Episode 214

Journalism's product problem

Dmitry Shishkin, a veteran of the BBC and former CEO of Ringier International, has a back-to-basics suggestion: Journalism needs to adapt more of a product mindset. Too much of what newsrooms produce is basic news updates rather than acting as a utility for the audience. His User Needs framework seeks to shift journalism to be more useful to the audience. We talk about why newsrooms overproduce content nobody values, how the BBC tripled its audience by doing less, why Dmitry thinks the next editor-in-chief should come from audience development, what happens when AI can handle all the commodity news, and whether your publication would even be missed if it disappeared tomorrow.

Transcript
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Welcome to the Rebooting Show.

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I am Brian Morrissey.

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before we get started, just, something I wanted to let you know, we're gonna be

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doing a series of gatherings, this spring.

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we just, we did a mixer in London a few weeks ago.

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my guest here, Dmitri, was there, hopefully he can speak to, he can

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endorse the, the, the mixer format.

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we're gonna be doing another one.

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In New York City on March 19th.

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our friends at Beehive, are our partners on that.

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we have a couple of spots left over.

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These are always, you know, invitation only, so to speak.

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but if you register your interest, at a link I'm leaving, you know,

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you, you can get one of those slots and if you join TRB Pro, we're gonna

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be talking about subscriptions.

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you know, you'll get, you'll get preferential access to all of these.

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And we've got, we've got other gatherings, lined up.

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We're doing an audience strategy salon in early April.

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We're gonna do an AI and media, salon, in May.

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We've got the media product forum coming up in May.

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Look, this is media.

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This is what you do.

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We're all in the events business.

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Dmitri, we can talk about that.

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Maybe Dmitri Kin is, my guest this week.

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Dmitri is a media strategist.

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He's best known for developing this user needs framework.

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It's going on like a decade ago, but, it really has, I think, reshaped

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how many news organizations think about their journalism product.

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And right now is a time when, I think it has to be rethought.

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And we're seeing a lot of resistance to that, a lot more resistance that than

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I would've thought, honestly, because if you look at the, the marketplace,

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what is being shipped oftentimes out of a lot of newsrooms is not, is

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not doing well in the marketplace.

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You can disagree with how will Lewis, certainly phrase things to, the,

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the staff at the Washington Post with Nobody's reading your stuff.

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But what he was saying was absolutely true and the data does back up that

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what, the Washington Post has been shipping and frankly it's hasn't been

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shipping that much, hasn't been very efficient, is losing in the market.

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And so we wanna talk about like how to win in, in the market, because at least

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here in the United States, I don't see us going to a non-market based, system.

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Maybe.

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Who knows?

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I do have some thoughts on that.

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Anyway, Dmitri was, until recently the CEO of Ring Air Media International.

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He oversaw digital publication operations across, Europe and

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I think Africa too, right?

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Dmitri

Dmitry:

in part.

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in part.

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Okay.

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he's got, he's got some ties to the Balkans.

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Maybe we'll get to that.

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anyway, Dmitri, thank you for joining me.

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I think, you know, you really sit between journalism.

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Product, audience, and this is, this is where the future of this industry

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is

Dmitry:

I, I actually pride myself for that.

Dmitry:

I'm an editor by profession and I have been trained classically as an editor

Dmitry:

and spent many years editing things.

Dmitry:

But I, about 20 years ago, I started getting into this internet thing and

Dmitry:

became really interested in product data and audience and content conversion

Dmitry:

effectively like that intersection.

Dmitry:

So you really cannot be a really good editor without really

Dmitry:

understanding product and data.

Dmitry:

Well, and I, think that journalism.

Dmitry:

We need to make journalism indispensable in people's lives.

Dmitry:

So I, as a consultant, I always ask my clients like, what would happen if your

Dmitry:

organization will disappear tomorrow?

Dmitry:

And if there is a silence at the end, then there's a problem, right?

Dmitry:

Because we are moving from kind of output based journalism to

Dmitry:

usefulness based journalism.

Dmitry:

And the user needs are the proxy for audience centricity and

Dmitry:

usefulness.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

It's really interesting.

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So you came up with this framework at the BB.

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C. it was a decade ago.

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We should have a mixer.

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We should have a mixer to, to

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celebrate the,

Dmitry:

need, need to be, need to be very, very honest about how it came about.

Dmitry:

The idea came from audience research people, and I am just, I call myself

Dmitry:

enforcer, evangelizer and collector of user needs and publishing, right?

Dmitry:

So I enforce it and I spread it globally.

Dmitry:

So, but sometimes

Brian:

come on.

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It's branding.

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Dimitri.

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We, we, we can get pa past that.

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Like,

Dmitry:

no, no, I know, but I know, but you need, you need to, you need to be very

Dmitry:

humble about kind of the origin can from audience

Dmitry:

research,

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

Of course.

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And that is how all innovations come about.

Brian:

Like, but, you know, so first of all, explain, explain what user needs are.

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And, you know, in some ways, I think when people hear about 'em, well, you'll,

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you'll tell 'em, like, it'll sound like, all right, that sounds pretty, it sounds

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pretty obvious, but like, explain it.

Dmitry:

that makes my life as a consultant, right?

Dmitry:

So easy because I actually, I actually don't flag anything that

Dmitry:

people are saying, oh no, this is so, so away from journalism.

Dmitry:

This is the epitome of journalism.

Dmitry:

This like the beating heart of it, right?

Dmitry:

Because I, I basically say, I don't really care what you output

Dmitry:

and what you want to write about.

Dmitry:

I can actually help you to do it better and why are you doing it better?

Dmitry:

Because some user needs you're trying to satisfy, they're not the

Dmitry:

user needs that people are actually.

Dmitry:

Needing or in need of, being satisfied, so to speak.

Dmitry:

So for example, it all started at the BBC one because in, in two

Dmitry:

thousands we were growing like that istic growth across the world.

Dmitry:

Like, you know, it doesn't really matter, Bangladesh or Kenya or Brazil.

Dmitry:

And then suddenly in 2010s we started plateauing.

Dmitry:

And why we're, why we're plateauing because the local competitors started

Dmitry:

doing journalism better than us, relevancy wise, speed wise, like all

Dmitry:

of that type of stuff, innovation wise.

Dmitry:

So our guys went around the world and started asking questions, why do, do

Dmitry:

you consume news in the first place?

Dmitry:

And they of course came up with this idea of six user needs that created the model.

Dmitry:

That the model, we started applying to all our content and suddenly

Dmitry:

the growth started happening again.

Dmitry:

Because on the day when Macron wins elections, you don't write an

Dmitry:

update me story because everybody else in the world will be writing

Dmitry:

Update me story about that.

Dmitry:

But you'll write an educate me story about,

Brian:

but, but explain.

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People don't know what it is.

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Dmitri,

Dmitry:

Well, you know, where have you

Dmitry:

been?

Dmitry:

Under

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know in Europe, everyone knows what this is, but a lot of my

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audience is in America and they're

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they're, they're

Dmitry:

Yeah, I, I actually was asking myself, so but with one caveat of, okay,

Dmitry:

so one of the, one of the people, the brightest people in our, sector who

Dmitry:

actually confirmed that I was on the right path was, Louis story when she was

Dmitry:

at Wall Street Journal, because when I approached her about this, she actually

Dmitry:

sent me some slides where already Wall Street Journal was already segmenting

Dmitry:

stories according to user needs.

Dmitry:

And when Vogue created a model dedicated to their fashion coverage

Dmitry:

based on the BBC model, and then Vogue suddenly, and then Journal, I

Dmitry:

suddenly thought, okay, this is actually happening everywhere at the same time.

Dmitry:

So it's very easy.

Dmitry:

People consume news because.

