Nieman Foundation at Harvard
If you’re interested in Canadian media — and who among us is not — you probably already listen to Canadaland, the flagship show of Jesse Brown’s growing podcast empire, which dives into the nation’s journalism issues. I was happy to appear on the show to talk digital news strategy in 2016, and Jesse just had me back for today’s episode, where — contrary to the doom and gloom that accompanies most discussion of the technology’s impact on the media.
Well, I’m not going to say we avoided doom or gloom entirely — but we did get to have a fruitful discussion of some of the more tech-forward ways the industry is changing. In particular:
— Will blockchain meaningfully change the fundamental questions about how we journalism gets funded? (I’m skeptical.)
— Will AI and bots replace reporters? (Maybe on the fringes, but they’re mainly for scale and speed.)
— What is Apple News planning? (Dunno, but I’m hopeful the mobile OS companies can play a more useful role in news than Facebook does.)
It’s a fun conversation, and I hope you’ll give it a listen here.
