WEBVTT - Inside a Local Newspaper's Fight to Survive 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:11.319 It's eleven am in the newsroom of the Bourne Myth 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:14.600 Daily Echo, a local newspaper in the south of England, 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:25.440 One More Lucky, which which is a very strong story. 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.519 The editors are trying to decide which stories to run 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.479 in the newspaper and on the echoes website, which these 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:42.479 days might be more important. Technology is changing all of 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.200 our jobs, whether we like it or not, and journalism 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:48.240 is certainly no exception. There are now far fewer jobs 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.320 in local news right to put them mildly, the internet 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:54.760 has pretty much busted the media business model. Yeah, and 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:56.880 journalists they are left. I've had to learn new skills. 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.000 When you're in you have to you you adapt or 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:04.520 you don't surve. The Echo has worked hard to take 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.759 advantage of new technology. But is the editor Andy Martin 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:11.800 told you, Jeremy, the paper is struggling financially. You know 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.080 me know that revenues walked out the door to a 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:16.920 lot of other places in the last ten years, and 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.039 we haven't quite got our business model right in terms of, 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:27.040 you know, getting people to pay for online news. Yeah, 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.759 that's right. Faced with collapsing budgets, the Echo has had 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.120 to let go about of its staff that's made it 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:35.440 harder for the paper to fulfill its traditional role of 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.400 holding people in power to account. Now, the founders of 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.080 a service funded by Google say they can help local 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:45.080 journalists produce more stories without adding more people, but it's 0:01:45.120 --> 0:02:01.000 raising new fears even as it tries to solve full problems. Hi, 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:05.000 I'm brad Stone and I'm Jeremy con and this week Undercrypted, 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:07.520 we're taking a look at how one local newspaper is 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:10.880 grappling with new technology and its struggle to survive. There 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:13.280 are only about twenty editorial staff left now at the 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:15.799 Bournemoth Daily Echo, a paper that want it close to 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:19.040 a hundred journalists when Andy, the editor, first started. That's 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.760 been a painful transition for The Echo, and one that's 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.760 played out around the world as journalists have watched jobs disappear. 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.840 Artificial intelligence is one technology that could help newsrooms like 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:32.799 The Echo survived with shrinking budgets, but could automation, which 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:36.440 initially looks like an added convenience, ultimately end up taking 0:02:36.440 --> 0:03:00.079 even more jobs stay with us that deminate So jar me, 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.120 you actually went down to board with recently. Yeah, I 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:05.760 took the train down from London on a chilly morning 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.560 in February. So I'm imagining sort of the Cleveland of England. 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:12.760 What's born With like, Well, it's not quite Cleveland. Um. 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:14.480 It's on the south coast of England and it's a 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.040 summer tourist destination, has a boardwalk and a fair ground 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.640 along the seafront. Um. But the city also hosts the 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:23.440 back offices of some big banks like JP Morgan, and 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.320 it's got the headquarters of a few industrial companies and 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.799 the born With Echo that's the region's main newspaper. Yeah, 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:31.919 that's right, and it's published from this big Art Deco 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:33.920 building with a small clock tower in the heart of 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:40.240 the city. And he did, hey, Jerry, Yeah, Andy, the 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:42.720 Echoes editor came out to meet me. He looks like 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.280 a grizzled newspaper writer you've seen a film, with the 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.160 steely gaze and a shock of white hair. He led 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:50.160 me through the bowels of the building and up into 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:52.560 a big conference room with glass windows that look out 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.960 over the Echoes newsroom. How many years have you you've 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.880 been here at the Echo? Well, this embarrassing. I'm being 0:03:59.880 --> 0:04:04.640 here about thirty years in April. Wow, Um, what was 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.440 your first day here? Like? I can really remembered the 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.640 old style smoke field newsrooms, people you know, slamming your 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.680 phones down and the saner time writers at the time 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.880 in the late eighties, the newsroom was big. Years ago, 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.080 there would have been a hundred editorial staff here. We 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:21.840 used to have the print depressors. You hear the wrong 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.040 of the primes going up for the first edition of 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:25.400 the second edition to go down and get a