos and unparalleled fashion coverage with ads deftly woven into the fabric. Times Square is one of the most exciting, chaotic, and sense-stimulating places on earth. In every case, the context provides a signal boost: What you see here has value.

In the world of digital media, the rise of the tech giants has allowed them to suppress signals and amplify noise. Amidst the endless content scroll are interchangeable commodities and it’s hard to differentiate between much of anything on these platforms. In many ways, they’ve turned the world upside down by turning traditional signals into something else altogether through their black-box algorithms.

Often these secret signals happen below the surface shrouded in mystery, as seen in the case of the Google search engine. This tool was built in a revolutionary way, using “signals” to sort all the world’s information. This grand innovation offered a way to create structure by ranking a site’s ability to collate high value links around the web. Fortunes have been won and lost in how Google values those signals. Over time, Google matured and evolved into using authority and other proxies to value sites across search and YouTube. The signals favored by this search superpower frequently recalibrate, but we know they are there under the surface, controlling what people see.

Amazon has built the world’s largest retail store where its Prime signal, in a classic flex of monopoly power, has arguably become the most important indicator of whether the customer will buy a product or not. Sure, there may be dozens of vendors offering nearly identical products, but a single signal undeniably tilts the scale.

However, we have also seen that signals can be “lost.” Facebook built what is arguably the most powerful targeted advertising business in history by mining and exploiting data across the web and mobile app ecosystem. Targeted ads have consistently comprised more than 97% of the company’s revenues for more than a decade. This was never clearer than in 2021: When Apple stepped up its privacy efforts, Facebook lost nearly half of its market value, which the company’s CFO attributed to “signal loss.” That loss continues to haunt the company’s fortunes as the company scrambles for a new moat to protect its empire.

The value of signals amidst the noise is also key to the rapid-fire (and controversial) development of large language models, such as those used by Google’s Bard and Microsoft’s Bing to train generative AI. The value of an answer engine will undoubtedly lie in the quality of its results. Therefore, such models must differentiate between things learned through Financial Times versus Reddit, Washington Post versus Twitter, and so on. Although they may claim to treat all domains generically, there is little doubt the source matters. All content is not equal.

As digital technology continues to advance, distinguishing between signals and noise becomes ever more challenging. Like Times Square, the noisiness of the digital world can be stimulating and provocative. However, with so much noise, signals that can convey meaning and relevance to a broad audience have more value than ever.

Media companies must focus on developing strategies that allow them to differentiate themselves and their messaging, so they can send signals that cut through the noise and resonate with their target audience. And they must seek out platforms, partners, and technology companies that fully recognize and fairly compensate these valuable signals as they launch, thrive, and grow into maturity.

Amidst the nearly infinite access to content created by anyone and everyone—from influencer-ally or trusted brand to bot armies and monetizers of disinformation, signal has never been more valuable. Ultimately, the ability to differentiate between signals and noise is essential to success in the digital age, and those who can do so effectively will have a significant advantage, and that advantage will be one shared by the audiences they serve.

7 tips for your subscription bundling strategy

May 4, 2023 Damian Radcliffe, Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism – University of Oregon

In an increasingly crowded and competitive landscape, media companies are constantly seeking new strategies to increase revenue and customer loyalty. Bundling can play an integral part in achieving these goals. By combining multiple products or services into a compelling package, bundling can unlock new subscribers and revenue streams, as well as help reduce churn.

According to Meredith Kopit Levien, Chief Executive Officer of The New York Times Company, bundle subscribers pay more over time and are less likely to cancel. As a result, bundling can support strategies for customer acquisition and retention. Subsequently, it’s currently an area of growing strategic focus for many media companies.

Here are seven features that can strengthen your bundling strategy:

1. Make it financially compelling

You may not realize it, but you’re probably already bundling. Many publishers offer products, such as combined print/digital subscriptions, at a discounted price. These are often attractive to audiences due to minimal price differentiation, and dual access can improve their experience of your product(s).

For publishers, this also opens opportunities to sell advertising across both mediums. This can be especially valuable given the importance of print advertising, and the premium it can demand compared to digital.

The Seattle Times demonstrates this principle by offering a Digital +Sunday Delivery subscription for the same price ($4.99 a month) as their digital-only package. Bundling in the Sunday print edition, complete with home delivery at no extra cost, is potentially very persuasive for readers.

Screenshot *via* *The Seattle Times, 1st May 2023.*

2. Show consumers what they are missing

Alongside appealing pricing, a further tactic media companies can deploy involves highlighting the benefits each subscription tier – or bundle – offers you.

*Screenshot* *via* *The New York Times, 1^st May 2023*

In doing this, publishers typically point to subscriber-only content such as articles, newsletters, podcasts and events, or access to their archives. In many cases, this content is not available outside the requisite subscription bundle. And that’s a benefit that publishers are keen to emphasize.

Interestingly, the New York Times also utilizes a different approach, by stressing what you don’t have access to. This is most explicit for those accessing their news-only package (see below). The FOMO here is potentially very real, making an upgrade to “All Access” seem like good value.

It’s hard to say exactly what role this tactic plays in their continued subscriber growth. However, the company added one million new subscribers in 2022. Commenting on this, CEO Meredith Kopit Levien observes that “with each passing quarter, we saw more proof that there is strong demand for a bundle of our news and lifestyle products, hitting records on both total bundle volume and the share of new subscribers choosing the bundle.”

3. Prioritize building your stack

The cost of living crisis means that many people have less money in their pockets. To offset this, households are looking carefully at their expenditure and cutting back where they can. CNBC reports that Americans are more likely to cut back on groceries and gas than subscriptions. But this headline overlooks how low down the subscription food chain non-streaming content is.

Given publishers’ emphasis on reader revenue and subscriptions, this belt-tightening brings with it a certain vulnerability. To offset this, it is incumbent on media players to ensure that their offering is one consumers feel they cannot afford to cancel.

To help them do this, Greg Piechota, Researcher-in-Residence at INMA, suggests three ways media companies can add value to their bundle: build, buy or borrow.

Using The New York Times as a case study, he charts how the Gray Lady built Games and Cooking; bought The Athletic in 2022 (it costs $7.99 a month to subscribe to independently) and borrowed products in the form of a 2017 link-up with Spotify whereby new All Access subscribers also got Spotify Premium for a year. Bundling in Spotify for free (mirroring a similar initiative by The Times of London in 2014) arguably made their core subscription offerings more attractive to younger audiences. That means it may attract a new demographic of paying subscribers.

4. Flaunt your assets

Alongside the approaches outlined by Piechota, we should also add peacocking. Media companies with deep portfolios can prominently display this to potential suitors (i.e. subscribers) by creating bundles that tap into the sheer breadth of content at their disposal.

We have already seen this in the form of the Disney Bundle, which includes Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. These three content-rich services are considerably cheaper when purchased collectively. The “trio” bundle also comes with ad and ad-free versions too, another model that more publishers can emulate. (NB: ESPN+ comes with ads regardless of the package.)

In Europe, Scandinavian media giant Schibsted has also put this notion into practice. They launched “Full Tilgang” in Fall 2022, a bundle of their Norwegian titles including national, regional and finance news, alongside magazines and their podcast platform PodMe.

For national subscribers, this regional and local content is a potentially useful value-add that they might not otherwise have consumed. It’s a model other companies might look to replicate. twipe reports that Schibsted is rolling out a similar model in Sweden.

*Screenshot* *via* *VG.no* *1st May 2023.*

5. Partner for growth

Of course, not every outlet has the deep pockets – or the smorgasbord of content – enjoyed by The New York Times, Disney or Schibsted. Nevertheless, many outlets can deepen their bundles via partnerships.

These can come in a myriad of different forms. Digiday has outlined how partnerships with non-publisher brands – such as financial and educational institutions – are being employed by The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Business Insider has also followed suit. In 2020 they offered holders of certain American Express cards a free 12-month subscription.

