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How AI Is Reshaping Media and Journalism · The FIT4Privacy Podcast | Exploring ISO Standards AI Privacy | Grow Skills Store

• 0:00
  How do you see the space of technology, AI and so on?
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  Because in the media, in news, there's no news without AI,
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  There's no conference without AI, there's no talk show without
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  AI. But how do you see this space of
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  technology and AI? Yeah, it's interesting.
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  So I, I think coming from a writing background, so, you
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  know, I was one of those sort of artsy kids when I was very
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  young. I wanted to tell stories.
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  I spent a lot of time writing in journals and I think a lot of
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  people can relate to that. When you love reading and
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  writing, it usually starts at a very young age.
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  So that was me and I, I knew I wanted to be a writer and
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  specifically I wanted to be an investigative journalist and
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  sort of change the world with my words.
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  You know, over the course of the last 20 years, like I went to
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  journalism school in the middle of social media just becoming a
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  thing, even online journalism, when I first started, I think I
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  started journalism school in 2008 and there really wasn't
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  even like we were still just looking at newspapers and
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  television and radio. And in 2010, so we're only
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  talking about 15-16 years ago, there was a shift in the
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  journalism world into online journalism and it became
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  something you could actually study.
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  And at the same time, very, very soon after that, you started
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  seeing a reduction in funding and a reduction in jobs in more
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  traditional print media. And then with social media, you
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  see almost everyone in a way, as a journalist, anyone with a cell
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  phone can record what's happening in front of them and
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  put it online in, in like a journalist would, right.
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  And so the, the whole world of journalism and media over the
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  last 15 years has completely shifted and changed.
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  You also get now really you're, you're trying to get eyeballs,
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  you're trying to get clicks. So the, the whole media world is
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  around just getting someone to click.
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  And what that means is that there's a huge amount of
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  emphasis on a headline even more than 15 years ago.
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  Because the headline, the 1st 5 words, that's what people read,
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  that's what people see. And that's the impression that's
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  gonna, or any image as well. That's what's gonna make them
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  click on it. And so with artificial
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  intelligence, I think specifically for the media world
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  and we can get into, you know, being a, a writer and using AI
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  as a writer as well. But for journalists and for
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  media outlets, they're able to now use artificial intelligence
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  to help get those eyeballs in an even more, you know, efficient
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  way, which ultimately is how they make money is through
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  click, getting clicks and getting eyeballs.
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  So that's a really interesting conversation in and of itself.
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  But the other part of it is so, for example, I think the New
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  York Times and a few others now have subscription where you have
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  to pay a monthly amounts. You might see a headline in the
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  first paragraph in a newspaper when you click on an article
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  online, but then they won't let you see the rest.
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  And I think the New York Times is even more, you know, you,
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  you, you have to pay in order to even read any, any of the
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  article, which is a fascinating turn of events where it's now a
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  pay to play and people are willing to spend money for real,
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  you know, quote unquote, real, authentic, written, investigated
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  journalism and subscribe to that service and sort of drown out
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  everything else which is trying to get a click or for free or,
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  you know, probably largely now utilising AI.
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  So it's, it's really interesting.
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  I think, I think we're in a time, a period in time, and we
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  have been for the last 15 years where things in media and
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  journalism are really shifting and changing.
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  They have been, they continue to and the way that people make
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  money and the way what success looks like, both for an
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  individual writer and individual journalist and also for
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  organisations and companies. I think the, the definition of
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  what that looks like including profits is changing all the
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  time. And there's, I will say also a
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  real push and pull, almost like a tug of war between
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  advertising, which is essentially what where where
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  you're trying to get someone to click, you're trying to get that
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  eyeball the click bait. You're really getting paid
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  through ads. So it's an advertising profit
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  model versus a subscription model, which is no ads, you
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  know, and then leaning into that more authentic real, you have to
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  pay in order to get into this private club kind of experience.
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  So yeah, I think I think it's fascinating.
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  And Meta now like social media large like Meta is the name,
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  right? I think their ad like I I talk
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  about this in my book a little bit.
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  I did. I did a deep dive on revenue
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  because same with media, it goes into AI just in general as a
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  topic. How are large language models
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  gonna make money, right. How?
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  How are organisations gonna make money?
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  And advertising continues to be at the top of that.
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  And that absolutely is true with media as well.
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  And that's not new like you might have picked up.
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  Maybe you see them sometimes, like lifestyle magazines, like
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  Metro News is an example. In the UK and Canada we have
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  Metro News, essentially a free newspaper, a free magazine.
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  It's not free, it's ads. Nothing is free.
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  Nothing. Is free.
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  All about ads. It's all about, as you rightly
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  said, grabbing attention, gaining the eyeballs and getting
• 6:00
  them to click. And you mentioned the New York
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  Times trying now to make that click a paid click because you
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  have to subscribe. And so you give in the story,
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  you get the attention, and as the person gets interested,
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  maybe you'll read a few lines and then you have to pay.
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  And that's where it's getting tricky.
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  And you mentioned earlier that when you had a maternity leave
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  and then when you came back, you were fascinated by this topic of
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  artificial intelligence and how it's advancing, and you did some
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  research. What did that research that you
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  do about this artificial intelligence revealed to you
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  broadly, apart from the things you already shared in a
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  nutshell? Yeah, so as I mentioned, I, I
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  come from this background of, of wanting to be a writer my whole
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  life. I'm, you know, my degree is in
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  journalism and theatre. I play the violin.
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  I studied philosophy and undergrad.
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  I, I'm, I was always sort of the artsy kid, you know, I and I
• 7:06
  feel like coming into this world we live in now.
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  And especially as you say, I went on a maternity leave in
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  2004, which I, it felt like to me at the time I went on
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  maternity leave, AI didn't even exist.
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  Like large language models. Chach BT was not in common
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  conversation. And then I returned to work last
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  year and it was everywhere, right?
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  And so I almost missed, it felt like to me at at the time, I
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  missed the transition, like it was like all or nothing.
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  And in the year and a half that I was off, that happened.
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  And so when I, when I went back to work, it was 2000.
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  It was, yeah, 2023 when I went on maternity leave.
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  And I went back to work late late 2024 coming into 2025.
• 7:53
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• 7:58
  Links are in the description. Thanks for listening.