couple 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:26.960 of paper. We get your boak in sandwich come back 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.680 out of paper. This was a different time for the 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.719 newspaper industry. The born With Daily Echo had a small 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:35.479 number of district offices and it would send reporters like 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:40.680 Andy on international assignments too, for about twenty years, so Cyprus, Kossovo, 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:47.080 the Balkans, Bosnia, Belize, Northern Ireland. So I'd got a 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.760 lot of tours of you know, not tours of duty, 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:51.840 but at at with the boys, you know, sort of 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.840 week two weeks long. After a few years he became 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.440 an editor on the news desk and as Andy was 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.120 climbing the mast out of the Echo, something happened the 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.560 mid nineteen nineties that would change print journalism forever. The 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.080 Internet back in the glory days local papers had four 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:12.640 main revenue streams newsstand sales, subscriptions, display, advertising and classified. 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:17.160 The Internet undercut all four. For example, news Quest Media, 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.320 which owns the Bournemouth Daily Echo, made a profit of 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:23.000 a hundred and sixty seven million pounds in two thousand 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:27.279 and three. By that number was just twenty three million 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.400 pounds ouch, so one seventh of what it once was. 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.920 That's right. And as profits slumped, the Echo has had 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:38.240 to shed staff. So you're talking reporters, you're talking photographers. 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.239 Some of those cuts happened through attrition, people who left 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.560 or retired simply weren't replaced, but there have also been 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.920 deep rounds of layoffs photographers, probably five or six reporters, 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:53.000 a couple of support staff. Um. So yeah, that's been 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.359 it's been the toughest part of the job, um, in 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:02.320 the last few years. I've been here from very long time. 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:07.279 I started at ninety fours up twenty three years. Corn 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:09.960 Messer joined the Echo as a dark room assistant. At 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.640 that time the paper had six staff photographers. Now Corren 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.200 is the only one left. The last he's seen the 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:22.760 staff was left in September, which increases one of those. 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.120 He was here the day that I started. He you know, 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.880 I gave the speeches leaving the was that that was very, 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.320 very upsetting. Often Andy has been forced to let go 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:37.320 of staff he's been working alongside for ten fifteen years, 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.360 and his own role has had to expand to fill 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.880 some of the gaps. Well, I'm the editor, I'm also 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:46.960 the head of news, but i'm also well today I'm 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.560 essentially the content manager. So I'm doing all the pages today. 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.600 So it's um this sort of about four or five 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:55.279 jobs rolled up in one to be honest, these days, 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:59.040 in a in a regional news room. Despite that, Andy 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.560 has tried hard not to cut essentral areas of coverage. 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.360 Role first and foremost. First and foremost is the whole 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:10.320 people's account, whether it's hospitals, the police, fire service, local authorities, 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.880 any public institution. That's what we're here for. But he 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:16.840 admits there are some things he can't do anymore. You know, 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:19.640 we can't now say to someone, Okay, go off and 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.320 research that, investigate that story for two or three days. 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:25.440 Be off diary and at the echo, as it's so 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.560 many newspapers, the threat of more layoffs still looms in 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.000 the background. You know what what what's the next thing 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:33.400 that's going to be thrown at me, you will have 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:35.960 to make more savings. So I think it's kind of 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:38.240 just made. I think that keeps me awakenizes really keeping 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:50.320 all the plates spinning and the finances. I think Rooney Now. 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.080 A few months ago, one of Andy's bosses told him 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:56.440 about a new type of technology that could perhaps help. 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.680 It's an intelligent software that could provide Andy the kind 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.400 of low news stories that he desperately needs, but that 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.080 in recent years he hasn't really had the staff to report. 