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- Wednesday 1st March: The rise of the AI Editors
Wednesday 1st March: The rise of the AI Editors
Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Esther.
Just a note to say that our own Peter Houston will be at The Publishing Show at ExCel in London today - if you're also going, do say hello! He's interviewing Esther Newman, Editor of Women's Running about her advice for other podcasters at 11.30am on the 'Audience & Marketing' stage.
If I told you I was an AI Editor, what would you assume I did? Edited articles produced by AI, or had AI as my reporting beat? I assumed the former and opened this piece expecting to learn more about the FT's plans to integrate AI-generated content into the newsroom.
However, what the FT has actually done is dedicated a reporter entirely to the AI beat. Madhumita Murgia is the publisher's first-ever artificial intelligence editor, tasked with leading coverage and providing advice and expertise to other FT reporters.
That last part is especially interesting. AI is increasingly going to touch all aspects of our lives, so having a dedicated correspondent who can collaborate with others to enhance expertise across their global newsroom is a smart idea. But what job title will they give to the inevitable 'editor of AI-produced articles'?
Chris Phin has written this excellent feature for InPublishing looking at how podcasts should be seen as an integrated part of publishers' strategic plans. There are some thoughts from Yours Truly too, which Phin has managed to translate from a rambling pre-Christmas email to something that makes more sense.
Password sharing and the extent to which it affects publishers was something we discussed on the podcast a few weeks ago. Now, media analyst Thomas Baekdal - who has his own Baekdal Plus membership scheme - dives deeper into the issue drawing on his own experiences. For B2B publishers, this must be a huge issue. But the solutions are more complicated too.
This article is over a year old, but someone added it to our shared articles area on Pocket and there were some real gems in it so I thought I'd share. My favourite is that the best metric is replies. We've had some really thought-provoking ones this week, so here's a little reminder that you can reach all three of us by simply hitting 'reply'. Agreement always welcome, dissent more so 😉.
This week we hear from Bonnie Kintzer, CEO of Trusted Media Brands – which includes brands like FailArmy, Family Handyman, and Reader’s Digest. She tells us about the opportunities she saw to turn around the company when it was facing bankruptcy in 2013, how the business has weathered some of the storms of the past decade, and why she thinks it’s vital to focus on where the audiences are regardless of platform algorithms. She also explains why a ‘re-start-up’ mentality helped TMB get ahead.