Dmitry:

A piece of content does something to you.

Dmitry:

That's why I never believe in those Frankenstein articles where

Dmitry:

many user needs are in the same article, because suddenly, what,

Dmitry:

what is your headline going to be?

Dmitry:

So people either want to know something or they want to understand something,

Dmitry:

or they want to feel something, or they want to do something with news.

Dmitry:

So effectively you come to, to the newsroom and you say,

Dmitry:

well, this is all happening.

Dmitry:

But what are, what is the best way of delivering that to people?

Dmitry:

Because people tend to jump to formats right from the start.

Dmitry:

They think, okay, story first.

Dmitry:

Format second, which is completely wrong because you need to say story first.

Dmitry:

Using it second format, third, and because of that you suddenly say,

Dmitry:

okay, well currently 7% of our output, only brings you something valuable.

Dmitry:

Everything else goes straight to the waste basket.

Dmitry:

Or it's probably something like Pareto Principle 80 20 or something like that.

Dmitry:

So 20% of your content brings 80% of your value, but you actually

Dmitry:

need to know what this 20% are.

Dmitry:

I was just doing some reviews of my.

Dmitry:

Of some of the clients and also titles at Ring Gear when we

Dmitry:

introduced user needs model.

Dmitry:

And you do it section by section and you start looking at what user

Dmitry:

needs collections you have and you need to double down on some and

Dmitry:

you need to stop doing some others because you just not fit for that.

Dmitry:

you know, so it's, that's why the connection between content, data and

Dmitry:

product is so crucial here because suddenly you start creating products

Dmitry:

based on user needs, but you also need to have your data super clean in

Dmitry:

order to actually capture everything

Dmitry:

properly.

Brian:

I just wanna level set.

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I'm gonna, I'm gonna describe what the user needs are 'cause

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I can get 'em outta you.

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Update me.

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All right.

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That is keeping, that's the, that's the classic and most news organizations

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over index, I think on, on that.

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And that is like news.

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It's like, what's new, what's what's happening?

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Like, you know, who's the new, who's the new ayatollah?

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It's,

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it's

Dmitry:

No.

Dmitry:

Who is the new who, who is the new is actually educate

Dmitry:

me,

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

okay.

Brian:

No, well, I mean, Like it literally the name of the ayatollah

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is, is, is, is updating me.

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that, that, that it, the Ayatollah, the new Ola got chosen.

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Educate me is the help to understand an issue.

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Who is Moaba?

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Like who is this guy?

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Okay.

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give me perspective.

Brian:

You know, that's the analysis function, right?

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And that is that, that's like, that's that, let me just finish that.

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I know you're passionate about this.

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Okay.

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But I'm gonna go through these.

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I give a perspective is provide the analysis and interpretation

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of different viewpoints.

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What does this mean for the war?

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What does this, like, you know, what does this mean for, for the regional stability?

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Inspire me.

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Probably not applicable here.

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oh.

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A new, a new, uh, history of the Middle East is gonna be re rewritten.

Brian:

This is, you know, but this is something that, you know, news organizations need

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to provide, and I think oftentimes do not provide enough of, because it's like,

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you know, if it bleeds, it leads in news.

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Help me.

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Which is, you know, this used to be to me, like service journalism, which is

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practical advice, information to make decisions, you know, more than just gift

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guides, if you will, during the affiliate.

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little boomlet and then divert me, which is.

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Gimme something different.

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Give me a game to play.

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You know, look at the New York Times with, its games thing.

Brian:

so that is, and then there's, there's, there's wait two supporting needs, right?

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There's Connect Me, which is part of a community, and then there's

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reassuring me providing clarity and confidence in uncertain situations.

Brian:

Do I have

Dmitry:

Well then there, well there are, you were quoting from different

Dmitry:

models, but if you look at the comprehen most comprehensive model,

Dmitry:

which I analyzed about like, I don't dunno, 30 different models and we

Dmitry:

created the most comprehensive ones.

Dmitry:

So in no area you've gotta update me and keep me, keep me

Dmitry:

engaged in the in the understand.

Dmitry:

It's educate me and gimme perspective in feel.

Dmitry:

It's inspire me and divert me and then do it's connect me and help me.

Dmitry:

And you would say reassure me is probably part of the help me potentially.

Dmitry:

But the idea here is Brian is not, is individual topic, is not

Dmitry:

connected to user needs directly.

Dmitry:

Like for example, entertain me is always divert me or something like,

Dmitry:

oh, entertainment is always divert me.

Dmitry:

Actually you take a story and you try to apply any type of user need, which

Dmitry:

you consider the most interesting one for this particular topic.

Dmitry:

There is a really easy lesson that you can do or play.

Dmitry:

You can play with your newsroom where you give them a topic and ask

Dmitry:

them to bring you all the headlines representing each of the user needs

Dmitry:

on that particular topic, and that's a really healthy way of doing it.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

So like, did you, have you done like analysis as for, I mean, it, it obviously

Brian:

varies across publications, right?

Brian:

But, if you're the Atlantic, I'm gonna use a lot of American examples, but

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like, if you're the Atlantic, you know, you're, you're gonna break news

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like every now and again, but they're always going to be more perspective.

Brian:

It's a magazine like brand and, and, but if you're and AP, it's gonna be update me.

Brian:

I mean, that's like what they, they, they do, right.

Dmitry:

Well, not, not, not, necessarily.

Dmitry:

So going to Atlantic, Atlantic actually together with Journal and Vogue were one

Dmitry:

of the first people who actually created, their own models based on the BBC one.

Dmitry:

But I vividly remember when Atlantic published a couple of internal

Dmitry:

documents of how they came about with a model and everything.

Dmitry:

And one particularly using it, they were promoting was they introduced me to the

Dmitry:

authors at the top of their game, which was an incredible, I, I guess confirmation

Dmitry:

that you actually need to have a model which will be different, a little bit

Dmitry:

different from others to actually create, justify your specific space in the

Dmitry:

market

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

So like when, when you're looking at this, like why, why

Brian:

is this like needed necessarily?

Brian:

Like I would've thought that like newsrooms would be focused

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on their audience needs.

Brian:

I mean, they should be just from, by default.

Brian:

Like it's kind of strange that this is, it would be like a, I don't know,

Brian:

a candy bar company being like, you know, we should actually focus on

Brian:

like the candy people want to eat.

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And like, well,

Dmitry:

Shocking.

Brian:

is this, is this just because like, and I, I wanna get at the culture bottom.

Brian:

I'm like joking about it a little bit because sometimes I wonder whether

Brian:

there is like a real cultural change that needs to take place in that you're

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operating in a market and you need to create a product that the market

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needs and cannot get, get from others.

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Like this is 1 0 1 stuff in some ways of anyone who's

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operating within a marketplace.

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And I sometimes wonder if there's a cultural culture that thinks

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that this profession doesn't have to o operate in a marketplace.

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And that's why there's the always the pining for the benevolent, the quote

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unquote benevolent billionaire who isn't going to, you know, and then

Brian:

the benevolent is like, I'm losing a hundred million dollars a year.

Brian:

Sorry.

Dmitry:

but you, you, you still can argue that, journalists and

Dmitry:

editors are interested in stories and there is nothing wrong with it.

Dmitry:

But what they're not interested in is, how they can deliver those

Dmitry:

stories to the audience at large.

Dmitry:

I used to be so cross at the BB, C when my editors would say something

Dmitry:

like, but we are public service.

Dmitry:

We have to tell, we have to report on this.

Dmitry:

Yes, I agree.

Dmitry:

But if you are just reporting on something in the most boring way possible, IE

Dmitry:

satisfying this proverbial update me type of thing, then you don't, it's your

Dmitry:

failure of not having done it properly.

