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Transparency comes up a lot with respect to the use of AI in journalism. There are obvious reasons for thisjournalism is all about bringing transparency to what happens in the world, after alland AI is a new thing that many people (rightly) view with skepticism. But that desire for transparency brings an opportunity to improve audience trust, something that’s in short supply lately. In fact, a recent report on the use of AI in news media from the Reuters Institute showed a pretty clear pattern of audiences’ trust declining the more AI was used in the journalistic process. Only 12% of people were comfortable with fully AI-generated content, increasing to 21% for mostly AI, 43% for mostly human, and a respectable (but, notably, not amazing) 62% for fully human content. The data points to a fairly obvious takeaway that, if trust is your goal (which in journalism, it certainly is), you should use less AI, not more. But we’re actually seeing precisely the opposite trend: Newsrooms worldwide are ramping up AI operations, with most major outlets, including The New York Times, using it in their process. Still others are using it to assist in creating content. ESPN, Fortune, and CoinDesk are just three examples of major, respected outlets leveraging AI to help write their articles. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/mediacopilot-logo-ss.png","headline":"Media CoPilot","description":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for Media CoPilot. To learn more visit mediacopilot.substack.com","substackDomain":"https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}} Flipping the skepticism of AI What’s going on? Sure, there are industry pressures to incorporate AI, but the data suggests that you might sacrifice trust with your audience. That’s a difficult problem, but it can be mitigated by prioritizing transparency. The data from the Reuters report creates a clear trend line, but it’s important to keep in mind the question was generic, asking about comfort levels regarding “AI- and human-led news,” and not about a specific use case. That’s why it’s important to provide a fuller understanding of what AI’s actually doingsay, sorting through hundreds of video transcripts to zero in on specific topics, or writing a first draft of “just the facts” that the reporter then scrutinizes and adds torather than just putting “AI-assisted” labels on things. That can mitigate the risk of losing trust somewhat, and this kind of transparency, done right, might even buttress it. I thought about this when I recently built an AI project around my work. I host a podcast for The Media Copilot where I interview leaders in media, tech, and journalism every week. However, once I publish a podcast, it fades quickly. A new one comes along the following week, and although I capture specific insights in short clips and articles, those also don’t last long, and then that conversationwhich is likely still relevantis trapped in the past. So I took every single podcast I’ve done and put them all in a single folder in Google NotebookLM. That tool applies AI to the folder’s contents so anyone can extract insights from it. If you have questions about the use of AI in media and journalism, just ask, and you’ll be able to hear what people like The Atlantic‘s Nicholas Thompson, Reuters’ Jane Barrett, and the AP’s Troy Thibodeaux think about it. And because it’s grounded in only the podcast transcripts (and not all the junk on the internet), the chance of the notebook making something up is very low. The craft table of journalism You can apply this idea to journalism more broadly. If you break down what a journalist does when creating a story, they typically gather things like research, interviews, specific documents, and the history of their reporting on a topic. In the process of writing, they curate the most important parts of that information, then apply their judgmentinformed by experience and their target audienceto craft a story. You might call that last part the reporter’s lens. But it’s really just one lens among many that someone could look through at the material. A person with a different background, priorities, and knowledge of the subject might want to apply a different lens. You can think of this as a variation of the idea of “content remixing,” except that idea is usually concerned with format. This is remixing for audience. A podcast about all the latest news in AI, for example, might focus on the most popular headlines for a general audience, the biggest market-moving events for investors, or the most noteworthy technical advancements for developers. They might even focus on the same stories, just with different details called out and expanded on. Beyond the audience opportunity, though, is one of trust. Many news consumers distrust what they see in the media today. If you drill down on many of the complaints, which are often about political bias, the issue is rarely about the underlying facts and more about the lens the reporter has put them through. This is where AI tools like NotebookLM can serve as a kind of window into how journalists curate their information. By allowing a glimpse