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:09.080 And right at first, Andy was wary. Until now technology 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:10.760 has been more of a job killer for the news 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:14.400 industry than anything else. Well, I mean, you know, I'm 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.200 obviously naturally skeptical about everything and even in our own industry, 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:22.160 but Andy was also curious. I'm always open to looking 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:26.560 at new ideas of new ways of getting information. The 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.360 Echo has had no choice but to embrace digital technology 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:32.559 and social media in recent years, and now it's become 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.280 one of the first British newspapers to participate in something 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.079 called Project Radar. That's how I ended up in another 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:43.000 news organization, this time in London. The Press Association was 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:46.520 built to provide national news coverage for the UK's local papers. 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.600 Here in Britain people call it the p A. I 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.400 went to see Peter Clifton, the p a's editor in chief. 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.280 The PA is facing its own battle to adapt to 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:58.520 changing times. Now that most people get their news online, 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:02.320 local papers need less national coverage. I think they've all 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:07.360 become increasingly focused on trying to serve their local audience 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.920 with more and more local content. Then through in All 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.120 the Queens, Peter heard about a London startup called Herbs 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.360 Media that was founded by two news industry veterans, Alan 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:21.680 Renwick and Gary Rogers. Here's Gary. I started my career 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:23.679 in local newspapers and I did that for three years 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.559 of my life and then took a attorney to television. 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.000 Between them, they've got more than fifty five years of experience. 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.840 The consumption of news has changed dramatically and radically, but 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:37.960 if you looked at the business of how news is produced, 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:43.040 actually very little has changed. It still requires a journalist 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.120 to go and find a story and go and meet people, 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.839 and it requires phone time and shoe leather, and good 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:54.040 journalism requires that. In Alan and Gary had a brain wave, 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:56.440 but we were looking at whether there was another way 0:09:56.480 --> 0:10:00.480 to produce good journalism that would be a little less 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:04.400 labor intensive. They decided to focus on large government data 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:06.680 sets that had figures on things like bike theft and 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.640 childhood obesity, and so we were quite interested in sets 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:13.240 of crime data at the time. They thought they could 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.480 take a single data set and get dozens or even 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:18.439 hundreds of local stories from it. I can't remember whether 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:20.920 it was me or Alan come up with this smart 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:25.800 idea of why didn't we do a snapshot crime profile 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:29.440 of every borough. Borough is a city district, London has 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:32.160 thirty three of them. So we started with the humans 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:37.160 otherwise known as Me and Garret. But the amount of 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.920 data they had to crawl through soon became a problem, 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.760 and I wrote about ten and I started to lose 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:46.200 the will to live. Each story was basically the same, 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:50.480 but every neighborhood had different numbers. It became extremely repetitive 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:55.440 and very boring. We both began to think there must 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.040 be an easier way to do this, and we came 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:01.360 across something called natural language generation, and as a way 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:06.880 to try to turn data into texts. Natural language generation 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:09.440 is a kind of artificial intelligence that can write whole 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:13.040 reports based on data the way Gary and Allen have 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.080 designed their program, a human journalist still needs to write 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.160 the basic template for a particular data set. Then the 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:21.559 software fills in numbers and tweets the language so that 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.800 each story can make sense. I don't know, Jeremy, can 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:28.560 the software really convey the nuance and the perspective of 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:32.679 of an actual human journalist. Well, these stories that will 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:34.800 see later are kind of dry. I mean, they're they're pretty, 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.280 They're written pretty straight. That sounds like it can't potentially 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:40.520 solve a problem for newspapers. Yeah. The idea here, and 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:42.440 what Peter thought is that this new way of writing 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:45.920 stories might help his newsroom create more local stories. Um 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.160 and he decided he was going to team up with Herbs, 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:50.880 and together they created this thing called Project radar. Okay, 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:54.040 why project radar, Well, it turns out it's an acronym, 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:56.000 not a very great one. It stands for reporters and 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:00.320 data and robots. The project received a seven thousand euro 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.920 grant from Google's European