Dmitry:

So people get engaged with those type of stories.

Dmitry:

And that's where I give my perspective comes in, this is where educate me, comes

Dmitry:

in, help me, comes in, and all of those.

Dmitry:

So it's actually about always asking yourself, what does this piece

Dmitry:

of journalism do to my audience?

Dmitry:

Full stop.

Dmitry:

Nobody's questioning the, the, that we need to report on news, but there

Dmitry:

are just better ways of doing it and.

Dmitry:

I mean, we'll talk about it, later, but the more niche you become, the better,

Dmitry:

return and investment there is because you actually understand your audience

Dmitry:

much, much better than generalists because you actually understand what drives your

Dmitry:

community and what they need from you.

Dmitry:

And you know, I see time and time again, the deeper you go in the kind of pyramid

Dmitry:

of output, the more effective you become.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

And so what, what I wonder is like, first of all, what then, why do you think

Brian:

that there's a resistance to, to this?

Brian:

Why, why was this even needed?

Brian:

It's not like widely, so why,

Brian:

what is your

Dmitry:

Well, it's kind of, you know, it's, it's,

Brian:

I mean, the B, BC is a

Brian:

particular sort of, you know, it's like in the, here, there they're gonna be

Brian:

a little bit more exposed to market forces, but it isn't as much there.

Brian:

But why, why outside of those particular instances do you think

Brian:

that this is not like, caught

Brian:

on?

Dmitry:

Well, because everybody has a problem of overproducing

Dmitry:

wrong type of content, right?

Dmitry:

And because ultimately people are just always thinking, okay, well we need

Dmitry:

to cover this and that, and that, and that, and by coverage is just like,

Dmitry:

I remember being an agent to myself.

Dmitry:

It's like, okay, this happened.

Dmitry:

Go and write a story about this without really giving people a proper,

Dmitry:

proper feedback of what exactly you need to, to, to, to go and report.

Dmitry:

But if you're sitting your correspondent down, and by the way,

Dmitry:

news gatherers, ie. Correspondents are.

Dmitry:

Content providers by default, and they, as long as you tell them exactly what

Dmitry:

you need to bring, they will bring it.

Dmitry:

So actually working with news gatherers for me was much easier than

Dmitry:

working with people who sit behind the desks, and actually output,

Dmitry:

well, who actually commission output.

Dmitry:

So it wasn't, I think it requires newsrooms to change how they think

Dmitry:

about journalism in the first place.

Dmitry:

Like what is this conversation is about audience value, it's about,

Dmitry:

and that's not really comfortable because suddenly you're questioning

Dmitry:

the fact that people really don't think about your audiences that much.

Dmitry:

And that's why when I wrote the speech about, well, I spoke

Dmitry:

at digital conference about.

Dmitry:

Few months ago, and they called my point controversial when I said that the new

Dmitry:

editor in chief, the next editor in chief cohort, should be coming from

Dmitry:

audience development teams rather than from individual beats, areas

Dmitry:

because audience engagement, people by default, if they're classically

Dmitry:

trained as editors, they have been exposed to so many useful verticals and

Dmitry:

disciplines that regular editors are not.

Dmitry:

And we're talking about product, about data, about audience development,

Dmitry:

about all of those, skills that regular beat editors are not really,

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

so I think you, you'd mentioned before, a lot of times, you know, people focus

Brian:

on the format versus like the need, you know, and that comes down to is

Brian:

it an article, is it a short video?

Brian:

And these are all very important.

Brian:

Like I think the atomic unit of a lot of particularly news, has been.

Brian:

The, the, the written article, right.

Brian:

And there have been a lot of attempts to reinvent, the article, over the years.

Brian:

It, it is not, it is not a native format to the digital age.

Brian:

The 700 word inverted pyramid news article is like, if it's not already dead, but

Brian:

like it is still shipped a lot of times.

Brian:

Like the fact that Axios, you know, came out with some bullet points over

Brian:

a decade ago that, and I joke about that, but it, it was like, you know,

Brian:

that that was an innovation in the article format, which is to me a sign

Brian:

of, oh my God, this is really far behind.

Brian:

And now we have AI barreling down the pike.

Brian:

And it, it seems to me that there has not been enough attempts to really

Brian:

rethink what, how this content.

Brian:

Is packaged.

Dmitry:

Let me be clear about what I, well, what I think about this.

Dmitry:

First of all, remember this famous quartz graph.

Dmitry:

Where they, there was a peak for short form.

Dmitry:

There was a peak for long form and there was a big, big drop in the middle.

Dmitry:

And that middle is classic online coverage, story coverage, like 700 words.

Dmitry:

That was already done more than 10 years ago.

Dmitry:

That that slide, I remember using that slide even when I was at the BBC

Dmitry:

already, it was saying it's either we do short and fast or we do really

Dmitry:

in depth different than original blah, blah, blah, all of that.

Dmitry:

But still people defaulting to that Before we go into like, it's inevitable

Dmitry:

that we'll touch on multimodality here because I'm really interested in how

Dmitry:

using it can help you with multimodality.

Dmitry:

And actually my Nieman lab predictions for this year was about that

Dmitry:

you only will be able to achieve true multimodality in media.

Dmitry:

If you are not going to stick a button, listen to this article or, you know,

Dmitry:

turn it this into a video type of thing for every article you do, but you need

Dmitry:

to be much more strategic about how you select different modes for different

Dmitry:

type of output and different using it.

Dmitry:

So, and that's why you need to have.

Dmitry:

Firstly, super, super clean data at the, your performance based on formats and

Dmitry:

based on topics and based on using it.

Dmitry:

So those three things are really important ones.

Dmitry:

And then you start applying the multimodal thinking to that, and you think, okay,

Dmitry:

that constellation of using its topics and formats should go into that.

Dmitry:

And by formats I actually mean, I don't mean audio, video and text because

Dmitry:

audio, video and text are content types.

Dmitry:

Every format can be applied to them.

Dmitry:

Content type, because it can have an explain in video, it can have an explain

Dmitry:

in text, can have explain in audio.

Dmitry:

So it doesn't really, you, you can't really jump into an mode

Dmitry:

without really figuring it out what format you need to have.

Dmitry:

But, I do a lot of, work with newsrooms exactly on that.

Dmitry:

So kind of before jumping into all of those execution of how you do things,

Dmitry:

you actually need to understand what exactly you're trying to do.

Dmitry:

And then.

Dmitry:

it's a lot, it's a lot to ask of people like that because it's a,

Dmitry:

it's a, it's a big thing to introduce all of those things, but once you do

Dmitry:

it, you can see a real value because suddenly your output becomes much

Dmitry:

more structured and becomes much more, persistent and, what's the word?

Dmitry:

Directional, intentional.

Dmitry:

So that's the word I was looking for.

Dmitry:

You.

Dmitry:

You need to be intentional with every single decision you are

Dmitry:

making about every single piece of content that you're outputting.

Dmitry:

And that goes back to my point about the niche publications and the individual

Dmitry:

kind of discipline publications that actually understand it very, very well.

Dmitry:

that's why we actually will take user needs probably next, because

Dmitry:

I guess verticalization of output will be a ification of output will

Dmitry:

be the next frontier that we really need to properly, properly go

Dmitry:

into.

Brian:

So I mean, when you're talking about this, you're

Brian:

talking a lot about like, kind of basically like editorial decisions.

Brian:

And I think the question that I end up having is, is how many of those are gonna

Brian:

be made by editors themselves, right?

Brian:

Like, we've already see algorithms are doing the, the, the job of, of

Brian:

selecting, you know, the stories that, that most people see.

Brian:

And that's a reality.

