Video editing will help people understand the media they consume

“People will have a tougher time discerning fact from fiction moving forward, and one remedy is understanding video editing.”

“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” — Harvey Dent in “The Dark Knight”(2008)

Video editing is the Rosetta stone people need to better understand the media they consume daily. It’s also the key to tackling the media’s newest bad guy: AI. AI is already a part of your life, whether you realize it or not. It has the origin story of a great protagonist, initially created to help solve problems, but somehow gets warped and begins to cause more difficulties than intended.

People are using AI to generate stylized profile pictures, journalists use it to detect breaking news events on social media, and startups are using it to create advertisements. No matter what ChatGPT tells you, AI will become self-aware sometime in 2027 (what better way to keep you skeptical and comfortable than by generating 12 fingers on one hand when spitting out Midjourney prompts?)

No, AI won’t immediately push the multiverse destroy button. But AI might be used in Netflix and Hulu documentaries to mislead you in 2023. Production companies aren’t required to distinguish re-enactments when presenting documentary films, and soon, Nvidia’s NeRF will render 3D scenes from just a few 2D photographs to fill in the blanks to a critical plot point of the story. Will you be able to tell the difference?

Imaeyen Ibanga’s 2018 prediction that journalists would follow suit by creating longform videos worthy of Netflix was spot-on — and means these tools are making their way into visual investigations and documentaries from your favorite news organizations.

The consequence? People will have a tougher time discerning fact from fiction moving forward, and one remedy is understanding video editing. As Black folks say, “I put that on ery’thing.”

So how we teach media literacy in classrooms and newsrooms alike must evolve as quickly as DALL-E2 if we want to foster critical thinking, high-earning skills development, and career opportunities for a diverse group of creators.

As a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, I am building a nonprofit to teach aspiring storytellers from traditionally underrepresented populations video editing and documentary filmmaking skills. My project bypasses traditional journalism on-ramps and learning systems using a “meet them where they are” approach that will take the training to the streets (literally). We must find more ways to get these tools into the hands of citizens — media makers and media lovers alike.

The next generation of storytellers must be able to access, analyze, evaluate, create and act on what they see. By breaking down video and examining the individual elements — shot composition, pacing, and audio — they can better understand how media is constructed and learn to evaluate the messages and narratives presented.

The technical and ethical lessons learned by creating and manipulating footage are a major key to helping people understand media and its effects on them.

Video may have killed the radio star, but today, fears have turned AI into a supervillain. Deciphering the oncoming onslaught is an Avengers-level task that will take significant investment but we still have time to arm ourselves with the tools we need for victory. Video editing is the key to media literacy and, possibly, stopping the misinformation apocalypse.

Jarrad Henderson is a four-time Emmy Award-winning multimedia alchemist who seeks to democratize journalism by empowering diverse voices to share their stories.

“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” — Harvey Dent in “The Dark Knight”(2008)

Video editing is the Rosetta stone people need to better understand the media they consume daily. It’s also the key to tackling the media’s newest bad guy: AI. AI is already a part of your life, whether you realize it or not. It has the origin story of a great protagonist, initially created to help solve problems, but somehow gets warped and begins to cause more difficulties than intended.

People are using AI to generate stylized profile pictures, journalists use it to detect breaking news events on social media, and startups are using it to create advertisements. No matter what ChatGPT tells you, AI will become self-aware sometime in 2027 (what better way to keep you skeptical and comfortable than by generating 12 fingers on one hand when spitting out Midjourney prompts?)

No, AI won’t immediately push the multiverse destroy button. But AI might be used in Netflix and Hulu documentaries to mislead you in 2023. Production companies aren’t required to distinguish re-enactments when presenting documentary films, and soon, Nvidia’s NeRF will render 3D scenes from just a few 2D photographs to fill in the blanks to a critical plot point of the story. Will you be able to tell the difference?

Imaeyen Ibanga’s 2018 prediction that journalists would follow suit by creating longform videos worthy of Netflix was spot-on — and means these tools are making their way into visual investigations and documentaries from your favorite news organizations.

The consequence? People will have a tougher time discerning fact from fiction moving forward, and one remedy is understanding video editing. As Black folks say, “I put that on ery’thing.”