Digital News Initiative to help it 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:08.240 get off the ground. Interestingly, Peter's own team got nervous 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.720 about this robot taking their jobs. I am probably and 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.640 wisely made a speech at the Society of Editor's conference 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:19.000 last year where I this This was only really a 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:20.960 glimmer at that point, but all I said at that 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:26.240 conference was that we would be looking at automation. One 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:30.040 of the industry websites immediately had a headline of about 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.160 robots taking over at p A And by the time 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.120 I got back to work, they've built a robot cardboard 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:41.960 cardboard boxes and put it in my seat. Peter and 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:44.760 the guy at HERBS insisted that nobody's job is going 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.800 to be lost because of Project Radar. Just like your 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.320 world process. I can just sit on your desk as 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:53.560 a tool you used to write what Gary is saying. 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:56.120 It is probably true today. I wonder they'll cheremy if 0:12:56.120 --> 0:13:00.240 it will be true tomorrow as the technology inevitably evolves. Yeah, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.440 that's that is how you consider this kinde of technology 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:04.880 has a tendency to get more capable over time, and 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:08.440 what it can do it keeps improving. Okay, well, after 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:11.960 the break, the Bournemouth Daily Echo starts receiving stories from 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.760 Project Greater and it raises an old fear for Andy 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:33.040 as he starts trying to use the automated stories. Back 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.199 in Bournemouth. I walked through the video arcade on the 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.760 Bournemouth Pierre Jermy, why were you in a video arcade? Well, 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.000 that's a good question. These arcades tend to be a 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:43.680 fixture of British seaside towns and I was actually on 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.000 my way to visit another beloved British institution, the local 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:52.040 fish and chip shop. My name is Chloe and I'm 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:54.920 the assistant manager here Harry Robson's. And it says on 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:56.880 the science of world famous fish and chip shop? What 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.560 is it? What is it famous for? It's famous for 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.040 us secret recipe that we have hair in staff, which 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:05.319 you can't tell me what it is, I suppose unfortunately 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:08.199 I can't. Chloe said she's a loyal reader of the 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.400 Bournemouth Echo and she especially likes the traffic updates on 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.600 its website, especially with the amount of roadworks that we 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:16.480 haven't borne from the moment. The online one is always 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:18.240 up to date, so you knew where they are, what 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:20.120 times are happening and stuff like that. So is that 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:22.400 a big issue of roadworks and congestion? And I think 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:24.680 at the moment yes, because there's quite a lot so, 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:28.720 especially recently, the Bournemouth Echo ran a storytelling readers just 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:31.360 how much of their lives were wasted in traffic jams 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:34.000 in an average year. So the congestion one, which showed 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:36.800 us just how long emotives would spend in a traffic 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.880 jam in an average week or an average year in 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.720 the context of the restructure of the local area, is 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.520 one that was particularly interesting. That story, and he's talking 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:49.440 about it came from Project Radar. I think it's been 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.880 a help um in terms of, you know, statistics that 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.280 we wouldn't ordinarily be able to access or have have 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.760 the time to assess. I guess, But he says, some 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.520 Project Radars computer generated stories still require a bit more work. 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.840 I wouldn't necessarily say yes, I think that's been written 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.040 by a computer. I would just say it's been written 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:11.840 really straight. So he might ask one of his staff 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:14.840 to get reaction quotes from a local official or from residents, 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:17.440 or to punch up the writing to make it more lively. 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:19.920 Should we do you have an example about one of 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.960 these Project Radar stories. Actually sounds like yeah, sure, here's 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.520 one about juvenile crime that Project Radar produced, and the 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.840 Bourne Meth Echo actually ran. Young people in Pool are 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:32.400 significantly less likely to be cautioned or convicted for a 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.040 first offense than they were ten years ago. Changes in 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.400 police policy and overall fallen crime has seen an eighty 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.760 four percent drop in the number of youngsters entering the 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:44.480 criminal justice system. According to statistics from the Ministry of Justice. 