Brian:

And I feel like there's this parallel reality that goes on where there's

Brian:

meetings about things that go on the like front page and stuff, and

Brian:

like, it literally doesn't matter.

Brian:

Um, so I think what I end up wondering is.

Brian:

Whether all of these decisions are just even gonna be made by

Brian:

the, by the quote unquote news organization, by an editor or anyone.

Brian:

Like at the end of the day, like, we all have different user needs, right?

Brian:

For the same, the same thing that's happening.

Brian:

Moaba.

Brian:

I like, I know that he, I I know, I know the information.

Brian:

You don't need to update me.

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

What I personally, what I need is I need to know whether this is going,

Brian:

whether this means that this thing's gonna last even longer or, or what.

Brian:

Like, that's where I want to jump to Now.

Brian:

Someone else, they've never heard of this Mospa guy.

Brian:

you know, I'm a little, you know, I'm, I'm, I, I'm, I'm a, I'm in deep,

Brian:

like, so with this, this topic, won't that inevitably be made with ai?

Dmitry:

So this is what really excites me about this.

Dmitry:

So, let's just take one step back and before we go into this like complete

Dmitry:

future where you turn your content into any type of thing that you

Dmitry:

might even consider thinking about.

Dmitry:

But one thing is about actually starting training a muscle inside the newsroom

Dmitry:

to start reacting to algorithmic.

Dmitry:

Notifications about what works, what doesn't.

Dmitry:

So when I was at Ring India, for example, I actually introduced the role

Dmitry:

into a, every newsroom I was running that, was only reacting to algorithmic

Dmitry:

notifications about what is working for their content, of what is, what needs

Dmitry:

to be approved immediately on the day.

Dmitry:

So because, because if algorithms sends you hundred notifications a day about

Dmitry:

what can be improved immediately and you only react to 20%, you're already losing.

Dmitry:

Right?

Dmitry:

So you need to be, you need to be aware of those things because frankly

Dmitry:

speaking, human brain, everybody knows that human brain is not able to

Dmitry:

calculate all the permutations as much.

Dmitry:

And I think the challenge here, Brian, will be to, in order to

Dmitry:

get to the future that you just described, which I completely agree

Dmitry:

with, and I think that every story probably will be delivered in about,

Dmitry:

I don't know, 30, 40 different ways.

Dmitry:

And that will include user needs, formats, and content types.

Dmitry:

IE audio, video, text, whatever.

Dmitry:

And then everything in between.

Dmitry:

But what needs to happen is that you need to nor normalize, for example,

Dmitry:

all your data points that you're gathering across your network.

Dmitry:

And what I mean by that is that, let indulge me for 30 seconds.

Dmitry:

Imagine you have a host of URLs that are interacting with ten third party

Dmitry:

products that you have in your newsroom.

Dmitry:

One of them is editorial analytics.

Dmitry:

One of them is email marketing tool.

Dmitry:

One of them is the push notification tool.

Dmitry:

All of those tools that one of the, they create reality about what goods good looks

Dmitry:

like only for that tool specifically.

Dmitry:

But the only thing that really unites them together are the URLs that you

Dmitry:

are producing one way or another.

Dmitry:

My ambition would be to get to a, to a state where all of those metrics,

Dmitry:

different metrics, different kind of points of view and everything are

Dmitry:

normalized with each other and actually create one single point of view, which

Dmitry:

actually is unified for one newsroom.

Dmitry:

So instead of showing me 10 different dashboards and saying,

Dmitry:

well according to this, this works according to that, that works.

Dmitry:

No, that needs to be normalized one way or another.

Dmitry:

So you need to create some kind of ontology of metrics that really you

Dmitry:

understand very well, what works, what doesn't, and in a bigger scheme of things.

Dmitry:

And only then you will be able to say, okay, now I understand how complex

Dmitry:

all of that interaction with different distribution strategies and different

Dmitry:

user needs and different, all of those, how they all work together and how

Dmitry:

they can be leveraged and optimized.

Dmitry:

That I am really excited about.

Dmitry:

And I think we can get somewhere because it's not, not about optimization of front

Dmitry:

page, it's actually about optimization of everything that you are outputting team.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

And I, I guess the, the point I was trying to get at was like, like it

Brian:

seems to me like a choose your own adventure will be like the sort of

Brian:

successor and that, and I don't know how, I don't really know if it's gonna

Brian:

be done on the publication basis.

Brian:

I think in many cases it won't be.

Brian:

I think the Atlantic and BBC, like these are, these are the minority of

Brian:

the minority of the minority, okay?

Brian:

These are the top of the top.

Brian:

The reality is, you know, the 98% are not the, at that level.

Brian:

And so what I, I don't know if, if people are going to be going to specific, like

Brian:

you talk about URLs, like I have no idea if we're gonna be talking about the

Brian:

idea of like URLs like in five years.

Brian:

I don't know to be true.

Brian:

We might, we might have to have a bet on, on that because like, I

Brian:

don't know if that's gonna really even matter at the end of the day.

Brian:

With the acceleration that's going on with, particularly with agents, it

Brian:

seems pretty clear that that people are gonna have their own news agent

Brian:

that's tuned to their own needs.

Brian:

The idea of a publication trying to divine the quote unquote

Brian:

user needs, like in some.

Brian:

Conference room in London or New York for all these diverse people just seems

Brian:

to me to run counter to everything that is happening in the broader ecosystem.

Brian:

And if we've learned anything in the last generation, it is that

Brian:

media is downstream of technology and has to adapt to, to technology.

Brian:

And we can talk about the mistakes of the quote unquote pivot to video.

Brian:

Turns out that it's actually right.

Brian:

but there, that's just reality.

Brian:

And so the, I, I like, so I, I'd love your reaction to that idea that

Brian:

like, you know, maybe it's a little provocative, but like, none of this

Brian:

really matters because ultimately the packaging is gonna be done by AI

Brian:

agents anyway, based on my user needs.

Brian:

You don't have to like guess my user needs.

Brian:

'cause I've, I've yet to see one news provider that has been

Brian:

able to guess my user needs,

Brian:

none of them.

Dmitry:

Let's, let's, let's, let's be, maybe talk about steps that actually need

Dmitry:

to happen before we go into the future, which you described because I, I, I

Dmitry:

still believe that actually one-to-one.

Dmitry:

Between media production and individual person, is the way forward.

Dmitry:

I actually think that the, I agree with you that, once you establish that

Dmitry:

those relationship and then the people understand so much about me as the user,

Dmitry:

the audience member and their community member, then they will be serving my

Dmitry:

needs much better than before for sure.

Dmitry:

But in order to do that, in order to actually let's not over,

Dmitry:

estimate the ability of agents to redo things in a way that actually

Dmitry:

will, will be helpful to people.

Dmitry:

Because for example, you know, turning an update me story and they educate me story

Dmitry:

you can do with agents because you have archive and you have all of those things.

Dmitry:

But, you know, in order to create, connect Me article on that topic or

Dmitry:

Inspire Me article, or if we talk about recently launched sports model, which

Dmitry:

we just launched about a month ago.

Dmitry:

take me behind the scenes or leave it with me.

Dmitry:

All of those user needs, you, you will need to be ba to base it on reporting

Dmitry:

and on actually kind of people going and talking to other people and creating

Dmitry:

the, regional connection between humans, which is really important.

Dmitry:

And then the, the technology for me is secondary and my answer, I understand that

Dmitry:

it is very, very, very editorial from that perspective, but I actually think that

Dmitry:

this, what have we as an industry have been missing in the last couple of years?

Dmitry:

The point of view of a, editorial vision on that, because it's very easy to become

Dmitry:

futuristic if you talk to technologists, if you talk to people who understand the

Dmitry:

a, agentic, what workflow, and I, as an editor, I understand it as well, but I

Dmitry:

still have my editorial sensibility in terms of what needs to happen in order

Dmitry:

to your editorial to be connecting to people in a way that is meaningful.

