Friday 17th November: Consumers prefer human-created news (duhhh)

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There’s just three weeks to go until Mx3 AI; a live event in London from Media Voices and Media Makers Meet. We’ll be featuring sessions on AI in local, national, consumer and B2B media, as well as discussions on innovation, developments and regulation.

Only a day after it was reported that The Telegraph had told its journalists that use of generative AI in their copy would be treated like plagiarism, the Media Leader is reporting that the majority of UK consumers would prefer humans to report the news over AI. On the one hand, quelle surprise, no shit, etc. etc. On the other hand, also quelle surprise and no shit etc. etc.

“With both a UK and a US election scheduled for next year, these are considerable concerns for the media industry. Indeed, nearly two thirds (64%) of the UK believe AI-generated content would increase the risk of misinformation ahead of a future political election, rising to 73% of those aged over 55.”

Nothing in there is surprising, but it is validation of The Telegraph’s decision to eschew AI in the actual creation of copy. Look, it’s inevitable that generative AI is going to be used to streamline some of the rote aspects of reporting, particularly in sport and financial news. But I think that as we go into 2024 ‘written by humans’ is going to become a selling point for newspapers keen to differentiate themselves and telegraph(!!!) their quality. And, although I was unfortunately unable to attend, this was an idea echoed by Esther in her closing remarks at news:rewired earlier this week.

It’s funny, I pitched a piece yesterday about exactly this — albeit from a broader perspective than media. That said, if I could have I would have pitched the solely media-focused article because, as Brian Morrissey makes very clear, the need to move away from discounted subscriptions and trials in service of Big Number Subscriptions is especially critical in media.

It’s good to get the occasional snapshot like this, because this time next year the proportion of people getting news from Facebook will be very different. The reaction I’ve seen has mostly been from people arguing that you need to fish where the fish are, which explains why some publishers are investing in TikTok and Snapchat.

Oh hey and speaking of - here’s Adam Tinworth taking a look at how publishers can and should be approaching their presence on TikTok. It’s undeniable that TikTok is a great way to reach audiences (unless you’re in Nepal) but there are nuances relating to the fact that its parent company is Chinese and that it is, you know, a third-party platform, that publishers need to consider.

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