Tie-ins with other business and tech providers can also be seen. Major League Baseball has a long-standing partnership with T-Mobile, providing free subscriptions to MLB.TV (worth $149.99 a year) to T-Mobile subscribers. And in 2014, The Sun, a British tabloid, struck a deal with the UK mobile operator O2 to offer 02’s 4G customers content from soccer’s Premier League that gives them a glimpse of The Sun’s content which, in turn, might encourage some users to become subscribers.

It’s common for publishers to offer bundles with other titles in their stable. The Wall Street Journal offers a package featuring its Dow Jones stablemates Barron’s and MarketWatch. More interesting perhaps are partnerships with other content providers.

In the past, I’ve seen smaller outlets – like my local NPR affiliate KLCC –offer a free subscription to larger publications (like NYT and WaPo) as part of their membership model. For smaller players, this association may bring some extra cachet, or provide an additional incentive to nudge people over the line by taking out a membership or donating.

Even bigger players can successfully adopt this approach. The Weather Channel is a seldom talked about subscription behemoth, with over 1 million subscribers. It recently partnered with several organizations to offer bundles providing “companion subscriptions.” This trend may only become more prominent.

*Screenshot* *via* *the Weather Channel* *1st May 2023.*

Looking ahead – where bundling might go from here?

And what of that future? Given the need for media companies to attract new audiences, as well as retain subscribers and maximize income from them, bundling will remain integral to reader revenue strategies. Here are two further ideas worth considering.

1. Explore different pricing models

In 2019, the advent of dynamic paywalls prompted Piano CEO Trevor Kaufman to ask, “Has AI brought an end to the metered paywall?”. New York Media and Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ, Switzerland) are some of the outlets that have used this model, harnessing variables – such as your location, device type and browsing history – to determine when users hit the paywall.

Taking this to the next level, The Atlantic recently started using this technology to shape the price of their bundles. Dynamic pricing can be used when signing people up and for retention. For the latter, prices for renewal are determined based on the probability of a subscriber’s subscription lapsing.

“It is a concept worth exploring,” suggests Subscription Insider, although they stress the “biggest risk is how consumers will feel if or when they find out about it.” How will consumers feel if they get different prices to sign-up (or stay), each time they click on the site?

*Screenshot* *via* *The Atlantic* *1st May 2023.*

2. Let consumers customize their bundle

At present, audiences are at the mercy of bundles offered to them by publishers. But what if it were possible to build your own bundle?

Let’s say I just want the newsletters and audio provided by The Economist? Or I want to bundle The New York Times’ Cooking and Games subscriptions, getting them for less than two individual subscriptions?

Similarly, if I have a $25 a year standalone subscription to Politics with Charles P. Pierce on Esquire, what If I could cherry-pick additional elements to bolt onto my politics subscription?

*Screenshot* *via* *Esquire* *1st May 2023.*

I cannot do that at present, and this type of choose-your-own-adventure model might be technically tricky. However, personalization could enable me to subscribe to content by topic, writer, location, beat, or sports team that matters to me.

Of course, it may risk cannibalizing the take-up of other more expensive bundles. However, it might also hold strong consumer appeal, especially those for whom existing packaged offers are not compelling enough.

Moving forward, bundling is here to stay, supporting subscription strategies by playing a role in consumer attraction and retention.

Fundamental to this is making your bundle attractive and distinctive from your competitors. Subsequently, adding value to the bundle may well shape acquisition strategies, be that for talent (and the newsletters and podcasts they may front) as well as other properties.

At the same time, consumers need to be attracted by price and value proposition, this includes access to content and services they may not currently consume, but might if it’s bundled in.

The use of free trials, as well as partnerships with other media companies and brands, can be a way to get a customer’s foot in the door. Meanwhile, dynamic pricing and opportunities for personalization could become key tools to keep them there.

By bundling multiple products or services together, publishers and media companies can offer greater value to customers and increase subscriptions. There’s no hard and fast way to do this, but these seven steps demonstrate how all publishers can potentially use bundling to drive revenues and improve customer loyalty.

What your audience thinks of you

April 27, 2023 Eric Schurenberg – Founder, The Newsroom Trust Project

The latest trust-in-media research is not pretty. But it’s not hopeless, either.

It was one of those random-but-when-you-think-of-it-not-entirely-coincidental accidents of timing, ideal for an article lede. The same day that Fox News settled its defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism unveiled the latest installment of research from its Trust in News Project. The Fox case showed just how little Fox journalists deserve their audience’s trust. And the Reuters survey showed just how little our audiences trust the rest of us, whether we deserve it or not.

That Americans have lost trust in news media is not exactly a stop-the-presses revelation. But the new Reuters report adds an emotional overlay to this sorry but well-reported fact by elevating the attitudes of marginalized populations ignored by previous surveys. Suffice it to say that adding emotion doesn’t make the data any less grim. We are losing hearts and minds at a dizzying pace.

Still, there are hints of hope. The research makes clear that even those who mistrust us value the work we do, when we do it well. People still need journalism, and they know it. Out of that fact arise some suggestions for how we might dig our way out. And we must dig our way out.

In case you haven’t been tracking surveys about trust in media—and I don’t blame you if you have been avoiding them—the data has been steadily getting worse for decades. According to a Knight Gallup poll last year, just 16% of Americans have a lot of faith in newspapers and 11% in TV news. Both figures are down about two thirds as compared to 30 years ago.

This time, it’s personal

What does the new research say that we didn’t already know? For one thing, because the Reuters researchers conducted focus groups, rather than taking surveys, the report gathers some arresting personal expression from audiences. In addition, Reuters sought out subjects from groups we journalists don’t often hear from, so the perspectives are sometimes revealingly different (or depressingly the same). In the UK, researchers interviewed working class people in Yorkshire and greater London. In the US, they drew on two separate audiences, Black and rural Americans, both from Iowa. (The research also targeted comparable marginalized groups in Brazil and India.)

Across all these groups, panelists repeatedly said that they felt unseen and unheard by media. In a conversation we had at conversation at the Virginia Local News Summit in April (separate from the survey), Tracie Powell, founder of the Pivot Fund, which invests in BIPOC owned media, offered a poignant example of how that inattention feels. Describing what happened when the big-city press parachuted in to cover a three-fatality traffic accident in rural Georgia, she noted that local Black residents felt that the metro reporters lavished attention on the two white victims and gave short shrift to the Black one. “The Journal-Constitution’s reporting was accurate,” she said. “Accurate—but not true. And everyone in the Black community knew it.”

Professional judgement

When professional media do pay attention to marginalized populations, the focus group participants complained, we tend to highlight the negative—deprivation, crime and racism. “[W]eek after week, month after month, it’s mentally and emotionally exhausting,” said one Black participant. Others believe that we too easily resort to stereotypes. In the other Iowa focus group, for example, a participant told researchers that she felt that coverage of rural America quickly resorted to tropes of “corn fields and pig farms,” and depicting people like her as “a bunch of hicks.”

During a phone call, Benjamin Toff, a senior research fellow at the Reuters Institute and leader of the three-year-old Trust in News Project, said that this highly personal reaction to coverage was a key difference from previous Reuters trust studies. “When you see reporting on some remote issue as sensationalistic, it sparks one kind of judgment,” he told me in an interview. “When the hype involves someone you know and reinforces stereotypes that harm you and your children, the mistrust is a lot more visceral.”

What are we in the profession supposed to do about this? To some extent, we already know the solutions, even if we have not been universally successful at putting them into practice: bring more diverse representation into our newsrooms, develop more awareness of the biases that we unconsciously import when we write about groups less white or educated or liberal then the typical newsroom.

Make the connection

The report also hinted at some more hopeful paths back to trust. Audiences in marginalized groups told the Reuters researchers they want unbiased, fair and accurate coverage of matters relevant to their lives—the same desire other audiences have. Most trust surveys, including this one, show that audiences tend to be suspicious of our motives and shockingly unaware of how we operate. That suggests that we don’t need to abandon our most cherished values; we just need to get them across better.

Joy Mayer, founder of the Trusting News Project, responded to this aspect of the Reuters research in a Medium post, writing (among many other useful suggestions): “If you work hard to be fair, consider articulating what fairness looks like for your newsroom. Get on the record about it. (Take inspiration from the San Diego Union-Tribune’s fairness checklist.) Then draw attention to that commitment day to day.”

Personal connections between individual journalists and their audience can build trust in ways that aren’t necessarily available to media brands. “[The research suggested] that people are much more willing to give individual journalists leeway,” said Toff. “Many are suspicious of the commercial and political agendas they see media institutions pursuing. It’s easier for individual journalists to build trust personally.”

It’s impossible to read the Reuters’ report and not conclude that it will take anything less than a generation for media to rebuild trust, if we can rebuild it at all. But it would also be wrong to conclude that there’s nothing we can do. Even the audiences addressed by the Reuters study—who are not, generally speaking, active seekers of accountability stories—recognize the importance of our role.

To reach them, though, we need to be aware of how they see us and to be humble in our approach. Margaret Talev[1], the long-time White House correspondent and Axios political editor who recently joined Syracuse University’s Democracy, Journalism & Citizenship Institute as director. In a panel two days after the Reuters report Talev said “It’s not enough to tell people they should trust us because we’re good for them.” She said. “We need to meet people where they are and give them what they want.”

About the author

Eric Schurenberg is the founder of the Newsroom Trust Project, a research project seeking solutions to the erosion of trust in media, and the host of the podcast In Reality. Prior to that, Eric was the CEO of Mansueto Ventures, the owner of Inc. and Fast Company.

Generative AI: threats and promise for a new world

April 20, 2023 Chris Pedigo, SVP Government Affairs – DCN

At DCN, we’ve been diving deep into Generative AI – trying to understand what it is and what it isn’t and sort through the implications for professional content creators. We have met with hundreds of executives, tech specialists, journalists, artists, and creators who work within our member companies to create and monetize premium original content. We’ve heard first-hand what the content community is excited about and what gives them pause. Based on these conversations and our own research, we see several topics around Generative AI (GAI) that merit a closer look.

Protection for creators

Generative AI systems need to be designed in a way that respects professional content creators and the value of their IP. Perhaps the biggest concern is the loss of control over the content, in which they have heavily invested. GAI systems train by using digital content such as journalism and photos. However, they also scrape that content for reuse in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes – some of which may undermine the business model of the content creator.

While the scraping of original content for training may seem relatively benign, Generative AI companies will clearly reap huge benefits. The use of premium trusted content helps these systems understand cultural nuances and avoid problems of misinformation and factual inaccuracies. If the old axiom of “garbage in, garbage out” applies, companies profiting from GAI should appropriately value premium trusted content.

That said, scraping of content for reuse seems highly problematic as the creator might lose the ability to distribute and monetize the content as they see fit. We’ve heard stories of Generative AI systems providing subscription content to non-subscribers and amalgamations of general news content without any attribution to the organizations which funded its creation. Stripping content creators of control over their work effectively deprives them of the ability and incentive to invest in new content. It seems like there should be a win-win here where GAI systems fairly compensate and credit professional content creators for their work.

Transparency

Companies that develop GAI systems should be transparent with the public so that we can fully assess the impacts on our society and address the consequences. If Generative AI fulfills its promise, then whole industries and sectors will be radically changed. In particular, consumer experiences with news and entertainment are likely to be upended.

With all that change, intentional and unintentional consequences are likely to occur. Generative AI systems have been shown to be flat out wrong, making up convincing sounding sources or generating “quotes” and articles to back up their responses which may be misattributed to individuals, institutions, or media brands.

There is an open question about the extent that these systems could be manipulated by bad actors looking to flood the public square with misinformation. As anyone can see, the world isn’t a perfect place. And, sadly, the internet is loaded with hateful, harmful speech. More subtly, however, there are conscious and unconscious biases baked into all kinds of reporting and opinion pieces. To the extent that Generative AI systems are training on content they scrape from the web, they may be recycling hate speech or perpetuating biases.

Therefore, allowing these systems to be developed and operate in a black box would invite all kinds of problems without an opportunity to correct mistakes before they run wild. Most of the early legislation around AI calls for transparency so that regulators and researchers can assess the potential impacts and offer solutions before actual harms are committed.

Competition

The tech industry currently has a competition problem – a lack of competition to be exact. While those dominant companies are currently under intense antitrust scrutiny, there is a concern that they may use the hype cycle of Generative AI to wrongly argue that competition exists and that regulators need to back off.

But the reality is that policymakers should be watchful to ensure that major tech companies don’t extend their dominance to the AI market. Generative AI systems are expensive to create and maintain. With such a high barrier to enter this marketplace, there is a danger that the biggest, most powerful tech companies will leverage their position and unrivaled resources to dominate the nascent GAI field.

This same playbook has been used before – Facebook leveraged its dominant position to buy out the competition. Google allocated its search dominance to acquire a monopoly position in the digital advertising infrastructure. And Amazon continues to leverage its position to drive competing ecommerce platforms into irrelevance. We should be careful to ensure that GAI systems aren’t used to maintain or increase dominance in markets and that these systems aren’t self-preferencing services from a handful of major companies to the exclusion of competitors.

TL:DR

Undoubtedly, Generative AI is an exciting new tool that offers efficiencies for artists, journalists, and other creators along with the promise of a bright new future for industries and consumers alike. And these changes are coming fast. Undoubtedly, the speed and scale of the development and deployment of GAI systems will only accelerate.

In the right hands, these new tools could revolutionize the way we interact, create, problem solve and so much more. However, bad actors also have access to these powerful tools. Therefore, problems with competition, misinformation, election meddling, and sabotage are likely to worsen.

As an industry and society, we should encourage the development of ethical guardrails to minimize the harms and maximize the potential associated with Generative AI technologies. In doing so, we can strengthen our commitment to protect consumers and incentivize new and established voices.

The ethical and economic rationale for investing in climate coverage

April 13, 2023 Theresa Cramer – Independent Journalist

The climate crisis is on everyone’s mind. But journalists have an extra burden when it comes to the biggest challenge of our time: telling the story. Traditionally, this has been a tough topic to tackle because it is big, complex, and even polarizing. However, the media seems to have turned the corner when it comes to climate coverage — learning how to walk the fine line between doom and gloom, education, and impact.

Climate coverage: How it started

Reuters’ “Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2023” report reminds us that media hasn’t always achieved the right tone when it comes to climate coverage: “The news media are routinely criticized for covering these stories breathlessly, without joining up the wider dots or following through on the lasting consequences. Others argue that the media have too often treated climate as a discrete subject, rather than as an integral part of wider political and economic decision-making.”

Meanwhile, attempts to present “both sides” of the climate story have ultimately led to a credibility problem and audiences with a distorted perception of the issues at hand. A Northwestern University study “found that false-balance reporting can make people doubt the scientific consensus on issues like climate change, sometimes making them wonder if an issue is even worth taking seriously.”

With the problems clearly articulated, the media has taken note and is adjusting accordingly.

Climate coverage: How it’s going

Better coverage of the climate crisis takes many shapes, but there are some overarching goals. An EBU News report, “Climate Journalism that Works: Between Knowledge and Impact” suggests journalists must help “audiences find the facts, understand the magnitude of this crisis, and discover opportunities to act.” For many organizations, that means dedicating resources to climate coverage.

The Reuters report found that 49% of respondents have created a climate team. Among them is The Washington Post. Speaking at Aspen Ideas: Climate, Sally Buzzbee, executive editor, explained why the Post developed a “Climate Solutions” section. “We’re trying to actually capture what we see as a change in the audience and push that forward to what journalism is needed now,” said Buzzbee.