into the raw materialthe interviews, the research, the unfiltered factsreaders might better understand how journalists arrive at their conclusions. It could demystify some of the process, making it less about just trust us and more about heres how we got here. Of course, not every story could or should get this kind of treatment. Journalists are often entrusted with confidential material and sources that requie anonymity, so an open-door approach to the “raw material” of the story simply wouldn’t be possible. Redaction is an option, but that would likely sow even more doubt in the conspiracy-minded. Making journalism interactive But for some stories, AI could help create a new, more transparent kind of journalismone thats more interactive. Imagine if readers could use AI to navigate the same corpus of information and draw their own conclusions or even generate their own version of the story. Certainly, few readers will want to dive this deep, but for that curious minority, it could be a fascinating new layer. In a sense, it turns the journalist into a kind of information curator, where the reader gets to apply their own lens. That feedback loop could have trust benefits for the journalist, too. By deconstructing the process this way, they might have a better understanding of their own lens: where they’re applying it, how it affects the story being told, and how other lenses change the picture. That perspective would inform how different audiences interpret their stories, which will hopefully lead to stronger stories. In the end, we wont know if this approach is helpful for trust until we try it. Its an experiment in making journalism not just something you consume, but something you can interact with. And whether its an academic exercise or a new genre, its at least a step toward understanding how we shape the lenses that shape our news. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/mediacopilot-logo-ss.png","headline":"Media CoPilot","description":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for Media CoPilot. To learn more visit mediacopilot.substack.com","substackDomain":"https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
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Seth Todd was wearing an inflatable frog costume while protesting outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Building in Portland, Oregon, when a federal officer unleashed a torrent of chemical spray directly into the costume’s air vent.Video of the incident on Oct. 2 has spread, and puffed-out costumes hippos in tutus, Mr. Potato Heads, dinosaurs have quickly become a feature of protests against President Donald Trump’s administration, including the massive “No Kings” marches across the U.S. last weekend.Todd, 24, said that while the attention has been overwhelming, he is nonetheless “honored to have inspired a movement like this.”“It’s helping to combat that specific narrative that we are violent and we are agitating,” he said. Countering Trump, in costume For protesters like Todd, the costumes are a way of fighting absurdity with absurdity: a playful counter to Trump’s portrayal of Portland as “war ravaged,” “burning down” and “like living in hell.”The Trump administration’s efforts to deploy the National Guard there for the stated purpose of protecting federal property are still blocked by the courts for now.Portland’s ICE building outside downtown has been the site of nightly protests that peaked in June when police declared one demonstration a riot. Smaller clashes have also occurred since then, and federal officers have fired tear gas to clear crowds, which at times have included counter-protesters and live-streamers.Nighttime protesters, frequently numbering just a couple dozen in the weeks before Trump called up the Guard, have used bullhorns to shout obscenities. They have also sought to block vehicles from entering and leaving the facility. Federal officials argue that they have impeded law enforcement operations. ‘Keep Portland Weird’ The inflatable costumes are a testament to the city’s quirky protest culture which also recently included a naked bike ride and its unofficial motto, “Keep Portland Weird.”“Portland has always prided itself on this spirit of protest,” said Marc Rodriguez, a Portland State University professor of history and expert in social justice movements.The costumes also play well on social media, showing the protesters as nonviolent, he added. Frogs and more trend beyond Portland Some groups have started giving out the costumes to encourage more demonstrators to wear them. In Austin, Texas, college student Natalie McCabe got a free inflatable bald eagle costume. At the recent No Kings rally, she hung out with a unicorn and a frog.“Seeing people happy and having a good time and doing something different, like a distraction, it’s just how it should be,” she said.At the No Kings march in Chicago, Kristen Vandawalker dressed up as an inflatable “pegacorn” part Pegasus, part unicorn and posed for photos with the city’s Trump tower in the background, as bubbles from a bubble machine floated by.