Dmitry:

And going back to our using its conversations.

Dmitry:

If you don't understand.

Dmitry:

If you can't answer the question, what user needs were the three top most

Dmitry:

popular for you, for you, this particular section in the last quarter, and then

Dmitry:

make a differentiation between different platforms where you are, you are already

Dmitry:

in big trouble because you, you don't understand your A, B, C and those A, B, C

Dmitry:

things, they really need to be in place.

Dmitry:

Like probably, you know, three years ago we're talking about, but not

Dmitry:

now.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

With, yeah, I mean, I guess it, it seems to me that, look, the

Brian:

things that are, are, are most at risk from ai are like, update me.

Brian:

and a lot of aggregation is, is at risk.

Brian:

I don't think, I think some forms of, I think explainers are at risk.

Brian:

Like I don't go, I don't, I don't rely on, on news provider like that, that,

Brian:

that to me is probably like we, we started like an explainer series of

Brian:

digit a around like programmatic stuff.

Brian:

I don't, I don't think it's relevant anymore, honestly.

Brian:

And they still do 'em,

Brian:

but

Dmitry:

Well, I was recently interviewed for the article.

Dmitry:

WTF is Liquid Content by Dig

Dmitry:

Day.

Brian:

yeah.

Brian:

No, I mean that's, that there still exists, but I don't like.

Brian:

That's just a lag, honestly, before, because, you know, even people in this

Brian:

space are, are a little bit behind because there's no, there's there, there's not

Brian:

gonna be a market for that kind of stuff.

Brian:

I mean, look, I think there's lots of stuff we, we, we keep doing,

Brian:

but there's no future for it.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

but I do think that perspective is going to be, is is most protected,

Brian:

but also just like breaking news.

Brian:

Unique data sets are incredibly valuable in this world.

Brian:

And so in some ways it's like a return to the future.

Brian:

I think the, the mechanisms are gonna be very different as far as how that

Brian:

is packaged and delivered to the audience, whether it's through agents

Brian:

or whether it's through editors.

Brian:

I have my, my point of view, but ultimately, you know, like News Corps,

Brian:

CEO Robert Thompson, you know, recently took to describing, how news organizations

Brian:

will end up being, you know, inputs.

Brian:

For ai, you know, I mean, because they're, they're striking deals with, with these,

Brian:

and ultimately, you know, marketplace is going to, to be, to be developed.

Brian:

And, that is where I see, a some people will be able to pull off these DTC

Brian:

models of like subscriptions and stuff.

Brian:

That is gonna be, and I think that is the future of being very audience focused.

Brian:

But a lot of the future of this business seems to me is it is gonna be, it is gonna

Brian:

be as, as an input to, to more centralized AI systems and other AI products.

Dmitry:

You touched upon the future of the setup of the industry overall,

Dmitry:

because there probably will be, even on the level of individual countries,

Dmitry:

there probably will be a winner takes it all type of player, like a generalist

Dmitry:

who will continue, whose brand is so strong that people will still consume

Dmitry:

it one way, another will, it'll be what, whatever, whatever platform they will be

Dmitry:

consuming that content on is secondary.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

Niche, luxury

Dmitry:

I still

Brian:

Sure.

Dmitry:

yeah, I actually think that maybe generalists, well I do a lot of

Dmitry:

work with generalists and I actually think that the only way for them to

Dmitry:

survive is to start treating themselves as a collection of 50 or 60 niches.

Dmitry:

because every single section they do is a niche competing with

Dmitry:

other niches and everything else.

Dmitry:

And, there is nothing.

Dmitry:

Your health coverage and your personal finance coverage actually are not

Dmitry:

really connected and they shouldn't be.

Dmitry:

And then the as audiences, they're not, and the competitors

Dmitry:

are different and all of that.

Dmitry:

So the, the issue, the biggest problem will be for people who

Dmitry:

are not different to anybody else.

Dmitry:

And what, what that means is also quite, know, can be

Dmitry:

different from market to market.

Dmitry:

But, I would still say that, niches and individual specialized

Dmitry:

content, you probably will still be okay for, for, for some time.

Dmitry:

I don't know.

Dmitry:

but, if you can't in one sentence describe how you different and what

Dmitry:

role your, what different role you play in that market, that is already

Dmitry:

a really big problem for you right

Dmitry:

now.

Brian:

Well, yeah, like, and I think a lot of this, like when, when we talk

Brian:

about this more with less era, you know.

Brian:

There's this industry is under compression, right?

Brian:

And it is under severe compression, and it is gonna continue to be

Brian:

compressed like everyone is for sale.

Brian:

And, and, and there's gonna be a lot of roll-ups that are gonna happen.

Brian:

And if you don't like what, what's happening now, you're not gonna like

Brian:

what's go, what's gonna happen for a, a, a period of time because there's still,

Brian:

and that is reality and there's gonna be a lot of protests, and this is unfair.

Brian:

I'm telling you, it is gonna happen one way or the other.

Brian:

And so a lot of organizations are going to need to change.

Brian:

So you mentioned something about like generalists.

Brian:

I don't think there's a future for most generalist publications you can

Brian:

talk with about, you know, a couple of small, little examples and I'll

Brian:

agree with them, but again, they're, they're the exception to the norm.

Brian:

The idea that you can be great at food and health and business and politics

Brian:

and foreign po it's ridiculous.

Brian:

It's not gonna happen.

Brian:

And, and and so like people can cry about the Washington Post cutting certain

Brian:

coverage areas because they remember it, how it won a Pulitzer for this, and that,

Brian:

that is, that's the reality of the market.

Brian:

Trying to be all things to, to everyone is a losing strategy to me.

Brian:

And, and so you're gonna have to pick where you're going to, make your impacts.

Brian:

It

Dmitry:

Exactly.

Dmitry:

And remember how I told you about this blank blank piece of paper where you say,

Dmitry:

well write your mission statement in one sentence if, if you are unable to do it

Dmitry:

for every section and every category.

Dmitry:

And you need, need to start thinking about of them differently.

Dmitry:

Those niches and everything separately and the user needs

Dmitry:

model are going to be different.

Dmitry:

And that's why I met a publication that covers legal news and everything,

Dmitry:

and they have their own model based on the original BBC model.

Dmitry:

And then I would love, would love to create a model for personal finance.

Dmitry:

I would love to create a model for retail, for example, because

Dmitry:

everybody, everybody's publisher right now, everybody's a media right now.

Dmitry:

And you really need to start creating things that are going to be different

Dmitry:

and a model that is created by, I don't know, NetApp Porter will

Dmitry:

be different to a model of Vogue.

Dmitry:

But will Selfridges listen and create their own model for their own coverage and

Dmitry:

how they actually create things for retail and for fashion and everything else.

Dmitry:

So, Everybody needs to remember that you need to satisfy people's

Dmitry:

intention, or really need to be there where the intent is there from the

Dmitry:

audience.

Brian:

so you know, I've been circling around this, in this conversation, but

Brian:

like, I'll be more direct about like the, like I listen to, and I take mostly

Brian:

seriously the, the tech guys and because they're, they're a stride, you know,

Brian:

the distribution and the monetization.

Brian:

I don't see that changing.

Brian:

I, I only see their power getting greater.

Brian:

I don't see a future where large numbers of people are typing in

Brian:

the URLs that we're talking about.

Brian:

Like, I just don't see it.

Brian:

I really don't.

Brian:

And I think, like, you know, a lot of publishers need to get out

Brian:

and talk to, like regular people.

Brian:

It's just not part of their lives.

Brian:

And like there's a lot of habits and you can ride that stuff, to, to the end.