In order to provide the kind of journalism the world needs now, Austrian publishers “recently got together to create a set of guidelines for newsrooms including the accurate use of language, coverage of solutions as well as problems, separation of fact and opinion, and the creation of resources and structures to support better coverage across disciplines,” according to Reuters. In practice, that’s translating into bigger staffs and a wider lens through which the media is examining the climate crisis.

One of the key ways editorial teams are rethinking how they cover environmental issues is by recognizing the need to find the climate angle in every beat. As the EBU News report puts it, “the protection of our planet and our lives must be the frame through which all of journalism operates—just as it is with democracy or human rights.” And the media has gotten the message. Reuters found 44% of respondents are “integrating dimensions of the climate debate into other coverage (e.g. business and sport).”

Making climate coverage a priority isn’t just a moral imperative, it’s good business. Buzzbee said that she’s seen a shift in recent years and that audiences are hungry for this kind of coverage. On the same panel, Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of The Guardian, said that climate coverage is a revenue driver. In fact, The Guardian noticed readers often donate to the publicly supported organization immediately after consuming content about climate change.

Significantly, organizations like The Guardian also seem to understand the importance of establishing credibility by walking the walk when it comes to climate. Reuters found that 33% of news executives say they have taken steps in the last year to improve sustainability. For some, that means reducing their carbon footprint and putting out a sustainability report. At The Guardian, Viner said they have committed to no longer taking ad dollars from fossil fuel companies, to show readers “we mean what we say.”

Opportunities remain for climate coverage

As the media finally finds firmer footing on this topic, it’s only natural to wonder what’s next. Well, there are still challenges to be met. “People from the climate units keep telling us, the gatekeepers at the news desk pay lip service, but they don’t really get it,” Mark Hertsgaard, Executive Director and Co-Founder at Covering Climate Now, told EBU. “They still think it is optional.”

This may be changing as more newsrooms put together climate teams and instruct every desk to look for climate-related angles to the stories they tell. Still, to break through the noise, journalists should think about better ways to tell those stories. Other Reuters research found that“more people say they pay attention to documentaries (39%) than to major news organizations (33%) for information about this topic. This is the case across all markets in the aggregate, as well as across age groups.” This suggests that there is an opportunity for long-form content that takes the time to deep dive into the intricacies and nuances of climate science. If a documentary is out of the question, think about other visually compelling ways to tell the story.

Reuters also states that, “audiences express more interest, pay more attention to climate change news, and feel more inclined to support journalists taking a stand in places where the direct impacts of climate change are acutely felt.” This makes sense. However, it may also suggest that driving home the story requires journalists to find the local angle. That makes it the role of local journalists especially important in this fight.

Moving forward, news organizations cannot afford to fumble the ball on climate change. Whether you look at it from an ethical or an economic point of view, finding ways to reach audiences with environmental stories is a must for every editor.

“Legacy is a positive word for us”: How TIME thrives on its century-old reputation

April 6, 2023 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Independent Media Reporter

At the beginning of March, TIME celebrated its centenary. A hundred years after the first TIME magazine was published in New York City on March 3rd 1923, the publication has undergone a number of transformations in order to keep up with the rapidly evolving landscape. But its longstanding reputation has also played a part in helping it survive some of the more turbulent conditions in recent years.

Edward Felsenthal has been at the helm of TIME for a decade, including overseeing bringing together the print and digital teams together into one digital-facing presence. Just last week, TIME announced that he will relinquish from the role of editor-in-chief while remaining TIME’s Executive Chairman. Felsenthal believes that TIME’s legacy has played a strong part in helping the title weather the last 100 years.

Changing the narrative around legacy publications

The term “legacy publication” often conjures up an image of a once-great media behemoth which thrived during the ad-rich print heydays of last century. The past two decades has seen many of those businesses struggle to keep up with the break-neck pace of digital publishing, where revenue streams are fickle and the promise of reaching millions upon millions of people often comes with little financial reward.

Some, however, have battled through the early 2000s with enough brand recognition and money in the bank to be able to reshape their businesses – and even make mistakes along the way. TIME’s original parent brand Time Inc was a victim of this period. It was split off from Time Warner in 2013 into its own publicly traded company to allow focus on the print media business. 2017 saw the company acquired by Meredith Corporation for $2.8 billion, while TIME itself was then re-sold in 2018 to Salesforce chairman and CEO Marc Benioff and wife Lynne.

“For people who themselves want influence or to sustain viewpoints or political, cultural or scientific platforms – magazines may be lower cost and also more likely to survive longterm,” commented Flashes & Flames founder Colin Morrison. “You can see that the $190m paid by [Benioff] for the legendary 97-year-old TIME magazine would not get him a newspaper anywhere near as influential – or as likely to be sustainable.

Little remains of Time Inc; the UK version absorbed into Future plc after being acquired and rebranded to TI Media by a private equity firm, and the surviving US titles acquired as part of the Dotdash Meredith merger in 2021.

But TIME magazine continues, with Benioff taking a hands-off approach. Now, the word “legacy” is used by the publisher as a positive description.

“Everywhere you go in the world, people know [TIME], and it means something to them. And that’s special to all of us who work here,” Felsenthal commented. “We have audiences all across the country and across ideological lines, which is increasingly unusual. And then we’re also truly global. There aren’t many publications that are that well known and that are truly global in a way that [TIME] is.”

What a 100-year-old title has which start-ups often don’t get is audience trust. “Trust is so valuable and increasingly rare in our world,” said Felsenthal. “We’ve got 100 years of it that nobody can replicate.”

Felsenthal has worked on legacy brands like Conde Nast and the Wall Street Journal as well as co-founding digital news site The Daily Beast, which launched in 2008. “We all thought the future [was] these digital start-ups,” he told us. But now, many of those same pureplay digital media brands are struggling.

“Part of what we’ve seen in recent years is that legacy is not a bad word. It’s a good word. It’s a positive. Of course, there’s plenty of room for exciting, innovative new players. TIME emerged as an innovator in 1923 – it was the upstart of its day, and there is plenty of room for that. But I think we’re seeing the value of legacy media players, because legacy in many cases – and I think certainly in our case – means trust, and trust is valuable and rare.”

Thriving as a generalist publication

TIME’s long standing reputation also helps it stand out in a market which newer players have found very difficult to build audiences in: generalist publishing. Many of the digital pureplays ended up caught in the “mushy middle” as Digiday once branded it: not quite niche enough to be essential to a small group of readers, but not quite big enough to compete at scale. TIME’s legacy has meant it has avoided this particular trap with a global – and more importantly – a loyal audience.

“We are at the center of… a fast expanding, complex information ecosystem. We are many things. We’re news, yes. But we’re information,” Felsenthal explained. “There are a lot of publications that are specifically about business, or specifically about health, or specifically about entertainment in Hollywood. We are about everything. We are a guide, we are a trusted guide to the world around us and into events as they unfold.”

This plays out particularly in TIME’s event strategy, where the appeal to attendees is less in deep verticals and more in meeting a wide range of people. It’s an area Felsenthal said TIME’s owners have encouraged expansion.

“What’s particularly special about our events is that we bring together people from across the globe and from across fields,” he noted. “There are lots of events where the actors are all together, or events where the athletes are all together, or the business people are all together.

“Our events, because of the nature of our brand, bring together athletes and astronauts and activists and scientists and political leaders and business leaders, and they have the opportunity to share learnings. Because every problem today is multi-dimensional, multi-sector.”

Felsenthal believes that TIME’ secret sauce is in drawing all this together: the brand’s long history and the trust it has built up over 100 years, the credibility a legacy like that brings, and also appealing to such a wide range of people. “We have the power to bring those people together,” he said, in no doubt that the title will be around to celebrate its 200th birthday.

This article originally appeared on Media Voices and was reprinted with permission.