So how we teach media literacy in classrooms and newsrooms alike must evolve as quickly as DALL-E2 if we want to foster critical thinking, high-earning skills development, and career opportunities for a diverse group of creators.

As a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, I am building a nonprofit to teach aspiring storytellers from traditionally underrepresented populations video editing and documentary filmmaking skills. My project bypasses traditional journalism on-ramps and learning systems using a “meet them where they are” approach that will take the training to the streets (literally). We must find more ways to get these tools into the hands of citizens — media makers and media lovers alike.

The next generation of storytellers must be able to access, analyze, evaluate, create and act on what they see. By breaking down video and examining the individual elements — shot composition, pacing, and audio — they can better understand how media is constructed and learn to evaluate the messages and narratives presented.

The technical and ethical lessons learned by creating and manipulating footage are a major key to helping people understand media and its effects on them.

Video may have killed the radio star, but today, fears have turned AI into a supervillain. Deciphering the oncoming onslaught is an Avengers-level task that will take significant investment but we still have time to arm ourselves with the tools we need for victory. Video editing is the key to media literacy and, possibly, stopping the misinformation apocalypse.

Jarrad Henderson is a four-time Emmy Award-winning multimedia alchemist who seeks to democratize journalism by empowering diverse voices to share their stories.

Nik Usher   This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)

Kathy Lu   We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders

Barbara Raab   More journalism funders will take more risks

Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson   Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs

Alexandra Svokos   Working harder to reach audiences where they are

Johannes Klingebiel   The innovation team, R.I.P.

Anika Anand   Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures

Amy Schmitz Weiss   Journalism education faces a crossroads

Eric Thurm   Journalists think of themselves as workers

Ryan Nave   Citizen journalism, but make it equitable

Sam Guzik   AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.

Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson   News product goes from trend to standard

Jaden Amos   TikTok personality journalists continue to rise

Sam Gregory   Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made

Andrew Donohue   We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy

Dominic-Madori Davis   Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting

Victor Pickard   The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce

Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski   News organizations step up their support for caregivers

Joe Amditis   AI throws a lifeline to local publishers

Jim VandeHei   There is no “peak newsletter”

Amethyst J. Davis   The slight of the great contraction

Andrew Losowsky   Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter

Khushbu Shah   Global reporting will suffer

Cassandra Etienne   Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities

Richard Tofel   The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates

AX Mina   Journalism in a time of permacrisis

Basile Simon   Towards supporting criminal accountability

Mar Cabra   The inevitable mental health revolution

Esther Kezia Thorpe   Subscription pressures force product innovation

Sumi Aggarwal   Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development

Priyanjana Bengani   Partisan local news networks will collaborate

Jessica Clark   Open discourse retrenches

Lisa Heyamoto   The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability

Mauricio Cabrera   It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities

Gordon Crovitz   The year advertisers stop funding misinformation

Sarabeth Berman   Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale

Dana Lacey   Tech will screw publishers over

Juleyka Lantigua   Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine

Stefanie Murray   The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy

Ben Werdmuller   The internet is up for grabs again

Delano Massey   The industry shakes its imposter syndrome

Masuma Ahuja   Journalism starts working for and with its communities

Cindy Royal   Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…

Sue Cross   Thinking and acting collectively to save the news

Julia Angwin   Democracies will get serious about saving journalism

Eric Holthaus   As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power

Eric Ulken   Generative AI brings wrongness at scale

Peter Sterne   AI enters the newsroom

Mariana Moura Santos   A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world

