Thursday 23rd November: How William Reed will use generative AI tools

Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Peter.

There’s just two weeks to go until Mx3 AI; a live event in London from Media Voices and Media Makers Meet. The full agenda is now live, so if you’ve been sitting on the fence, take a look at how local news orgs, nationals, magazines and B2B publishers are getting to grips with AI.

I know there’s all sorts of OpenAI shenanigans still going on but trust me, this is a much more useful story AI-wise. John Barnes, chief digital officer at William Reed, has shared on LinkedIn that the 160-year old B2B publishing group has produced a policy document - 'How William Reed will use generative AI tools' - to help staff and customers understand its approach to, and use of AI tools.

The document was created after the PPA released its members-only report on ‘Generative AI considerations for the specialist media industry’. One of the key recommendations of the report was that publishers develop their own guidelines ‘tailored to the specific needs of the organisation and audience’.

We’ve previously highlighted guidance released by big international consumer brands like Wired, but this is one of the first policy documents I’ve seen from a mid-market B2B publisher in the UK. The guidance is a nice, straightforward read and focuses on two areas of AI use - efficiency and effectiveness - and, crucially, on governance.

Coincidentally, John Barnes will be speaking at Mx3AI on December 7th.

This is an interesting international take on the Telegraph sale. The auction of the Telegraph and Spectator titles has been paused after an Abu Dhabi-backed consortium pledged to provide loans to the Barclays to allow them to pay off their debts to Lloyds Banking Group. More interesting though is the idea of the former president of CNN running the paper and expanding into the US, said to be short of a centre-right news title. The Telegraph, centre right. That’s funny.

Iconic men’s magazine Esquire has a whole cross-platform content package planned to celebrate its 90th birthday and - OMGFG!!! - that includes a short documentary on the writing of ‘the greatest magazine story ever written’, Gay Talese’s ‘Frank Sinatra Has a Cold’, published in 1965. Out later this month, Esquire’s video team interviewed Talese, now in his 90s, in his Upper East Side apartment. I. CANNOT. WAIT.

In my latest column for the International Magazine Centre, I talked about print covers and social media. For me, the most senior editor on a title should control everything content related, but working very closely with the other talents on the team. “From positioning to posting on social media, a magazine team needs to be singing the same song, but with different voices. The editor’s job is to make sure their harmonies are spot on.”

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