Why the FT chose to deliver its new MBA course via newsletter

March 30, 2023 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Independent Media Reporter

As publishers look to take advantage of the newsletter boom, news is not the only thing on their minds. Email offers a direct delivery method for all sorts of content and the FT is among those leveraging newsletters as a way to offer educational content to inform and engage audiences.

The Financial Times launched its first newsletter course last month; MBA 101. The free six-week email series, which starts whenever a reader signs up, is aimed at anyone interested in applying for a Masters of Business Administration. It is written by Global Education Editor Andrew Jack and Content Editor Wai Kwen Chan, and guides participants through the process of applying for an MBA, from choosing the right course to getting funding.

Engaging younger readers

A free newsletter course may not be an obvious starting point for a publication which has one of the hardest paywalls in the industry. But part of the reason why the FT chose the MBA admissions topic for their first course was because it aligned with their existing successful MBA rankings program.

Although the top-level rankings are available to view for free, prospective students can register for a profile to compare programmes they are interested in, as well as see key statistics on diversity, career progression, course tuition fees and more. Signing up to the MBA 101 newsletter course also creates a registration for an MBA rankings profile, which keeps the link between the two products strong.

Ultimately though, the end goal is to convert MBA rankings and MBA 101 registrants into full FT subscribers. Because the majority of the target audience for this course are likely to be students already–or soon to become students–each of the newsletter editions also contains a link to the FT’s heavily discounted student subscription.

Emily Goldberg, US Newsletter Editor for the Financial Times led the new project. “We know that newsletters boost engagement among our readers, and that they’re a really great way to promote retention,” she said, explaining why they chose to go with email delivery. “Since the course is available for free, it has the potential to reach new readers, draw them into the FT and then keep them engaged and involved.”

Balancing information delivery

Given the expectation of internet users that information is available instantly, the idea of releasing a course in stages via email is a strange one. The team thought carefully when they were putting the course together about what made most sense for this particular topic.

“We ultimately decided that a weekly cadence would promote habit, which is what we want with a newsletter,” Goldberg said. “This is also a very action-based and practical newsletter. So by spacing things out weekly, we thought it would give readers a chance to engage with the content, read the content, figure out how they might be able to apply it to their own lives, which strategies work best for them, and give it a try before we send them the next piece of information. It means we don’t overload them, and give them a good balance.”

Breaking the content down into chunks also helps meet one of the FT’s key aims of the project: making the course practical. “It’s a much better learning experience to do something like this in chunks,” Goldberg commented. “Otherwise we could just throw a textbook at someone.”

The course is primarily text-based and has been designed with mobile readers in mind. This is particularly important when reaching younger people, who Goldberg says are far more likely to read course content on their phones. “Anything that we can give people that they can consume in a digestible way is definitely something we thought about in putting this course together that’s clear and action-oriented,” she said.

There are, however, plenty of links to other content, including recordings of an event that Global Education Editor Andrew Jack ran with other FT journalists and admissions professionals working at business schools. One part also includes a template that students can use themselves in networking outreach, reinforcing the practical nature of the course.

The importance of evergreen content

The FT is not the only publisher to have courses delivered by newsletters. The Wall Street Journal has a range of ‘Challenge’ series, from the ‘WSJ Money Challenge’ newsletter to the ‘WSJ Healthy Habits Challenge’ which range from four to six weeks each. The Washington Post also has a selection of limited-run courses delivered via email. ‘A Better Week’ runs for just seven days and aims to help participants free up time, while ‘Bold School’ releases smart advice on how to approach life after 50 with two emails a week across 12 weeks.

For other publishers looking to deliver courses via email, the subject area is crucial to get right. “One of the qualities that you need for a good course is that it needs to be something relatively evergreen,” Goldberg noted. Unlike traditional daily or weekly email newsletters, these courses will start and finish at the same point whenever the participant signs up.

Where next for the FT’s newsletter courses

Engagement is a key success criteria for the MBA 101 course. The early signs are positive for the publisher. “We’ve already seen success with the open rate and click-through rate in these emails which is above average,” Goldberg outlined. She explained they use a verifiable open rate to combat the challenges presented by Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection, and are seeing an almost 60% open rate of the initial welcome letter, which is sent a day after someone signs up for the course.

Longer-term success criteria is ultimately more subscribers to the FT. If younger readers and students take out the student subscription and the course is able to boost awareness of the FT with a younger demographic, then it will have been a great success.

As part of this, registrants are encouraged to reply to the business school email address throughout the course if they have any feedback or questions. They also send out a survey halfway through the course and at the end of the course so readers can share their experience.

MBA 101 is just a month old, so the newsletters team will be carefully evaluating the results to see what they can optimize and improve. The course is not directly monetized at present, although the team are exploring sponsorship opportunities. It’s a model that Goldberg could see transferring easily to other topics across the FT, as well as potentially standalone paid newsletter courses.

“Anything that is actionable and that our reports can provide as an area of expertise [would work for a newsletter course],” she said. “That’s what made this course such a success is that the writers of the course, Andrew Jack and Wai Kwen Chan are talking to admissions professionals and university administrators all the time. So I think anytime that we can teach our reader something and they can take action off the back of would be a good fit.”

Newsletter courses are a straightforward enough concept. They capitalize on a trend which ultimately drives habit, quality and loyalty. But the subject area needs to be carefully aligned with a publisher’s brand. In the FT’s case, there are so many potential topic areas which they could expand into, this will no doubt not be the last course launch from the team.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Featured Post

The PPA makes a push for shared best practices in DE&I efforts

March 23, 2023 Charlotte Ricca – Independent Media Reporter

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) are three words (or letters) that are increasingly seen and heard in the media industry. According to recent research from Reuters Institute a third of respondents feel that ethnic diversity and gender equity are the most important priority in terms of improving their newsroom’s diversity.

As a result, media businesses large and small – from legacy media to start-ups – are working on strategies to create an inclusive workforce, which reflects and represents the diversity of the population. They are also focused on creating more inclusive content that reflects and represents the diverse needs of their readers.

However, it is this very diversity that the media is trying to embrace, which can create silos within the industry. With such a broad range of content, consumed in a variety of ways, the industry is increasingly divided. As a result, rather than sharing best practice, there is a lack of communication and collaboration between different businesses.

Fragmented landscape

This is one of the challenges facing Sajeeda Merali who took over as chief executive of the PPA (Professional Publishing Association) in September 2021. She came into the role following senior sales director and commercial roles at Incisive Media, Euromoney and The New Statesman Media Group.

“There are so many different types of businesses in the ecosystem it has created a fragmented landscape,” says Merali. “So when I first joined the PPA we spent a lot of time trying to pin down what links them together. And it all comes down to content.

“Whether they are large multinational consumer titles, B2B publishers, or special interest independent titles, is about creating trusted content, in different formats, on different platforms for different communities. That’s what brings this diverse membership together.”

In a bid to ensure the UK publishing industry is serving all of these communities, and championing diversity and inclusion, the organization set up the PPA ED&I Working Group. Its aim is to share best practice with current members and also encourage a more diverse membership.

“There are some really interesting publishing brands coming up through ranks, who are serving niche communities,” says Merali. “We are actively doing more to attract these micro publishers in order to engage with them in the ED&I sphere.”

Its inaugural initiative was to invite all media publishers to participate in what it claims was the first survey industry-wide survey of workplace diversity and inclusion. A total of 5,786 people took part, from 44 different companies.

“The report provided us with essential data to better understand the barriers and challenges faced by different groups,” states Merali. “By bringing our industry together with this landmark survey, we can provide a snapshot of our workforce and create meaningful actions to support and improve current ED&I initiatives across the industry.”

Other research, such as the aforementioned study by Reuters and the BBC’s 50:50 Project, are also collating and using data as the foundation of actionable change.

Future leaders

One imminent action by the PPA is to launch a “Next Gen Board” that will help shape the future of the industry. The board will consist of 15 members aged under 30, from diverse backgrounds, and with a minimum three years’ industry experience.