Brian:

I mean, people are still with, with print as a distribution, but like it ends.

Brian:

And, so what I end up like thinking about a lot is whether or not

Brian:

culturally these organizations should fight being what Robert Thompson

Brian:

says of being AI input companies.

Brian:

Because he says that he's a CEO, right?

Brian:

He's like talking to like investors and whatnot.

Brian:

It, you cut down to the newsroom level and I think people are throwing

Brian:

up in their mouths a little bit.

Dmitry:

Well, it is a radical thing to, to, to to, to make that connection between

Dmitry:

are we just providing content for other people's interfaces and everything else?

Dmitry:

And we already, people have been burned so badly by Big Tech, the first page of Big

Dmitry:

Tech

Brian:

I definitely

Brian:

wouldn't trust them.

Brian:

I'll put it that way.

Dmitry:

well that what, what I'm saying is that the, you need to start with something

Dmitry:

and that's something we'll be saying.

Dmitry:

Well, even like even remember that we are going to be an input.

Dmitry:

Okay?

Dmitry:

You are lucky if you are going to be ci.

Dmitry:

Because even AI overviews on everything.

Dmitry:

You know how many, how many citation things that there are, there are

Dmitry:

like three pe three companies that are going to be presented to people

Dmitry:

and, and that's it for one particular topic and on the current interface

Dmitry:

or current UX and everything else.

Dmitry:

And you think, okay, there is no hope in the world to anybody else at all.

Dmitry:

And, and you already seeing like the, you already see the companies that

Dmitry:

are striking deals with, AI companies.

Dmitry:

You understand that all they're interested in is basically

Dmitry:

a language output coverage.

Dmitry:

That's it.

Dmitry:

As long as you have lemon and French, you actually don't need

Dmitry:

any other French publication.

Dmitry:

And that's completely irregular because, you know, there will be publications

Dmitry:

in that area that will be providing content that Lemon will never provide.

Dmitry:

Right?

Brian:

Well, I don't know.

Brian:

I mean, I like, look, I, I, so I'll take the, the, the

Brian:

opposite side, just, for fun.

Brian:

if, if you look at it from the, the position of like the

Brian:

AI like company side, right?

Brian:

They need unique, valuable data sets.

Brian:

It's very obvious that these models themselves are

Brian:

somewhat commoditized, right?

Brian:

And so what, what is going to differentiate them is access to unique

Brian:

data sets that others do not have.

Brian:

They took all the old stuff, okay, Boohoo, we can try, you

Brian:

can lawyer up a little bit.

Brian:

Let the New York Times lawyer up, let, let them try to fight these Titanic battles.

Brian:

I don't think like regular news publishers should spend much time

Brian:

thinking about it 'cause it's not something they can control.

Brian:

Maybe a marketplace like emerges.

Brian:

but from their perspective, they wanna have unique data sets and they wanna

Brian:

be able to use that as branding, right?

Brian:

So if you're the only.

Brian:

Let's say, let's just use AI chatbots because, you know, everyone know,

Brian:

everyone focuses there first and foremost.

Brian:

If, if Claude is the only, if Claude has access to New York Times Content, guardian

Brian:

content, financial Times content, wall Street Journal content, and others do

Brian:

not, then that is really good marketing.

Brian:

Now, whether they use other sources and mix it in the fact that like they're

Brian:

displaying the, the logos of those things actually makes a, a big difference.

Brian:

I don't think it's like something people want to, like, think about necessarily,

Brian:

but like there is a possible path where increasingly what news organizations

Brian:

are doing, and I think this is the model that Silicon Valley is, is pushing.

Brian:

So I think it's, it's good to pay attention to it.

Brian:

I think they view news organizations.

Brian:

Like, like raw, like raw material producers.

Brian:

They go and they dig nuggets out of the earth and then they're refined through

Brian:

the economic chain and value is added.

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

Now that is where, what, what journalism organizations have been doing is they've

Brian:

been digging the rocks out of the earth.

Brian:

They've been doing the refining, you know, they've been, they, they've been enhancing

Brian:

it, they've been marketing it, they've can been packaging it and et cetera.

Brian:

And I think what the vision of these tech people is that actually journalism

Brian:

is just some AI input and that they are just gonna be an AI input company.

Brian:

And if you're an AI input company, you radically change like what

Brian:

you're doing and the shape of your organization changes quite a bit.

Brian:

That's my theory.

Dmitry:

I, I don't disagree with that.

Dmitry:

I would just add a caveat to that, that, if you're in Jakarta or LA Pass or you

Dmitry:

probably need other providers rather than the relevant providers for your own market

Dmitry:

rather than the ones which you mentioned.

Dmitry:

The fact

Brian:

I am not gonna mention every single freedom

Brian:

like

Brian:

Indonesian

Dmitry:

I'm saying, what I'm, what I'm saying, is that translating your

Dmitry:

Wall Street Journal coverage into BA

Dmitry:

problem because the will not be satisfied because the coverage.

Brian:

no, no, this is not what I meant at all.

Brian:

I, I, what I meant is that the role of news organizations will be to,

Brian:

to be inputs into the these models, whether you're the Indonesian Wall

Brian:

Street

Dmitry:

uh, it doesn't really mean.

Dmitry:

Okay, okay.

Dmitry:

I understand.

Dmitry:

I understand.

Dmitry:

However, I agree with you with that.

Dmitry:

But the question here is that in order for you to start, to be, to become

Dmitry:

relevant for AI companies, because at some point of time AI companies also

Dmitry:

probably will, like, what is your view?

Dmitry:

Will they stop at some point of time or will they be just

Dmitry:

hovering everything that there is?

Dmitry:

And then they also will need to understand which source is more relevant

Dmitry:

than others and what is the trust.

Dmitry:

And the trust is becoming the most important metric that we can still.

Dmitry:

Leverage against the big tech because I think that a lot of companies, somebody,

Dmitry:

somebody will need to say, what is the most trusted organization for this

Dmitry:

particular part of the world or whatever.

Dmitry:

And that is where the fight will happen.

Dmitry:

And that fight will be won by companies that, treat data, product

Dmitry:

and editorial equally as equal.

Dmitry:

Important parts, equally important parts because only then you will be

Dmitry:

able to start packaging things or start presenting things for, you know,

Dmitry:

becoming almost like AI feeder, clubs.

Dmitry:

But, you still need to have that kind of idea of what good looks like.

Dmitry:

And, if you are, if your editorial is rubbish, you will not make it.

Dmitry:

If your product is rubbish, you'll not make it as your data

Dmitry:

is rubbish, you'll not make it.

Dmitry:

But if, if you have an ability to actually improve all three of them, you

Dmitry:

will have a much better way of, existing in the future one way or another.

Dmitry:

We don't know what the future is going to be, but if you don't have

Dmitry:

any of those three things taken care of, then it is going to be a

Dmitry:

problem.

Brian:

I just wonder how much the packaging part of journalism will continue

Brian:

to be as, as prominent a source of value.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

So you mentioned, you mentioned the stories, like story is a package.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

And we've been telling each other stories since the caves, and I don't, I'm long

Brian:

stories because I just look at, like, we've been doing it since the cave.

Brian:

So I assume that we're gonna continue to relate to the, the world around

Brian:

us by telling each other stories.

Brian:

don't know if the storytelling function.

Brian:

and I think there's an argument to me that, that that, that there

Brian:

can be too much storytelling, mixed in with, with news.

Brian:

I think that there is a lot of confusion.

Brian:

I know, I know reading the New York Times now, I don't think people recognize it.

Brian:

I, I would encourage you, to go back 20 years, it's like a

Brian:

bracingly different experience of what, of what this product is.

Brian:

And I don't mean the, the short form videos and whatnot.

Brian:

I just mean how they approach the journalism product is very different.

Brian:

It's very, very, very story heavy.

Brian:

and, and that's very

Brian:

different.

Dmitry:

but also you also go to some kind of proverbial front page and

Dmitry:

you will see 13 different stories on Iran all scattered around different

Dmitry:

parts of, of, of, that front page without really never understood why.

Dmitry:

And,

Brian:

I guess when I think of story, I think of like narrative, you know?

Brian:

And, and you know, again, there I think, I think it's interesting 'cause

Brian:

there, there's these two, there's like, we are data providers, we're

Brian:

information services providers, right?

Brian:

And that's like a straightforward lane, right?

Brian:

And then there's the, we're we're, we're packaging, you know, like look at

Brian:

the value that Apple derives a, a lot of the va it's designed in California.

Brian:

It's not built in Cal, it's not built in California, it's built in China.

Brian:

you know, a lot of the value is in the, is is in the, the packaging,

Brian:

of, of the technology and.

Brian:

I just think that there's going to be this push and pull about whether

Brian:

journalism becomes an input and a feature of a di of different products

Brian:

or whether it, it, it can persist, not just, not in the most prominent cases,

Brian:

but overall as a, as a packaged product.

Brian:

Do, do you know what I mean by that?

Dmitry:

I, I, I actually will build on what you just said, and I will say,

Dmitry:

yes, I understand what you mean by that.

Dmitry:

I'm going back to all our kind, kind of earlier points of our conversation.

Dmitry:

Is that media?

Dmitry:

Media right now they have, they don't have a content problem as such.

Dmitry:

Okay.

Dmitry:

Because, you know, we're drawing content and all of that, but what media currently.

Dmitry:

Is the biggest problem they have currently is the utility problem.

Dmitry:

So you need to justify why you are needed by the audience and by

Dmitry:

people and everybody else, and every media needs to, to, to solve that

Dmitry:

problem, utility problem by itself.

Dmitry:

Because then if, if, if, say for example, you company needs to be

Dmitry:

known as a educate me type of company.

Dmitry:

Let's take Vox for example.

Dmitry:

When Vox was launched, they had six user needs all sitting under educate

Dmitry:

me and give me perspective area.

Dmitry:

They basically had six very distinctive user needs all sitting on the

Dmitry:

big explain to me type of thing.

Dmitry:

And that, you know, that is a nice differentiation because you can say

Dmitry:

that every single type, we always will be applying six different ways

Dmitry:

of telling you and, educate me or gimme perspective using each story.

Dmitry:

Okay, fine.

Dmitry:

But the question is, this is now a time where 90% of media will probably

Dmitry:

disappear because actually they are not even to answer themselves a question like.

Dmitry:

What am I outputting and why?

Dmitry:

Why am I, how, and how My output actually is connected to the p and l, which I post

Dmitry:

every quarter or something like that.

Dmitry:

And I think that the faster we do it, the the better product we're

Dmitry:

going to have, and then we'll have to survive the future, whatever

Dmitry:

it comes.

Brian:

think, and you talk about sports, you're into sports, right?

Brian:

Like, you know, sports is a great example in that.

Brian:

The score, like what happened in the game, like the idea of, and you know,

Brian:

people mourn, you know, the Washington Post giving up on its sports section,

Brian:

and again, like the same people are now working for the athletic.

Brian:

I'm not gonna mourn because like, what is the difference, like

Brian:

whether the Washington Post, like does it or the Athletic does it?

Brian:

It doesn't really matter.

Brian:

Like I'm not really gonna like, spend much time crying about that.

Brian:

great.

Brian:

That the people like, you know, hopefully they got raises.

Brian:

Who knows?

Brian:

Maybe they have better benefits.

Brian:

I don't know.

Brian:

but like sports, like, there's no economic value really in recapping the game.

Brian:

The idea that you used to send, and you know, there's a lot of warning of this.

Brian:

You used to send the beat reporter to, to, you know, on the road with

Brian:

the team to go to the press conference and ask the coach the same question.

Brian:

you know, you guys seem like you played with a lot of energy in the second half.

Brian:

Like, yeah, okay, that's gone.

Brian:

But like, what I've noticed with sports coverage, and I don't know where

Brian:

this fits in the user needs, is it's gotten so much more sophisticated.

Brian:

In why this happened?

Brian:

Diagramming plays and diagram for the hardcore people who I

Brian:

don't necessarily just wanna know that the Sixers, you know, won.

Brian:

I wanna know like how they're, you know, how they're executing and the, the,

Brian:

the pick and roll without Joel and bead and, and that kind of like, expertise

Brian:

to me it is, is indicative of, of where, of where things are, are, are going.

Brian:

There's always gonna be the storytelling aspect, getting the behind the scenes

Brian:

shams, charia, like, you know, like, this is a guy, like guy's breaking,

Brian:

breaking, you know, he's, he's got all the agents feeding him and stuff,

Brian:

but like, you know, he's like breaking who's going what, who's fighting with

Brian:

who, gambling scandals and whatnot.

Brian:

That'll

Brian:

always

Dmitry:

I, I'm, I'm, I'm very glad that you mentioned it because when we launched

Dmitry:

the sports model, we created the model basically looking at, you know, athletic

Dmitry:

coverage, looking at BBC sports coverage.

Dmitry:

We like all of those big guys.

Dmitry:

And when we ran the model by them afterwards, we're

Dmitry:

saying, does it make sense?

Dmitry:

They said, actually, we, it never even occurred to us to even

Dmitry:

think about capturing user needs measurably, like numerically.

Dmitry:

Okay.

Dmitry:

But yes, we do all of those things and I, I'm an avid athletic reader.

Dmitry:

I'm a big Chelsea fan.

Dmitry:

I understand that Chelsea coverage will be the best on athletic,

Dmitry:

and I, I understand that.

Dmitry:

Relieve it with me.

Dmitry:

Get me behind the, take me behind the scenes.

Dmitry:

find me up.

Dmitry:

what else is there?

Dmitry:

Introduce me, introduce me to, or any other user needs.

Dmitry:

And there the model is very similar to news.

Dmitry:

People still want to know something, understand something,

Dmitry:

feel something and do something.

Dmitry:

But the plethora of user needs, and actually it's very clear why creators

Dmitry:

they satisfy find me up using it much better than any other sports media

Dmitry:

publication because it was not in nature of a sports media publication

Dmitry:

to actually create a find me up.

Dmitry:

using it story.

Dmitry:

And at the same time, if you're looking at the output of a club, the

Dmitry:

club will never do a, an educate me type of piece because they will not

Dmitry:

explain why they had the fourth coach in the last, in the last year, why

Dmitry:

they have fired the previous free ones.

Dmitry:

It's just not what they do.

Dmitry:

But they still will do reli it with me and, you know, take me behind

Dmitry:

the scenes and all of that because they understand it intrinsically

Dmitry:

that the value of engagement fans.

Dmitry:

And when you do the analysis of the sports user needs model, you can see

Dmitry:

the, it's kind of not dissimilar to news.

Dmitry:

The model is different, but the output is not people overproduce wrong type

Dmitry:

of content in astronomical numbers.

Dmitry:

but once you start looking at the engagement metrics like loyalty, new

Dmitry:

people, returning people conversions, it's incredible how individual

Dmitry:

user needs actually drive those

Dmitry:

numbers.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

But it's, it's interesting, like you use sports, but I think it's across, the, the,

Brian:

what I call like the information space in that the economic value accrues more to.

Brian:

The sort of commentary and, and packaging and point of view and perspective and

Brian:

analysis side than it does in, in the, literally, it's like news, I think in some

Brian:

ways has been like commoditized because the reason you float to, to, that you

Brian:

don't have to pay to unearth the facts.

