Journalism Today. 13 Jan 2025

By Eduardo Suárez and Marina Adami

🗞️ 3 top news stories

1. Have you explored our new report on media trends? Last Thursday we published our annual report on the trends shaping journalism in the year ahead. Authored by our own Nic Newman and Federica Cherubini, it is based on a survey of 326 media managers from 51 countries and territories. Our findings suggest publishers will invest even more money and resources in AI, either negotiating deals with AI companies, applying this technology to save money or transforming the way they produce their journalism. | Read · Lee en español

• One interesting data point. Reader revenue remains the biggest revenue focus (77%) for publishers, ahead of both display (69%) and native advertising (59%). The majority are now relying on three or four different revenue streams, including events (48%), affiliate revenue (29%), donations (19%), and related businesses (15%). | More from us on the business of news

2. Bloomberg editor on how AI will transform journalism. A new essay by Bloomberg News editor John Micklethwait looks at eight ways artificial intelligence might transform journalism in the years to come. The piece explains that around one-third of the 5,000 stories Bloomberg News produces every day include some form of automation. They’ve used AI to build an algorithm to find how oil was smuggled out of Iran and to provide 3-bullet summaries for every news story. 

What does he predict? Borrowing a phrase from Bloomberg data journalism chief Amanda Cox, Micklethwait describes Large Language Models (LLMs) as “infinite interns” and thinks they’ll become increasingly useful for many newsroom tasks. He predicts the change is likely to be greater for editors than for reporters, and will change journalists’ jobs more than it will replace them. Micklethwait thinks that AI will increase the amount of pieces newsrooms will create and that breaking news will still be very valuable but for smaller amounts of time. 

• What about search? Search, he predicts, will soon be disrupted and give way to a new ability to interrogate the internet and get concrete answers, instead of sorting through a bunch of links.

The real value proposition. “An AI summary is only as good as the story it is based on, and getting the stories is where the humans still matter,” he says. “The machine can’t persuade a cabinet minister to tell you that the chancellor has just resigned; it can’t take a chief executive for lunch; it can’t write an original column or cajole an interviewee into admitting something on air.” | Read the essay

• The bottom line: “As long as we focus on original reporting, on writing stories that people in power don’t want us to publish or that tell us something new about the world, and we do that without fear, favor or bias, we will do well,” writes Micklethwait at the end of his piece.

💡 Explore our own work on AI and the future of news in this link

3. NewsGuard founder defends its work. NewsGuard’s co-CEO Steve Brill defends the work of this rating system for news websites in a new piece. Conservative voices in the United States have repeatedly attacked NewsGuard and presented it as some kind of left-wing “censorship cartel”. Brill defends NewsGuard’s reliability scores as “apolitical” and expresses his concerns about government’s interference in journalists’ work. | Read

• A key quote: “In this country, the one audience journalists should never have to defend themselves to is a group of government regulators. It is, or should be, a core value binding us as Americans. Beyond narrow exceptions, such as those related to national security, the government should have no role in judging content, let alone attempting to chill or block it,” Brill writes.

💡 Three readings on social media turmoil: 

• A thorough account of Zuckerberg’s actions and the motivations behind them by Kate Conger, Mike Isaac and Sheera Frenkel. | Read
• A good essay by media lawyer David Allen Green on social media companies’ fundamental weakness. | Read 
• The New Yorker fact-checking chief Fergus McIntosh on the promise and limits of this discipline in his magazine and beyond. | Read

📊 Chart of the day

🚨 Should platforms be held responsible for misinformation? Platforms should be held accountable for showing potentially false information to users, according to significant majorities across countries included in our recently published report on platforms. In South Korea, these proportions were the highest, with 79% of respondents saying video networks should be held responsible and 77% for social media platforms. In the USA and Germany, the proportion believing messaging apps should be held accountable for false information is lower, despite still representing over half of respondents. | Read the report

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☕ Coffee break

German and Austrian academic institutions leave X due to changes to its algorithm since Elon Musk took over the platform. Several universities have announced the decision following the departure of other institutions including teachers’ trade unions and the German Federal Court of Justice. The German government is considering leaving the platform. A recent Reuters survey showed UK universities have also scaled back on X or quit it altogether. | Read

Cuts to BBC local broadcasting leave gaps in coverage that may be filled by unreliable information from social media, as was the case for riots in Plymouth last summer, where the broadcaster’s local radio station had little focus on the events. The BBC’s response to a complaint about its coverage acknowledged “elements of systemic failure” but also attributed some of the blame to “logistical problems” with staffing and kit. | Read

The Texas Tribune is focusing on in-person events and more local coverage in a bid to attract readers. The nonprofit newsroom aims to prioritise audience needs also through short-form videos, public service information about air quality and collaborations to reach Spanish-speaking communities. | Read

Two journalists started a library of free video footage for news reports. Sanshey Biswas and Manon Verchot, co-founders of the journalism training initiative InOldNews, built a library of free-to-use, Creative Commons footage. | Read

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Are you our next Director? The University of Oxford is seeking a new Director of the Reuters Institute. They will have the strategic vision, academic credentials and public engagement skills to ensure the Reuters Institute continues to thrive. Applications close Friday 17 January, 17.00 UK time. | Find out more and how to apply

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📚 One piece from our archive

A Spanish news startup for young people, by young people. In a recent interview with Marina Adami, Mar Manrique described how the new outlet she cofounded aims to differentiate itself. Watif, a newsletter and podcast-based project, aims to build community for young people and avoid overloading them with information they don’t need. | Read

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