“We want to literally create a seat at the table for the diversity we have across the landscape,” explains Merali. “Plus it’s a great opportunity for young and aspiring talent to gain board experience and work alongside some of the best in our business. The PPA Next Gen Board is creating a pipeline of future leaders.”

This collaborative effort of sharing best practice will benefit publishers of all ages and backgrounds. Older members will gain from the new board’s experience and knowledge of diversity, while the PPA Board will gain first-hand experience of operating at board level, with the support of industry mentors.

“Traditionally, there has been a lack of access to information across the industry,” explains Merali. “This is why we need a variety of voices and role models. Otherwise it just becomes a protest. We need to bring everyone with us on the journey, by making people comfortable with discussions around these topics.”

“Through all the different platforms we are using we can reach over 85% of the UK population. We can use the power of our collective network to shape the narrative in the industry.”

It is by using the industry’s collective power, gathering data and sharing best practice, that the publishing industry can cultivate an environment of inclusivity and fundamentally shift representation within the media.

Succession: 5 ways to ensure a smooth leadership transition

March 16, 2023 Damian Radcliffe, Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism – University of Oregon

This month sees the return of one of my favorite TV shows: Succession. The HBO series focuses on the internal battles at a fictional media organization as the children of its aging patriarch jostle to take over. Though imaginary, its characters and storylines could be ripped directly from the headlines, and numerous media and business dynasties have been cited as inspiration. Showrunner Jesse Armstrong refuses to name names, though, telling Variety, “there’s loads of succession stories to draw on.”

That’s the truth. Changes in leadership, and the departure of long-standing founders, are definitely not just the stuff of Emmy-winning dramas. Everyone has experience with this. Unfortunately, this experience is often “shit-tastic,” says Amy L. Kovac-Ashley, author of the News Executive Leadership Transition Guide, which was published last week by the Reynolds Journalism Institute.

Because changes in leadership are inevitable, it’s an area all media companies need to face head-on. So, how can they improve their succession planning and processes for organizational change? With that in mind, we spoke to Kovac-Ashley – Head of National Programs at the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, – about her research and some of the transferable lessons from it.

5 principles for smooth leadership succession

Here are five principles and behaviors that media leaders and organizations should put into practice.

1. Take time to reflect

The best leaders are self-aware, says Kovac-Ashley. They know what they want and what their organization needs. Ideally the two are aligned. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Pace of change, and the speed of day-to-day operations, means that individual and organizational priorities evolve and shift.

Yet it can be hard to recognize this, given the constant “urgency and crisis” that many media leaders contend with. “We don’t take enough time to reflect and think and sit in the quiet to really make good decisions,” Kovac-Ashley says.

As a result, it’s important to make time to step-back and evaluate. “I think that a lot of individuals have a hard time doing that. [So] you get founders or others not providing what the organization needs, because they haven’t had the time to reflect on their own contributions.”

Once they carve out the time, there are several mechanisms to help leaders tackle these big personal and organizational questions. These instruments include reflecting on your own drive and motivations, harnessing performance evaluations and checking in with trusted friends and advisors. Executive coaches can also play a valuable role.

2. Acknowledge leadership needs can change

The continued transformation of the media landscape means that the best leader for a company at one point in time is not necessarily the right one for the future. You might need new skills. Or a leader might find they are no longer firing on all cylinders.

Again, this is an area where self-awareness is a strength good leaders possess. In this case, that means “knowing whether what they are offering, and doing, is what the organization needs at this point in time and [in] its development,” Kovac-Ashley says.

Operational health and organizational longevity require this type of reflection and analysis. On occasion, leaders must accept they may not be the best fit for their company anymore. After all, as Kovac-Ashley reminds us, in a lesson applicable to leaders everywhere, “no one wants to tell the founder, it’s past time for you to be here, right?”

In those circumstances, “people have to kind of get out of their own way and out of the way of the organization when they realize it’s time to go,” she says. Whatever happens, “the best outcome here is that you have a smooth transition,” Kovac-Ashley contends.

3. Start by planning for emergencies

It doesn’t matter what your business model is, leaders will always come and go. The universality of this reality means that Fortune 500 companies, family owned, non-profit, legacy and alt-media outlets alike all need to be thinking about this issue and taking steps to prepare for whenever change comes.

Knowing where to start may seem daunting, so Kovac-Ashley recommends planning for emergencies. “Because an emergency can happen at any time,” she says, “as we all experienced during Covid.”

This means preparing for the unpredictable: a sudden death or health crisis (either of a leader or a member of their family), and “because somebody is being removed because of poor behavior.”

“Emergencies can come in a lot of different packages,” Kovac-Ashley explains. To help organizations prepare for these types of unforeseen circumstances, her guide features a detailed list of worksheets. These cover areas such as designating a temporary success, and operational areas such as personnel, governance and finance. She’s also “eager to know what’s missing,” and encourages DCN readers to reach out with suggestions and recommendations for improvement.

The need to capture this type of information is particularly important at a time of increased remote working, she notes. It’s especially valuable in the early days of a company when systems and processes can be embryonic and often only understood by one or two people. Transparently breaking down – and sharing – workflows, ownership and processes can also break down organizational silos, Kovac-Ashley says, as well as enable systems to work better.

4. Don’t rush to find a replacement

Too often people want to rush to find a new CEO or other leader, and that may be a mistake. “Scrambling isn’t going to get you the best outcome,” Kovac-Ashley says, instead urging organizations to pause, rather than hiring too hastily.

The board – and the organization – require time to evaluate their needs and explore a range of options. That might mean hiring an interim head, or exploring opportunities to implement a co-leadership model – approaches that are typically underutilized across the media industry.

It might also mean ascertaining if a leader really needs to leave at all, or if some “time out” is what’s needed, rather than a departure. Sabbaticals aren’t common in the media industry, and they’re not a panacea, but they are an effective part of academic or religious professions. These are fields Kovac-Ashley believes that the media can learn a lot more from.

Avoiding dashing headlong into hiring also matters when organizations are trying to diversify their leadership too. Failure to do so may make it harder for these new, more diverse, leaders (such as women and people of color) to succeed. Pausing can avoid “essentially giving them an organization that’s broken and saying ‘you fix it’,” Kovac-Ashley says, “when that’s completely unfair.”

5. Involve your staff throughout

To help leaders see the full organizational picture, Kovac-Ashley recommends performance evaluations incorporate 360-degree feedback. These “can be really helpful for people who are willing to actually listen to their staff,” she says. “Hopefully, they have created an environment in which their staff feel they can be honest about what’s working and what’s not.”

And when leaders depart, she advises that personnel from across the organization are involved. “I have a very strong point of view about this, that maybe others won’t share, which is fine,” she says.

As part of this, Kovac-Ashley advocates listening sessions with staff and incorporating them in the interview process. That doesn’t mean giving them veto power over an appointment, but ensuring they have input.

“Once you start to get into finalist candidates, I think one or two people from the staff, depending on the size of the organization, of course, need to be part of that process,” she advocates. And “I also think staff need to be more involved in the onboarding of new executives, because a top-down approach in onboarding does not bode well, for good culture.”

Looking Ahead: why everyone must start preparing for change

The need for succession planning will only grow, Kovac-Ashley believes. Just as the Great Resignation has seen many people re-evaluating what they want from the world of work, it’s also triggered a spike in similar reflections at the C-Suite level.

Kovac-Ashley notes how leaders at organizations founded at the start of the Great Recession (such as Politico, The Texas Tribune, and award-winning local site VT Digger) have recently stepped aside. Many of these founders have moved on to new opportunities or decided to retire. The Covid crisis was often cited as the tipping point for making these life-changing decisions.

These moves have been accompanied by further personnel transformations across other parts of the industry. Mergers and acquisitions, for example, have meant leadership changes in multiple media organizations. Alongside this, founders frequently discover that their passion lies in the start-up phase rather than managing a more mature business. That can be especially true for younger leaders.