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:47.840 In the two thousand and six oh seven financial year, 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:50.880 two fifty two children between the ages of ten and 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:53.960 seventeen were convicted or cautioned by police for the first time, 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:58.680 but by seventeen there were just forty one. We are 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.360 well should have had you read that in your Alexa voice, 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.840 But you know it's it's interesting, but certainly not brimming 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.360 with writerly sensibilities. But it's interesting because this is probably 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:11.800 not the kind of thing that the Andy Ors reporters 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:16.600 could have done on their own. Okay, so Andy is 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.760 using these stories of the Bournemouth Echo and finding them useful, 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.320 Yeah he is, But out of a d twenty five 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.000 stories that they publish every week, only about to come 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:27.880 from Project Radar. Oh wow, Okay, so that's not much 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:30.360 at all. No, and Andy told me he's worried about 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:33.040 using the service too much. Well, we to be looking 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.440 at doing them, or that it would it would It 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.320 would for people if you use too many of them, 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.280 that you'd worry that your bosses or somebody would say 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.480 you may not need that many staff be a little 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.480 bit a little bit worried about about them. So even 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.320 though the p A and Herbs insists the Project Radar 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.280 is about helping us do our jobs better, Andy is 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.280 still worried that in his newsroom this technology could take 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.120 away even more jobs. Yeah. I think that's always a 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.760 concern with AI because it gets better and better all 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:04.280 the time. As we said earlier, how good is it 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:08.359 the writing podcast scripts, Lucky for us, is not that 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:10.400 good yet. But the fact is this is a very 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.399 new and interesting area of technology and it's maturing fast. 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:16.359 But the specter of even more job cuts hasn't deterred 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:20.680 the news industry from experimenting with computer generated articles. Lots 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.399 of organizations are trying versions of this now, like the 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:25.919 Associated Press here in the US, which is working with 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.760 a company called Automated Insights on writing simple financial stories. 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:32.600 That's right, and the Washington Post has a software called 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:36.000 Heliograph to write stories on everything from high school football 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:39.040 games to US congressional elections. And we should also say 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:41.800 that even here at Bloomberg, our own team of Quotas 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.720 has created software that can take corporate earnings reports or 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:49.160 stock price movements and automatically generate news stories from them. Yeah. 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.840 It's pretty crazy what this technology can do. But I'm 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:53.320 pretty happy we don't have to write some of those 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.560 earning stories anymore. Yeah, me too. And actually, on that point, 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.280 I mean, I hope I'm not expressing the hubrists of 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.920 a human here, but I do wonder if the AI 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.119 can kind of replace the you know, the creativity and 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:10.119 the storytelling of an actual journalist. Yeah. I mean, I 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.320 think there's a lot that these these types of programs 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:13.919 are never going to be able to do. They're not 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.280 really going to be able to do investigative reporting and 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:19.240 narrative storytelling, right articles with the beginning of middle and 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:21.919 an end and that the you know, convey some nuance 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:25.360 about a character. Yeah, I think that would be very difficult. 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:27.280 It's certainly the way some of these programs are set up. 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:29.480 But they are getting more sophisticated all the time. And 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:31.720 I know that there are some researchers working on on 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:34.639 this type of technology and academia who think you could create, 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.080 you know, a narrative structure, at least teach these programs 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.840 to create a narrative structure. Now you're getting a little 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:42.560 too close to home. But let me ask you, Jeremy, 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:44.680 I mean, is there a reason to worry that if 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.400 the AI is doing the kind of grunt work stories, 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.520 that some perhaps young reporters aren't getting the kind of training, 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:53.680 you know, being able to cut their teeth on these 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.800 kinds of stories because the AI is taking over. Yeah, 0:18:56.840 --> 0:18:58.040 I mean, I think it's a bit of a double 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.359 edged sword. On the one hand, it means that those 