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On this week’s episode of Big Noises from Media Voices we hear from media analyst Shirish Kulkarni. He takes us through news innovation and inclusion projects, from journalism AI to community journalism, focusing really on how these can be used together to serve people who currently don’t see any value in journalism.
He explains why news avoidance is a rational response to the current news ecosystem, and how news outlets that say ‘we need people to trust us tomorrow’ need to have a good long look at themselves.
“There are all kind of irrational choices that the industry is making. Because there are easy wins to be made, but there’s a kind of inertia, stasis, a kind of central conservatism, to the industry,” Kulkarni argues. “I think in a way that’s a hangover of the golden age of newspapers when the business model did work… It’s a panic now, and no one knows what to do.”
Meta has said it will begin to restrict news on its platforms to Canadian consumers after parliament passed a controversial online news bill. It did the same thing in Australia back in 2021 but reinstated news content after talks with the government led to amendments. We still maintain this kind of compensation requirement is bonkers, and publishers will hurt far more from this move than Meta.
Our friends at Di5rupt have just launched their latest Mx3 Leadership report on specialist media innovators in Europe. The report highlights European specialist media, focusing on the innovations and trends driving it forward. I haven’t had chance to read it yet as I’ve spent the past fortnight enjoying new baby snuggles, so this summary from WNIP has been helpful as a taster.
This is a very cool early-stage project – it doesn’t cover less formal local news outlets yet but no doubt will if it gets enough support. It’s been released to try and highlight areas that are underserved. Although we don’t have news deserts as severe as other places like the US, tools like this can really help show where effort and funding is needed most.
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