Thursday 11th May: The benefits of AI for local media

Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Esther.

Do you have a report, event or anything else you'd like to get in front of our audience of publishing and media professionals? Try our self-serve system to book this slot!

The benefits of AI for local media

In recent samples from our Practical AI for Local Media report, we've explored the myths and misconceptions surrounding AI, and what AI projects look like in practice. In this third article, Peter draws together how the different publishers he spoke to are using AI in their organisations.

There's rightly a lot of concern about how AI tools might be implemented to replace journalists. But as each of these publishers emphasised, that shouldn't be the case in a healthy newsroom. Cynthia DuBose gave an example of McClatchy's coverage of Hurricane Ian in 2022, where they used AI to scrape data from the National Hurricane Center to quickly create and update articles.

“That’s not really journalism,” she said. “Our journalists reported evacuations, city preparedness, other efforts. That’s journalism that cannot be replaced by a robot.” It's an important distinction we mustn't lose sight of.

The New York Times will get around $100 million from Google over three years

Simon Owens made a great comment about this: "It's kind of bullshit that Google, on the one hand, argues that it's allowed to index and link to content for free because of fair use, but then it just hands out huge payments to select major publishers...for what?... It's annoying that the company undermines these very principles to pay off rent seekers who can make the loudest noise. The NYT is a great publication, but it's no more deserving of that money than I am."

The Athletic’s live audio rooms bring sports talk radio into this century

Now THIS is a really interesting (and seemingly successful) use case for live audio. The Athletic have identified a 'media hole' which forms in the wake of big sports games, where people are craving content about what they've just watched, but reporters are busy interviewing and writing stories. Postgame is where The Athletic's writer-hosted live rooms shine. Yes it's sports talk radio, but "a little bit more accessible to people in the 21st century."

Rural news readers are more open to new revenue ideas

Small-town newspaper publishers are more likely to stick with traditional income sources like ads and print subscriptions, but readers are more open to alternatives like memberships, newsletters and events, according to a study conducted in four states in the northern Great Plains. Is this a case of readers saying they'll pay for something hypothetically when publishers know they won't in reality, or is there a genuine disconnect here?

More from Media Voices

Read: What does practical AI look like for local media?

Some local media organisations have been benefiting from AI for years. I explore what it looks like in practice in this extract from our new report, Practical AI for Local Media.

Listen: Practical AI - Lessons from local media

Our special Practical AI podcast documentary explores how local media organisations have got started with AI projects, the benefits they’re seeing, the challenges they’ve faced and what advice they would give to other publishers looking to get into AI. This episode and our corresponding report have been made possible with the support of United Robots.