Peter Bale   Rising costs force more digital innovation

Mael Vallejo   More threats to press freedom across the Americas

Sarah Stonbely   Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels

Nicholas Diakopoulos   Journalists productively harness generative AI tools

John Davidow   A year of intergenerational learning

Susan Chira   Equipping local journalism

Walter Frick   Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets

Dannagal G. Young   Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat

Matt Rasnic   More newsroom workers turn to organized labor

Shanté Cosme   The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy

Alexandra Borchardt   The year of the climate journalism strategy

Sue Schardt   Toward a new poetics of journalism

Leezel Tanglao   Community partnerships drive better reporting

Jessica Maddox   Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture

Al Lucca   Digital news design gets interesting again

Emily Nonko   Incarcerated reporters get more bylines

James Salanga   Journalists work from a place of harm reduction

Alex Sujong Laughlin   Credit where it’s due

Paul Cheung   More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs

Gabe Schneider   Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay

Brian Stelter   Finding new ways to reach news avoiders

Josh Schwartz   The AI spammers are coming

J. Siguru Wahutu   American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies

Ayala Panievsky   It’s time for PR for journalism

Brian Moritz   Rebuilding the news bundle

Laura E. Davis   The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves

Ryan Kellett   Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers

Moreno Cruz Osório   Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action

Snigdha Sur   Newsrooms get nimble in a recession

Larry Ryckman   We’ll work together with our competitors

Mario García   More newsrooms go mobile-first

Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper   Mission-driven metrics become our North Star

Laxmi Parthasarathy   Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism

Surya Mattu   Data journalists learn from photojournalists

Kavya Sukumar   Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale

S. Mitra Kalita   “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”

Doris Truong   Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth

Jenna Weiss-Berman   The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)

Hillary Frey   Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires

Kerri Hoffman   Podcasting goes local

Francesco Zaffarano   There is no end of “social media”

Wilson Liévano   Diaspora journalism takes the next step

Michael Schudson   Journalism gets more and more difficult

Parker Molloy   We’ll reach new heights of moral panic

Jesse Holcomb   Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled

Cory Bergman   The AI content flood

Christoph Mergerson   The rot at the core of the news business

Kaitlin C. Miller   Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly

Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau   More of the same

Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles   DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse

Janet Haven   ChatGPT and the future of trust 

Joshua P. Darr   Local to live, wire to wither

Burt Herman   The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning

Bill Adair   The year of the fact-check (no, really!)

Elite Truong   In platform collapse, an opportunity for community

Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni   The future of journalism is not you

Tamar Charney   Flux is the new stability

Anita Varma   Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival

Joanne McNeil   Facebook and the media kiss and make up

Rodney Gibbs   Recalibrating how we work apart

Jakob Moll   Journalism startups will think beyond English

Zizi Papacharissi   Platforms are over

Martina Efeyini   Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.

Rachel Glickhouse   Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor

Ståle Grut   Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too

Ryan Gantz   “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”

Michael W. Wagner   The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon   Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism

Jonas Kaiser   Rejecting the “free speech” frame

Anthony Nadler   Confronting media gerrymandering

Alex Perry   New paths to transparency without Twitter

Bill Grueskin   Local news will come to rely on AI

Daniel Trielli   Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.

Sarah Alvarez   Dream bigger or lose out

Simon Galperin   Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media

Pia Frey   Publishers start polling their users at scale

Sue Robinson   Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality

Don Day   The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.

Tim Carmody   Newsletter writers need a new ethics

Eric Nuzum   A focus on people instead of power

Kirstin McCudden   We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering

Karina Montoya   More reporters on the antitrust beat

Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven   Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism

Upasna Gautam   Technology that performs at the speed of news

Kaitlyn Wells   We’ll prioritize media literacy for children

Sarah Marshall   A web channel strategy won’t be enough

Christina Shih   Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials

Errin Haines   Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public

Julia Beizer   News fatigue shows us a clear path forward

Jacob L. Nelson   Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists

Nicholas Jackson   There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work

David Cohn   AI made this prediction

Jennifer Brandel   AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more. 

Raney Aronson-Rath   Journalists will band together to fight intimidation

Emma Carew Grovum   The year to resist forgetting about diversity

Jody Brannon   We’ll embrace policy remedies

Taylor Lorenz   The “creator economy” will be astroturfed

Gina Chua   The traditional story structure gets deconstructed

Jarrad Henderson   Video editing will help people understand the media they consume

Ariel Zirulnick   Journalism doubles down on user needs

Joni Deutsch   Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence

Tre'vell Anderson   Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns

A.J. Bauer   Covering the right wrong

Anna Nirmala   News organizations get new structures

Alan Henry   A reckoning with why trust in news is so low

Jim Friedlich   Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage

David Skok   Renewed interest in human-powered reporting

Nicholas Thompson   The year AI actually changes the media business