“I think everybody just got the memo after Portland that this is something that we can do, and it’s something that the right doesn’t know what to make of,” said Vandawalker, the political action director for Indivisible Chicago Northwest. “Certainly, like the ICE agents don’t seem to know what to make of people in costumes. It’s hard to look threatening when there’s a fan blowing you up.”The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on the inflatable costumes at protests. Operation Inflation In recent weeks, Portland residents have launched groups such as the Portland Frog Brigade, whose members sport inflatable frog costumes, and Operation Inflation, which hands out inflatable costumes to protesters for free.On Tuesday, Operation Inflation co-founders Brooks Brown and Jordy Lybeck dropped off about 10 costumes among them a mushroom, Frankenstein and panda outside Portland’s ICE building. They placed some on a costume rack and helped demonstrators put them on.The group has seen donations pour in and plans to expand to other U.S. cities, Brown said.“It feels really light-hearted and it feels that we’re showing these guys that we are not scared of them,” said protester Briana Nathanielsz, who opted for one of the Frankenstein costumes. “We’re going to keep having fun and keep Portland weird and safe.” Claire Rush and Jonathan Mattise, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is seen as the top contender to buy Warner Bros Discovery, with analysts and experts saying the tech scion’s access to deep pockets and Washington ties give him an edge in what could be the media industry’s biggest merger in years. Fresh off the Paramount-Skydance deal in August, the newly minted media mogul is eyeing one of Hollywood’s prized assets that is home to HBO, Warner Bros Studio and a streaming unit with more than 120 million subscribers. His $60 billion approach was rejected by Warner Bros Discovery on Tuesday, Reuters first reported. But the company has put a for-sale sign and attracted other potential suitors including Comcast, Netflix and Apple, according to media reports. POTENTIAL $74 BILLION VALUATION At $30 a share the price Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich estimates Warner Bros Discovery could fetch in a sale the company would be valued at about $74 billion, a figure analysts say could deter some bidders but remains within reach for Ellison, whose father Larry Ellison is the world’s second-richest person with a net worth of about $330 billion. Apple had $36.3 billion in cash at June-end and could easily raise debt to fund a takeover but it has historically avoided large deals its biggest remains the $3 billion Beats purchase. Netflix holds about $9.3 billion in cash and has never done a deal exceeding $1 billion, while Comcast’s $9.7 billion cash pile means any bid would likely rely heavily on debt or outside partners. “It seems that Paramount appears to be in pole position,” said PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore. IN PARTS OR WHOLE? Unlike Paramount, the other companies are also likely to be more interested in parts of Warner Bros Discovery than the whole company, which will saddle its buyer with around $35 billion in debt and declining cable TV assets, analysts said. “The studio would make sense for Netflix and Apple. The TV networks would make sense for the Comcast spinoff, while the studio would make sense for what is left of NBCU,” eMarketer analyst Ross Benes said. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos on Tuesday reiterated the streamer is not interested in buying traditional TV networks but he did not mention studios. “We’ve been very clear in the past that we have no interest in owning legacy media networks, so there is no change there,” he said during an earnings call. Apple has also shown little appetite for cable TV assets. Still, Warner Bros’ vast film and TV library, along with HBO’s acclaimed shows, would be a strong addition to Apple TV+. Comcast, meanwhile, is narrowing its focus to theme parks, streaming and core NBCUniversal film and TV assets by spinning off most of its waning cable networks. Buying Warner Bros would deepen that strategy, giving Universal’s parks access to lucrative franchises such as “DC Comics” and “Harry Potter”. TRUMP CARD David Ellison also enjoys a unique advantage over rival bidders his father’s close ties with U.S. President Donald Trump. Larry Ellison has long been a Republican mega-donor and one of the few high-profile tech executives who were openly supportive of Trump before last November’s election. Analysts say that could help ease regulatory concerns arising from Paramount’s potential buyout of Warner Bros Discovery – a deal that would hand control of a big swathe of U.S. cable networks as well as two crucial studios to Ellison. “If anyone does buy the whole thing, or even split it into two and buy the two bits, it’s going to have to have the blessing of the current U.S. administration,” said Clea Bourne, Head of Subject of Strategic Communications and Journalism at the Goldsmiths, University of London. “And that’s where the Ellisons stand out very easily, because their cart is very close to the administration.” Zaheer Kachwala, Harshita Mary Varghese and Aditya Soni, Reuters
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