“A lot of younger founders don’t necessarily want to be there for 30-40 years,” Kovac-Ashley says. “They’re really excited about starting something… and getting it on to a good footing, but… they might want to go on and do something else.”

This issue is not going to go away, either. “Every single organization that’s launching today is going to have the same issue going forward,” Kovac-Ashley reminds us. “And because of the way the industry is changing, there’s going to be more and more smaller entrants trying to figure out how to sustain themselves beyond their founding stage.”

Leadership transitions can be tumultuous times for organizations. However, change is inevitable and succession planning is a critical process for all publishers. From emergency planning to encouraging leaders check in with “their personal board of directors,” there are clear tips and guidance to help media companies prepare and to ensure they don’t need to start from scratch.

This matters, because many of the factors that prompted Kovac-Ashley to explore this topic look set to continue. Covid has refocused many people’s work-life priorities, and leadership changes will only be further triggered by continued M&A activity, lay-offs, (overdue) conversations about burnout, and a greater focus on issues of mental health and well-being.

As a result, the need to plan for leadership changes and manage effective transitions, are areas that no media organization – large or small, new or established – can afford to overlook.

Media execs weigh risks, challenges of generative AI

March 14, 2023 Jessica Patterson – Independent Media Reporter

For a decade, artificial intelligence (AI) has enabled digital media companies to create and deliver news and content faster, to find patterns in large amounts of data, and engage with audiences in new ways. However, with much hyped recent announcements including ChatGPT, Microsoft’s next-gen Bing, and Meta’s LlaMA, media outlets recognize that they face significant challenges as they explore the opportunities the latest wave of AI brings.

In this second story in our two-part series on the evolution of AI applications in the media business*, we explore six challenges that media outlets face around AI tools, from the misuse of AI to generate misinformation, errors and accuracy, to worries about journalistic job losses.

Misinformation

While it has been used by media companies for various purposes over the last 10 years, AI implementations still face challenges. One of the biggest is the risk of creating and spreading misinformation, disinformation and promoting bias. Generative AI could make misinformation and disinformation cheaper and easier to produce.

“AI language models are notorious bullshitters, often presenting falsehoods as facts. They are excellent at predicting the next word in a sentence, but they have no knowledge of what the sentence actually means,” wrote Melissa Heikkilä for MIT Technology Review.

Generative AI can be used to create new content including audio, code, images, text, simulations, and videos—in mere seconds. “The problem is, they have absolutely no commitment to the truth,” wrote Emily Bell in the Guardian. “Just think how rapidly a ChatGPT user could flood the internet with fake news stories that appear to have been written by humans.”

AI could also be used to create networks of fake news sites and news staff to spread disinformation. Just ask Alex Mahadevan, the director of MediaWise at the Poynter Institute, who used ChatGPT to create a fake newspaper, stories and code for a website in a few hours and wrote about the process. “Anyone with minimal coding ability and an ax to grind could launch networks of false local news sites—with plausible-but-fake news items, staff and editorial policies—using ChatGPT,” he said.

Errors and accuracy

Julia Beizer, chief digital officer at Bloomberg Media, says the biggest challenge she sees around AI is accuracy.

“At journalism companies, our duty is to provide our readers with fact-based information. We’ve seen what happens to our discourse when our society isn’t operating from a shared set of facts. It’s clear AI can provide us with a lot of value and utility. But it’s also clear that it isn’t yet ready to be an accurate source on the world’s information,” she said.

Thus far, AI content generators are prone to making factually-inaccurate claims. Microsoft acknowledged that its AI-enhanced Bing might make errors, saying: “AI can make mistakes … Bing will sometimes misrepresent the information it finds, and you may see responses that sound convincing but are incomplete, inaccurate, or inappropriate.”

That hasn’t stopped media companies from experimenting with ChatGPT and other generative AI. Sports Illustrated publisher Arena Group Holdings partnered with AI startups Jasper and Nota to generate stories from its own library of content which were then edited by humans. However, there were “many inaccuracies and falsehoods” in the pieces. CNET, which also produced AI-written articles and came under scrutiny for factual errors and plagiarism in those pieces.

Francesco Marconi, longtime media AI advocate and co-founder of AppliedXL, said that though AI technologies can reduce media production costs, they also pose a risk to both news media and society as a whole.

“Unchecked algorithmic creation presents substantial pitfalls. Despite the current uncertainties, newsrooms should monitor the evolution of the technology by conducting research, collaborating with academic institutions and technology firms, and implementing new AI workflows to identify inaccuracies and errors,” he said.

Search traffic

Generative AI applications like ChatGPT have the potential to eat away a portion of publishers’ search traffic by generating answers without requiring a user to visit a news website.

“The introduction of generative summaries on search engines like Google and Bing will likely affect the traffic and referral to publishers,” Marconi said. “If search engine users can receive direct answers to their queries, what motivation do they have to visit the publisher’s website? This can impact news organizations in terms of display ads and lead generation for sites that monetize through subscriptions.”

Filter and context

The amount of data and information created every day is estimated around 2.5 quintillion bytes, according to futurist Bernard Marr. With the rise of generative AI models, the growth of information available to digital media companies and the public is exponential. Some experts predict that by 2026, 90% of online content could be AI-generated.

It presents a new challenge, according to Marconi. The explosion of data from IoT has created a world where there is too much of it. “We are now producing more information than at any other point in history, making it much more challenging to filter out unwanted information.”

A significant challenge for journalism today is filtering and contextualizing information. News organizations and journalism schools must incorporate computational journalism practices, so that journalists are also responsible for writing editorial algorithms in addition to stories.

“This marks an inflection point, where we now must focus on building machines that filter out noise, distinguish fact from fiction, and highlight what is significant,” Marconi said. “These systems are developed with journalistic principles and work 24/7 to filter out irrelevant information and uncover noteworthy events.”

Replacing journalists

AI-powered text generation tools may threaten journalism jobs, which has been a concern for the industry for years. On the other side is the longstanding argument that automation will free journalists to do more interesting and intensive work. It is clear, however, that given the financial pressures faced by media companies, the use of AI to streamline staffing is a serious consideration.

Digital media companies across the U.S. and Europe are grappling with what the potential of generative AI may mean for their businesses. Buzzfeed recently shared that it planned to explore AI-generated content to create quizzes, while cutting a percentage of its workforce. Last week, CEO of German media company Axel Springer Mathias Doepfner candidly admitted that journalists could be replaced by AI, as the company prepared to cut costs.

There is a valid concern regarding job displacement when considering the impact of AI on employment, Marconi agreed—with a caveat. “Some positions may disappear entirely, while others may transform into new roles,” he said. “However, it is also important to note that the integration of AI into newsrooms is creating new jobs: Automation & AI editors, Computational journalists, Newsroom tool managers, and AI ethics editors.”

Potential legal and ethical implications

One of the other biggest challenges digital media companies and publishers will face with the rise of AI in the newsroom are issues around copyright and intellectual property ownership.

ChatGPT and other generative AI are trained by scraping content from the internet, including open-source databases but also copyrighted articles and images created by publishers. “This debate is both fascinating and complex: fair use can drive AI innovation (which will be critical for long-term economic growth and productivity). However, at the same time it raises concerns about the lack of compensation or attribution for publishers who produced the training data,” according to Marconi.

Under European law, AI cannot own copyright as it cannot be recognized as an author. Under U.S. law, copyright protection only applies to content authored by humans. Therefore, it will not register works created by artificial intelligence.

“AI’s legal and ethical ramifications, which span intellectual property (IP) ownership and infringement issues, content verification, and moderation concerns and the potential to break existing newsroom funding models, leave its future relationship with journalism far from clear-cut,” wrote lawyer JJ Shaw for PressGazette.

Questions remain

While AI is not new, it is clearly making an evolutionary leap at present. However, while media companies may have been slow to adopt technology in the early days of the internet, today’s media executives are keen to embrace tools that improve their businesses and streamline operations. But given the pace at which AI is evolving, there’s still much to learn about the opportunities and challenges it presents.

