Media Party is always about sparking innovation. The June 2023 conference in Chicago focused on “the intersection between AI, journalism and democracy.” Additional topics included synthetic media, ethics in artificial intelligence, misinformation and privacy. By bringing together an eclectic and enthusiastic mix of media professionals and those in the tech industry, common themes emerged around the concept of a civic media model.

Congratulations to the winners of Media Party’s Hackathon. You can read about the winning projects in this post from the International Center for Journalists, which also includes insightful takeaways from Media Party. Hopefully it will spark ideas to explore in your newsroom.

The Trisolute News Dashboard team participated in the Media Fair, attended workshops and engaged in thought-provoking conversations surrounding Generative AI and other topics and learned from industry leaders who brought their diverse perspectives and expertise to each session.

Here is a selection of insights* from Media Party speakers:

1. On why user-centric relevance and utility is vital to a newsroom’s survival: Attention is the currency. (Rishad Patel, Splice Media)
2. Social media democratized distribution of content. Generative AI is about to democratize the production of content. (Miranda Marcus, BBC News Labs)
3. Instead of AI focus on AE: Actual Experience. These are human, face-to-face interactions and have been proven to increase trust in information in a time where so many people have an increased distrust in information. (Jennifer Brandel, Hearken)
4. Civic media to replace traditional media model to meet audience needs and prepare for the disruptions caused by artificial intelligence (news and information on how people can live better in their communities.) (Jennifer Brandel, Hearken)
5. We often ask what we can get genAI to do, but forget to ask what our audiences actually want. News consumers want answers, not stories. (Jeremy Gilbert, Knight Lab)
6. We shouldn’t seek to replicate replicate what human journalists do well but use GenAI for things they can’t do well. (Jeremy Gilbert, Knight Lab)
7. New skills are needed, for example prompting. (Miranda Marcus, BBC News Labs & Liam Andrew, Texas Tribune)
8. It looks like GenAI can summarize large data sets and look for patterns and outliers in the near future. (Liam Andrew, Texas Tribune)
9. Research shows increased audience interest in local topics and local voices. Also a shift in how people like to consume their news leaning towards entertaining and more visual content. (Dan Newman, Google)
10. Solutions-focused constructive journalism is the goal, with the media playing a role in reducing polarization by sharing diverse viewpoints. (Sara Cooper, The World Talks from ZEIT ONLINE)
11. To deal with the existence of AI within our industry, media must produce own, trustworthy content and should experiment with GenAI while creating guidelines for it. (Martha Williams, World News Media Network)
12. Mass media is, by necessity, a one to many business but AI will allow us to move away from that. (Jeremy Gilbert, Knight Lab)

*Note: To demonstrate the power of AI, we used Chat-GPT to sort the above insights into a logical order. Here is Chat-GPT’s reasoning it provided with its sorting response:

“By arranging the bullet points in this order, the logical progression moves from setting the stage with attention as the currency, to exploring the impact of AI on content production and the need for new skills. It then delves into the shift in audience preferences, the strategic approach to utilizing AI, and the potential capabilities of generative AI in analyzing data sets. The discussion then turns to audience interests in local topics and entertaining, visual content. It further emphasizes the importance of solutions-focused constructive journalism and the role of the media in reducing polarization. Finally, it addresses the challenges and opportunities presented by AI, highlighting the need for trustworthy content, experimentation with generative AI, and the establishment of guidelines within the industry.

This logical order allows for a cohesive flow of ideas, gradually building upon each other to provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of AI on the media industry and the potential paths forward.” 

We would like to thank Mariano Blejman and his team for inviting us to participate in Media Party and look forward to attending future events.

What can news publishers do with the discoveries and insights from Media Party? Stay tuned for a follow-up blog post, where we will provide actionable tips and how Trisolute’s News Dashboard can help your newsroom navigate an AI-powered search landscape.