In November 2023, State of Digital Publishing (SODP) hosted PubTech2023 – an online event for digital publishing and news media professionals.
This article is based on the summary of key learnings of a panel discussion with Mili Semlani, Head of Content and Community at e27, and Binoy Prabhakar, Chief Content Officer, Hindustan Times Digital.
Digital Transformation in Newsrooms
The news industry is one of the slowest to embrace change, and rightfully so. Newsrooms have a lot of responsibility and must be cautious about how new tools impact them.
To effectively integrate new tools into editorial processes, publishers should:
- Make learning a dedicated part of newsroom culture. That means allocating time consistently to new tools and technologies. Some make it a part of their KPIs. Not every tool needs to or should be integrated. However, it is important for newsrooms not to become insular and keep tabs on the tech ecosystem around them.
- Minimize risks by starting small. To ensure technologies function as intended, publishers should start by applying them to lighter processes, where the output of technologies can be manually verified.
- Determine which business areas will benefit the most. Publishers should be selective about which tool they apply for which unit. For example, AI content creation tools can be a good fit for “dry” business news – e.g., live blogs related to the stock market. For other types of content pieces, it’s better to limit the assistance of AI content tools to creating summaries, helping determine headlines, etc.
Rolling Out AI Tools
Typically, the roll-out of AI tools is driven by product, technology, and data science teams. However, it is important to establish a close collaboration with editorial teams when integrating AI tools into the operations of a newsroom.
The end goal of integrating AI tools should be to improve the lives of the editorial staff and the newsroom, which, in turn, should translate into benefits for the audience. Therefore, when selecting which tools to add to the tech stack, teams in charge of the roll-out should be highly selective and make sure that the tools meet actual needs and are not implemented for the sake of implementing them or because others are using them.
Every new tool should be monitored and the results should be assessed regularly to determine whether it should remain a part of the tech stack.
Content Commoditization in the Age of AI
AI is democratizing content creation and research, inevitably leading to more content commoditization. However, we are still in the early stage of AI. AI tools are not sophisticated enough yet to replace the individual voices and opinions of writers and content creators (e.g., there are independent journalists and individual journalists within newsrooms who have strong voices and a large following because of their unique voice on social media platforms via newsletters, etc.).
Publishers that want to minimize the risk of content commoditization should encourage and empower journalists to develop their individual voices. AI should be used to make processes easier, not to replace the unique voice of journalists.
Changing News Ecosystem
Diminishing engagement with news has been happening worldwide for a while now. That, combined with the new technologies, is forcing publishers to rethink the entire ecosystem of their business and how to engage their audiences:
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- The news side is often supplemented with products and services to engage with readers outside news pieces and secure revenue.
- There is a larger focus on communities. Technology has made it possible for readers to engage not only with a publisher via a comments section but also with each other.
- Publishers are increasingly trying to provide readers with a larger context of a content piece instead of just presenting an article in isolation.
Watch the full session:
Download the ebook of learnings from PubTech2023 here.