Currently, there are some practical concerns for digital media companies and large questions still to be answered, according to Bloomberg’s Beizer. She questions how the advancement of these tools will affect relationships: “If we use AI in our own content creation, how should we disclose that to users to gain their trust?”

Wired has already made the first step by writing a policy that places clear limits on what they will use AI for and how the editorial process will be handled to ensure that a quality product is produced.

Beizer also poses the question of “how publishers and creators should be compensated for their role in sourcing, writing and making the content that’s now training these large machines?”

While in some eras, media companies have been swept along with the tide of technological change, with AI media executives are clearly grappling with how to embrace the promise while better managing the impact on their businesses.

*Part 1: Are we entering the age of artificial journalistic intelligence?

Are we entering the age of artificial journalistic intelligence?

March 9, 2023 Jessica Patterson – Independent Media Reporter

From simple chatbots to generative content creation tools, artificial intelligence has become a force to be reckoned with for digital media companies. But while interest has heated up lately, artificial intelligence (AI) has already been employed by media companies for about a decade. Among other things, AI has long enabled journalists to analyze large amounts of data, extract insights, and identify patterns and trends. It also offers ways to engage audiences through personalized experiences and recommendations.

However, while it is not a new phenomenon, AI has come a long way since 2014 when some of the first media companies started using it for journalistic purposes. In this two-part series, we explore the evolution of AI use in the media, what’s different now, the opportunities that it offers publishers, as well as challenges including the misuse and abuse of AI, errors and accuracy, and concerns about job losses for human journalists.

AI + journalism

The news industry has witnessed three phases of AI innovation over the past decade: automation, augmentation, and generation, according to Francesco Marconi, computational journalist and the co-founder of real-time information company AppliedXL. “During the first wave, the focus was on automating data-driven news stories, such as financial reports, sports results, and economic indicators, using natural language generation techniques,” Marconi said.

In that first wave, AI offered a way to free journalists from menial or repetitive tasks so they could engage in more complex, high-impact, and investigative journalism. It was touted as a way to save organizations time and money by automating the production of certain types of news stories based on data.

For example, The Washington Post used its in-house automated technology Heliograf to cover weekly high school football games in Washington, D.C. and The Associated Press used AI to automate quarterly earnings reports – generating more than 3,000 stories per quarter compared to just 300 previously.

During the second wave, the emphasis shifted to augmenting reporting through machine learning and natural language processing to analyze large datasets and uncover trends, Marconi explained. AI was a tool for journalists to use to analyze large amounts of data, text, video and images, to help them identify trends, patterns or outliers.

During this period, digital media companies also began experimenting with chatbots to help journalists tell stories differently. Chatbots simulated human conversations by responding to specific questions with pre-programmed answers. Early examples included Harvard Business Review’s Slackbot, and AccuWeather’s chatbot for Facebook Messenger that took questions from users and provided weather-related answers.

AI today

The third and current wave is driven by the AI generative movement, powered by large language models, which are capable of generating narrative text at scale.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3 was trained on massive amounts of text (large language models), which it scraped from the internet. This allowed it to learn the patterns and structures of language to “make educated guesses based on the words you’ve typed previously.” ChatGPT reached 100 million users in January, two months after its launch. Not wanting to be left behind, Google released its own AI chatbot called Bard Facebook announced its AI large language model called LlaMA, and search engine DuckDuckGo has announced DuckAssist.

In recent days, digital media companies have been experimenting with and examining how they can use ChatGPT and generative AI. Last month, Jim Mullen, chief executive officer at Reach PLC, told the Financial Times his company had set up a working group to examine how the tool might be used to assist journalists to write short news stories or compile coverage of local weather and traffic.

For media companies that have used AI for years, this new crop of AI has been interesting to watch. While ethical and quality uses are well-established, some of the current applications are still a work in progress.

One early adopter, Bloomberg Media, has used AI for more than a decade. Their deployment uses natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to extract information from documents, including detecting people, companies and organizations found in the text of their stories. In addition, they also extract insights to help reporters find news about companies or sectors they cover.

“Like most consumers, I’ve been enchanted by the latest crop of AI tools. Tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney are showing us how much creativity these tools can unlock,” said Julia Beizer, Chief Digital Officer at Bloomberg Media.

“But alongside the enchantment, I’ve felt a fair bit of unease. These are early, very public experiments and we are seeing in real time how easy it is for unproven tech to get the facts wrong. This should be a reminder to all of us – particularly those of us in the journalism business – how important the work we do is,” she said.

The difference in today’s AI

For digital media companies, AI is different now for a number of reasons. Newer generative AI models have broader capabilities because of increased computational power, which means models can process larger amounts of data faster. There have been improvements in NLP, which has allowed AI to generate more nuanced language.

And, in recent years, AI tools have become more accessible for digital content companies. The current crop requires far less tech savvy and investment because they’re open-source.

“Initially, AI in the newsroom was limited to big newsrooms with significant resources,” explained Marconi. “However, with the widespread availability of AI infrastructure, such as open-source models and APIs, the technology is now accessible to every newsroom. This broad accessibility will also bring major challenges as the news industry rushes to adopt new standards and workflows.”

Bloomberg’s Beizer believes that the big difference right now is creativity. “The best technology feels like magic. It fades to the background so all you’re left with is the experience. ChatGPT is a simple interface over one of the most powerful pieces of technology we’ve seen,” she said.

So what’s new?

Given the leap forward in ease of use, AI may create new opportunities for those willing to adapt and innovate in this rapidly changing landscape.

“The economics of the media business are changing dramatically. AI has substantially reduced the cost of production” such as including editing, story writing, and creating multiple versions. “But newsgathering and fact-checking still necessitate specialized knowledge and infrastructure that technology companies lack,” Marconi said.

He added that media companies have an opportunity to become a major player in the AI space. That’s because they possess valuable assets for AI development: the text and image data for training models and ethical principles for creating trustworthy systems.

Advances in technology have disrupted the media industry for many years. According to Beizer, generative AI is only the latest chapter. “What I believe has changed this time around is that we are now mature digital companies with digital businesses to protect and grow. This time around, I have no doubt that our industry will rise to the occasion of thoughtfully exploring this disruption from all its angles – and setting the right strategies for our businesses and quality content to flourish,” she said.

Opportunities ahead

There are valid concerns about whether generative AI will be used to flood the market with content in the future. However, reputable media outlets will find that there are responsible applications of AI that will actually allow them to double down on the quality of their journalism and provide better content recommendations and experiences.

For Beizer, the biggest opportunity at the moment is “focusing our companies on what matters most: our customers… In this moment, we should lean even harder into building direct relationships with those users, getting to know what they want and delivering that value. We have the biggest opportunities in the kind of differentiated value that a chatbot cannot provide – analysis, novel points of view, human connection, nuanced reporting and writing. We should deprioritize anything that isn’t that. The future of our business depends on it,” she said.

However, as AI becomes more sophisticated, there are other promising applications for journalists. Imagine an AI-based tool that could help with large projects that newsrooms could never have enough staff to do, or one that checked facts, style, and grammar.

Marconi sees the evolution of AI in recent years as the foundation for the next phase of AI in journalism, which he believes will come to fruition over the next decade. He calls it artificial journalistic intelligence, where machines are able to automate news gathering and production, resulting in improved accuracy, efficiency, and impartiality, he said.

“Nonetheless, humans will continue to play a significant role. Creating editorial algorithms requires human supervision. As a result, in this new era, transparency and auditing of algorithms will become critical functions of newsrooms in the future,” he said.

PART 2: Media execs weigh risks, challenges of generative AI

In part 2, we look at challenges and concerns around generative AI, including the misuse and abuse of AI, errors and accuracy, legal and ethical issues, and concerns about job losses for human journalists.