Content Aware media news: February 9, 2023

AI wars, intelligent comment, and algowrongithms

Published: 16:00, 09 February 2023

AI and Publishing Special Report
A host of industry experts have given their thoughts on what the surge of AI writing tools and assistants could mean for publishers, in a special report compiled by Media Makers Meet and Di5Rupt. Our own Rich Fairbairn chips in with foresight on business risk, magnifying the human factor, and those who might proffer expensive AI for everything - some of which you might even need. None of which, he insists robotically, was written by ChatGPT or its ilk.
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Corbidge comments... on the new AI war lead by Big Tech
Google vs Microsoft, human vs machine - the battle lines are being drawn in the next generational before-and-after moment. Master of letters Corbidge steps back to find the places where people can win and lose.
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Beware the Algowrongithms
Brian Morrissey also looks at the coming surge of machine-written and machine-distributed content, and sees hope for those who can point to true expertise and talent and a panache for turning the machinery to their advantage.
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Record subs isn't a glitch
The Covid boost may be a distant memory, but publishers worldwide are becoming much more savvy at attracting and retaining subscribers, according to this report from industry leadership group FIPP, in their Global Subs Report.
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Silence is golden. Or it costs less.
Any of us likely has a love/hate relationship with the Comments section on any given news site, reflecting the intellectual roller coaster most of them force one to ride. US giant Gannet has just ended Comments on the vast majority of its local daily news sites in the US, primarily as a cost-cutting measure (but it must be a welcome legal relief too). So is it back to Letters To The Editor?
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Shock as tabloid is sold!
Tabloids in the US were long the country's very own concoction, used to sailing along the wilder shores of credibility with a capital S on Sensationalism. The National Enquirer, the most famous of all, has been sold with plans to expand its digital offering. Most notably for us, the archive.
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It started with blog...
Once a powerful name, with 23 million visits a month in 2015, Gawker is absolutely no more. Or shall we say Gawker v2? It was once one of those American sites that left me wondering "how do they do that so fast". Live fast, die young it seems. Even resurrection doesn't work.
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Try and do this with a Facebook group: Liverpool edition
Just a reminder that in every single place around the world that values democracy and accountability, a strong local press matters.
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Headline goes here?
It really does. The art of headline writing is still out there, but the demands of time and SEO have changed the game. This tool could at least work as a starting point for a blocked brain. It's never going to come up with Super Caley Go Ballistic, Celtic Are Atrocious though.

Substacking the evidence
Who makes what on Substack is quite tricky to work out. The UKPG's Bron Maher has looked at the numbers and they do provide some interesting insights. Substack's strategy would steer more obviously towards wide and shallow rather than narrow and deep, so to speak.
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Pay to scrape or pennies for plagiarism?
An interesting proposition: publisher s proactively get into deal-making mode with AI language modellers.
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