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:02.439 those entry level reporters don't have to do a lot 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:03.960 of that grunt work, and maybe they don't get his 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:06.240 board with the job and maybe they get to move 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:09.639 on to higher value added skills earlier. But but they 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.080 also might not learn the basics. And I think that's 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:14.240 an issue in a lot of professions as AI kind 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:16.200 of takes over, is you know, all of that stuff 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:18.800 that's being automated was how people learn the basics of 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.040 their job, And there were a lot of important skills 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:22.720 that they might have learned that they're now gonna have 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:25.600 to learn some other way. Right, But the big issue 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:28.359 here is of course fixing the business model does the 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:30.600 does Project Rador do that? I mean, do you get 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.679 the sense that this technology can solve some of the 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:37.000 problems at a newspaper like the Born withth Echo? Well, 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:39.520 I think it's helping the echo just at the margins, really, 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:41.359 I mean, it's helping it fill in a few stories 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.399 a week, but it's not solving that the underlying business problem. 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:46.480 And I don't think any of these automated soleations really are. 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:48.920 I mean, they help newspapers produce a little bit more 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:51.520 with fewer people. Um, they take away some of the 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:53.720 grunt work, which maybe frees up people to do some 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:56.200 some higher stuff. But but it's not fixing the fundamental problem, 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.199 which is if you don't have advertisers willing to pay 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:01.880 that much money to to run ads against something online, 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:03.359 you're just not gonna be able to pay for what 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:06.159 you produce. Yeah, and articles like the one that you 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.760 read about juvenile crime. It's probably not solving the other 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:12.920 basic issue, which is kind of preserving that relationship, that 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:17.480 very powerful relationship between the local newspaper and the reader. Yeah, no, 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:19.560 not at all. These programs aren't going to know about 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:21.960 the local community. They're not going to have that sense 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:31.240 of place at the Bournemouth Echo. The staff who remain 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:35.080 have tried their best to adapt changing times. Yeah, take 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.320 Cora and the last photographer on staff. He told us 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:43.160 he's moved from taking still images to mostly shooting video video. 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:45.439 It's been costizing, it says, it's more of a challenge, 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:50.359 you know, learning Learning video is something that really really 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:54.520 interested me. In fact, Coran's video skills were in such demand. 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:57.520 The Connett that's the company that owns news Quest Media, 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:00.280 tapped him to shoot video for USA Today and the 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:03.720 rest of the Ganet papers at the World Economic Forum 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:06.000 in Davas, Switzerland. You know, if you were going to 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.679 stay static and say I'm not learning this, I'm not 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:11.439 changing this is not something I'm going to do that 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.080 you are. You know, you're probably playing the last pan 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:17.720 in your career. Cora and has helped train the rest 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:20.720 of the Echoes reporting staff and photography skills, and he 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:23.720 oversees this thing called the Echoes Camera Club that's a 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:26.840 group of readers and amateur photographers who contribute images to 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.119 the paper. While he's had to adapt, Coran still enjoys 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:33.000 his job. Mari Hart is with the Woman Dirt Echo. 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:35.199 If there's if there's a massive news story going on 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:36.719 in town, I'm going to get some to it. If 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:39.480 there's if there's an interesting, you know, photographic assignment to 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:41.119 go to, I'm going to get to go to it. 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:44.480 In many ways, Andy says, the Corn's story is really 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:47.480 the story of the Echo in microcosm. I can't think 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.080 of any other business though, where it's such a short 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:52.440 space of time. People have to learn a whole range 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:55.040 of new skills, and they do it day and day out. 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:58.760 They're the phenomenon. The paper has managed to build a 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:02.720 decent online readership. The Echoes Content and Audience manager Katie 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:05.840 Clark walked me through a few of the numbers. So 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:08.640 monthly we're looking at like one point two to one 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:13.679 point three unique million uniques um and page views are 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:16.439