In September of this year, Mattia Peretti, manager of JournalismAI, stressed to stressed-out journalists that “AI is not stealing your job.”
But with show-stopping releases like ChatGPT and DALL-E, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for not just writers, but also art departments, to feel like their jobs as they know them are safe for long.
So what’s a person committed to this art and craft of journalism to do in order to future-proof their careers? I predict (hope) that folks should invest heavily in what AI can’t do: care.
The activist, scholar, and poet Maya Angelou famously said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
It’s easy to forget that every interaction that journalists and other newsroom staff have with the public — be that sources, readers, viewers, members, subscribers, commenters, etc. — is an opportunity to influence people to feel something.
Journalism isn’t just extracting information and molding it into formats and products. There is always a by-product of a relationship — whether that’s between journalist and source, organization that’s reported on and newsroom, community that journalism is about and community that journalism is for. To neglect the fact that every interaction carries its own kind of psychological metadata that adds up to shape how people experience the world, your newsroom, and you, is to not wield the power that’s actually most in your control: how you show up.
Showing up is not a matter of just being present, physically or virtually, to witness and record. It’s actually an extremely sophisticated and subtle combination of thoughts, intentions and behaviors manifested into action.
I hope that in 2023, journalists will begin asking themselves questions like:
To quote another powerhouse, Gloria Steinem, “If you want people to listen to you, you have to listen to them. If you want people to change how they live, you have to know how they live. If you want people to see you, you have to sit down with them eye to eye.”
So, until the people you’re interviewing, reporting on, and serving are sitting down eye-to-AI with your newsroom, here’s a list of opportunities, made a little more whimsical and approachable as a bingo board than a bullet-pointed list, that I’m hopeful more real-life humans of newsrooms will invest in 2023 and beyond. (Get a PDF copy with links here.)
I can only imagine how the trust barometer that Americans have in their news sources could be positively lifted if the millions of interactions and touchpoints that any given newsroom has in the course of a year were consciously caring.
What would it take for you to orient your interactions to ensure the people you engage with, report on and report for, get the signal that you and your newsroom really care?
I predict that, in 2023, journalists will consult more often with the piece of technology they carry on their person 24/7: Their brains. For quality control, they should always get an edit from their hearts.
Thanks to SRCCON:CARE for the brilliant conference on care in journalism, and for inspiring the collaborative session called “Curiosity As Care” with Mónica Guzmán that led to this post.
And for a metric ton of inspiration, check out this fresh guide from Free Press.
Jennifer Brandel is the CEO of Hearken.
In September of this year, Mattia Peretti, manager of JournalismAI, stressed to stressed-out journalists that “AI is not stealing your job.”
But with show-stopping releases like ChatGPT and DALL-E, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for not just writers, but also art departments, to feel like their jobs as they know them are safe for long.
So what’s a person committed to this art and craft of journalism to do in order to future-proof their careers? I predict (hope) that folks should invest heavily in what AI can’t do: care.
The activist, scholar, and poet Maya Angelou famously said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
It’s easy to forget that every interaction that journalists and other newsroom staff have with the public — be that sources, readers, viewers, members, subscribers, commenters, etc. — is an opportunity to influence people to feel something.
Journalism isn’t just extracting information and molding it into formats and products. There is always a by-product of a relationship — whether that’s between journalist and source, organization that’s reported on and newsroom, community that journalism is about and community that journalism is for. To neglect the fact that every interaction carries its own kind of psychological metadata that adds up to shape how people experience the world, your newsroom, and you, is to not wield the power that’s actually most in your control: how you show up.
Showing up is not a matter of just being present, physically or virtually, to witness and record. It’s actually an extremely sophisticated and subtle combination of thoughts, intentions and behaviors manifested into action.
I hope that in 2023, journalists will begin asking themselves questions like:
To quote another powerhouse, Gloria Steinem, “If you want people to listen to you, you have to listen to them. If you want people to change how they live, you have to know how they live. If you want people to see you, you have to sit down with them eye to eye.”
So, until the people you’re interviewing, reporting on, and serving are sitting down eye-to-AI with your newsroom, here’s a list of opportunities, made a little more whimsical and approachable as a bingo board than a bullet-pointed list, that I’m hopeful more real-life humans of newsrooms will invest in 2023 and beyond. (Get a PDF copy with links here.)
I can only imagine how the trust barometer that Americans have in their news sources could be positively lifted if the millions of interactions and touchpoints that any given newsroom has in the course of a year were consciously caring.
What would it take for you to orient your interactions to ensure the people you engage with, report on and report for, get the signal that you and your newsroom really care?
I predict that, in 2023, journalists will consult more often with the piece of technology they carry on their person 24/7: Their brains. For quality control, they should always get an edit from their hearts.
Thanks to SRCCON:CARE for the brilliant conference on care in journalism, and for inspiring the collaborative session called “Curiosity As Care” with Mónica Guzmán that led to this post.
And for a metric ton of inspiration, check out this fresh guide from Free Press.
Jennifer Brandel is the CEO of Hearken.
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Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
David Cohn AI made this prediction
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Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
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Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
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Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
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Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
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Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
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Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
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Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
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Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
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David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
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Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
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Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
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A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
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Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
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James Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
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Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
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Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
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Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
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Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
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Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
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Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
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Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
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Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
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Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
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Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
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Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
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Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
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Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates