Wednesday 10th January: Nic Newman's journalism, media and tech trends & predictions for 2024

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Nic Newman’s annual journalism, media and tech trends report for The Reuters Institute came out yesterday. Considering everything from search and platform referral traffic to news avoidance, the impact of AI and Generative AI on newsrooms, business models and trust looms large over this year’s look forward.

The mood among the 300-plus digital news executives surveyed for the report is not particularly cheery; less than half said they were confident about journalism in the year ahead. Nic tweeted, “Existential threats from AI are a big factor along with declining advertising revenue, and a slowing of subscription growth.”

Interestingly, use of AI is focused on back-end news automation; 56% of responding publishers said that would be the most important use of the technology. Publishers are cautious about using AI in content creation, where the reputational risk is considered high. That won’t stop the tsunami of crap though and with a bumper crop of elections worldwide, get ready for a wild ‘synthetic content’ fueled ride in 2024.

Media Moments 2023

• AI: Media companies grapple with practical and ethical questions amidst the generative AI boom

• Newsletters: Newsletter portfolios shrinking as publishers look to consolidate reader engagement

• Print: Inflation increases pressure on newsprint, but magazine publishers are still finding niches

A long-running IT scandal that saw hundreds of innocent people wrongly convicted of fraud against the postal service has been getting a lot of attention here in the UK. A TV drama has sparked a huge public outcry around the case, leading to a fresh police investigation. But as Charlotte Tobitt points out here for Press Gazette, the original story was broken by trade magazine Computer Weekly almost 15 years ago.

Axios is reporting that Word in Black, a media startup incubated within the Local Media Foundation, has officially incorporated as a public benefit company. Why does that matter? Axios says it could serve as a blueprint for nonprofit media organisations that are looking to scale other local media collaboratives. You can find out more about Word in Black’s mission in Esther’s interview with COO Andrew Ramsammy from February last year.

Is it OK to shout about appearing on Monocle’s magazine podcast, The Stack? Hell yes it is! Joanna and I are on the show’s first episode of 2024 talking about Grub Street. Outside of getting to sit in the radio studio at Monocle’s Midori House (so cool), listening back to our interview has made me appreciate all over again how much difference a super-tight edit can make to a podcast.

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