Author: Gavin Ellis

Gavin Ellis is a media consultant, commentator and researcher. He holds a doctorate in political studies. A former editor-in-chief of the New Zealand Herald, he is the author of Trust Ownership and the Future of News: Media Moguls and White Knights (London, Palgrave) and Complacent Nation (Wellington, BWB Texts). His consultancy clients include media organisations and government ministries. His Tuesday Commentary on media matters appears weekly on his site www.whiteknightnews.com

Generative AI: Be afraid, be very afraid

We humans have always had a bit of a penchant for futile exercises.

The ancient Greeks had a death-defying king rolling a large boulder up a hill for eternity. Much later, the Japanese invented an infuriating game called Whac-a Mole.

Now the media are trying to stay a step ahead of generative artificial intelligence.

Media companies around the world are grappling with editorial guidelines to deal with a digital phenomenon that can be both a tool to enhance their productivity, and an insidious weapon that can be used against them.

Some see it as an existential threat that should be banned outright but, really, artificial intelligence is like firearms and opioids – useful in the right hands but extraordinarily dangerous in the wrong ones. And, like drugs, its legitimate use needs to be carefully prescribed. Continue reading “Generative AI: Be afraid, be very afraid” →

No news is bad news

Mainstream media’s relevance in today’s world has been dealt another blow by a new report on digital media.

The Digital News Report 2023 by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University covers 46 countries that account for more than half the world’s population. Sadly, New Zealand is not among them, but its findings are as applicable here as anywhere.

The bottom line: Many publishers are struggling to convince people that their news is worth paying attention to, let alone paying for.

The Reuters Institute has been tracking digital news audience behaviour in annual reports since 2012. Its first report (which surveyed five nations) noted mainstream media were investing heavily in ‘digital first’ strategies and the use of social media to access news content was on the rise.

The ensuing 11 years have seen that change accelerate but not in ways that news publishers and broadcasters would either anticipate or desire. The latest report provides few, in any, bright spots for them. Continue reading “No news is bad news” →

News values from an audience perspective: A review

A review I wrote of News Values from an Audience Perspective, edited by Martina Temmerman and Belle Mast has been published in the Australian Journalism Review. The book is a very useful analysis of the values applied to news stories and the increasing role that audiences play in that process. Unfortunately you will need access the review through, for example, a university library account or by payment. Such are the stricture of copyright. https://www.intellectbooks.com/australian-journalism-review

 

 

Proof our newsrooms need a ‘second pair of eyes’

Own goals by two of our top news organisations last week raised a fundamental question: What has happened to their checking processes?

Both Radio New Zealand and NZME acknowledged serious failures in their internal processes that resulted in embarrassing apologies, corrections, and take-downs.

The episodes in both newsrooms suggest the “second pair of eyes” that traditionally acted as a final check before publication no longer exists or is so over-worked in a resource-starved environment that they are looking elsewhere.

The RNZ situation is the more serious of the two episodes. It relates to the insertion of pro-Russian content into news agency stories about the invasion of Ukraine that were carried on the RNZ website. The original stories were sourced from Reuters and, in at least one case, from the BBC. By last night 16 altered stories had been found, but the audit had only scratched the surface. The apparent perpetrator has disclosed they had been carrying out such edits for the past five years.

Continue reading “Proof our newsrooms need a ‘second pair of eyes’” →