Good morning! Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Esther. Our own Peter Houston is out in Cascais at FIPP Congress over the next few days representing Media Voices – say hi if you see (or hear) him!


Thanks to Glide Publishing Platform for sponsoring this newsletter. Glide is an industry-leading SaaS tailored to let publishers do more and spend less by removing CMS costs and problems. Publishers using Glide direct more resources at their audiences and products, and focus on building things that make them money. You do the content, Glide does the management.

Glide have created 3 expert guides to getting much more from a new or headless CMS, created for editorial, technology, and product teams. You can get the whitepapers here.


How regional newsrooms can use AI to protect the ‘lifeblood of local journalism’

 

I hate headlines like this because, as we outlined in our Practical AI report, some local publishers have been using AI productively for years. Generative AI, which this piece is actually about, has obviously come a long way in the last 6 months. I wonder though, will the principles of implementation in local newsrooms follow the same trajectory as automated reporting, or will the open nature of these models mean more mistakes are made as well as opportunities?

When Peter spoke to the five publishers we used as case studies in the report about generative AI, all of them were quite cautious. The general consensus seemed to be that they would wait and see where it was needed rather than forcing use cases.

Will that have changed over the past months? I was quite shocked to read that as per a WAN-IFRA survey, half of newsrooms are already deploying generative AI in some form or another. As many have said, there’s huge potential for these tools to free up journalists to do ‘proper’ local reporting rather than pumping out stories for traffic targets. But fast, thoughtless adaptation will inevitably result in cost-cutting and casualties among the very people generative AI could be helping most.


 

Streaks and offline puzzles: The power of gamification in news apps

News media companies have always understood the power of games and gamification to drive recurring behaviour.

Twipe have brought together some case studies of publishers taking puzzles and games to the next level, including using streaks and stages for gamification, and simply making puzzles available offline. Nice to see some examples that aren’t just the New York Times, but I still don’t know of many smaller publishers trying it (if you know any, tell us!)


 

‘Deeply personal and very authentic’: how podcasts took over the world in 20 years

Since the first podcast was released two decades ago this month, the medium has upended pop culture in countless unexpected ways.

A fun, beautifully written long read from the Guardian about the history of podcasting through a UK lens. Far more entertaining than reading about Spotify layoffs.


 

Big tech platforms’ market power is “significantly overestimated”, new paper finds

As more countries eyeing up their own News Bargaining Code, platform repayments could damage innovation and consumer interests

The ‘Pressing Matters’ paper finds that the market power of platforms like Meta and Google is ‘significantly overstated’, and that existing repayment mechanisms in place in Australia (and being adopted by others) could both stunt tech platforms’ development and do long-term harm to consumer interests.


More from Media Voices

 

Big Noises: Amy Kean on why media needs more weirdos

Amy Kean talks about about fear, ego, jargon and how to spot a good weirdo rather than someone that’s going to be an HR problem.

 

Report: Practical AI for Local Media

Find out how AI can help publishers take care of work that humans can’t so they can use the time saved to creating valuable commentary and analysis.

 

Platforms don’t owe publishers a living, but they do owe them compensation

The Public Interest News Foundation’s Jonathan Heawood explains why the tech giants should be compensating publishers, and which models would work.

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