Brian:

Like it is almost like an uneconomic activity, of unearthing like news.

Brian:

And I think that is like a societal challenge, right?

Brian:

But like.

Dmitry:

it's, it's, it's it's completely how user needs were created.

Dmitry:

Why?

Dmitry:

Because in two thousands, 2000 tens when BBC started losing its grip on

Dmitry:

all the markets around the world, well, in, not in the English language

Dmitry:

ones, but in, RNEC language ones.

Dmitry:

Why?

Dmitry:

Because some, somebody, anybody who subscribed to Reuters speed, they can

Dmitry:

get the commodity international news and the BBC value was just not there anymore.

Dmitry:

And, but once BBC started covering international news with different

Dmitry:

lenses of user needs, suddenly that value became, evident again.

Dmitry:

So I completely agree with you that commodity is done.

Dmitry:

It's done.

Dmitry:

And that's why the sooner everybody goes into.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

I think the big risk is that everyone respond, like, look, institutional

Brian:

media is losing to creators right now, for the most part in the marketplace.

Brian:

Okay?

Brian:

And the economics of the creator world are far better than the economics

Brian:

of institutional media, trying to be comprehensive, sending people into

Brian:

dangerous situations and all of the costs.

Brian:

And then on top of that, you can't even monetize the output because, advertisers.

Brian:

Don't want to be around, your investigation of the US blowing

Brian:

up that school as, as it as it seems apparent, right?

Brian:

Like, I mean, good luck like telling Proctor and Gamble like that, that's like

Brian:

something they wanna, you know, they'll talk about it on conference stages, but

Brian:

then, you know, in reality that they, they don't want anything to do with that.

Brian:

So that's a loss leader, you know, and that, you know,

Brian:

that is a societal, benefit.

Brian:

But I think the big danger is, and we've seen this with optimization, is

Brian:

you optimize yourself into some, into areas that are against the mission.

Brian:

And I think journalism is unique as a business and really difficult to run,

Brian:

in many ways, because it has a mission.

Brian:

And most, most companies, if you're, if you're a candy bar, you, you, you might

Brian:

talk about a mission like, you know, in.

Brian:

You know, PR or whatnot.

Brian:

But, you know, you, you're, the job is pretty clear.

Brian:

You, you just gotta

Brian:

sell

Dmitry:

You sell.

Dmitry:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dmitry:

But, but, but that's why, you know, that's why I'm so interested in looking in.

Dmitry:

Into niche publications and creating individual, using its models for them

Dmitry:

and with them, because suddenly you say, okay, well I was, you know, the

Dmitry:

Bureau for Investigative Journalism has created model itself because they

Dmitry:

say, well, we work on something for couple of months and then, you know,

Dmitry:

the story go on the following day.

Dmitry:

we trying to make more impact of that.

Dmitry:

And then that's why you understand, actually showing me your inner workings

Dmitry:

of how you actually conducted the investigation was a really in needed need.

Dmitry:

So, sorry for the, totology, but what I mean is that people who read the Bureau

Dmitry:

for Investigation, journalists for them, the process of you creating the story

Dmitry:

and how you do it and how many people will be called, how many people refuse

Dmitry:

to talk to you is equally important as the, the investigation itself.

Dmitry:

So you just need to understand why you exist in the market in the first place,

Dmitry:

and for your audience, your community.

Dmitry:

Rule number one, newsroom is not allowed to create its own model of user needs.

Dmitry:

They, they always come from the audience itself.

Dmitry:

Right?

Dmitry:

And the audience will tell you actually, like, please show me more.

Dmitry:

Take me behind the scenes type of stuff, rather than update

Dmitry:

me.

Brian:

Yeah, although, so let's talk about that for a little bit because.

Brian:

The old saying is, is if Henry Ford asked people what they wanted, they

Brian:

would've said like a faster horse.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

And I've just noticed in like user surveys, like, and user re, like

Brian:

a lot of times people say things.

Brian:

And they don't necessarily act.

Brian:

There's a big difference between what people say and how they act.

Brian:

And a lot of times it's depressing because like how they, they'll say

Brian:

that, you know, like in B2B they always say, ah, we want research.

Brian:

We absolutely.

Brian:

And, and then you do the research, you pay a lot of money to do it.

Brian:

And they, they, they don't want that.

Brian:

They just wanna know.

Brian:

They just wanna know what's, how much other people make for a living.

Brian:

And, you know, and consumer, it's even worse.

Brian:

Like, there's a reason that lay that, that every publication is

Brian:

doing Game of Thrones recaps.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

And you can, listening to the audience can be, can be kind of dangerous to

Brian:

the mission in some ways, because a lot of times you're listening to

Brian:

the audience through, algorithms that are, are interpreting, what

Brian:

the audience quote unquote needs.

Dmitry:

But let, let me clear, clear.

Dmitry:

We are much more sophisticated than that.

Dmitry:

Okay.

Dmitry:

So it's not just listening to the audience verbatim, it's kind of looking at the

Dmitry:

data across time, looking at cohorts.

Dmitry:

So I'm not interested in how a particular topic performed over the last month.

Dmitry:

Give me the, date data for the last two years than I actually will see

Dmitry:

the picks and troughs and people, the kind of, all of those things will

Dmitry:

even themselves out and everything.

Dmitry:

But I'll give you an example.

Dmitry:

So I. I. live in Wimbledon in London, and I never read Wimbledon

Dmitry:

Guardian local newspaper.

Dmitry:

I subscribe to it, but I never read it because they tend to

Dmitry:

write about, about crime and traffic jams and everything else.

Dmitry:

And I, I live in an area of Wimbledon, where every street is called after

Dmitry:

something of called Linked to Australia.

Dmitry:

If Wimbledon Guardian were to write a feature about why it's a thing, I will

Dmitry:

send it to everybody I know in Wimbledon.

Dmitry:

And the local newsletter, which they just set up, just passed

Dmitry:

the 10 million subscribers.

Dmitry:

It's called the Wimble, and they are using the user needs methodology maybe

Dmitry:

inadvertently without really knowing it.

Dmitry:

And, suddenly they write about interesting people who live in Wimbledon and they

Dmitry:

answer people's questions about Wimbledon and no wonder 10,000 subscribers.

Dmitry:

Okay, it's a free newsletter and probably it's paid for by a local,

Dmitry:

shopping center or something like that.

Dmitry:

But it's not promoting the shopping center.

Dmitry:

It still gives me.

Dmitry:

Month and weekly thing that Wimble and Guardian is not doing.

Dmitry:

Very simple, right?

Dmitry:

Going back to creators and all of that.

Dmitry:

And I, in my, thinking about niches and turning every single section of your

Dmitry:

generalist news newsletter newspaper into a kind of niche publication

Dmitry:

about something, it will, this was my last parting gift to Ringer.

Dmitry:

Before I left, I wrote a paper for them about the newsroom of the

Dmitry:

future, what it should look like, what it should consist of, okay?

Dmitry:

Original content, commodity content via ai, point of view and

Dmitry:

people, people being associated with a topic and everything else.

Dmitry:

And also a, so a utility of some kind of a tool, because content by itself is not

Dmitry:

enough for people to engage with your con, with you, with your brand day in, day out.

Dmitry:

You also need to give them some kind of utility as well.

Dmitry:

So all of those things, they are super complicated to do, but you

Dmitry:

need to tackle them methodically and consistently and strategically,

Dmitry:

one by one and very, very patiently, because that's the only way to survive.

Brian:

so the final thing is like, so let's talk about that

Brian:

newsroom of the, of the future of like in, in five years, right?

Brian:

with everything that's going on, with, with ai, I see like a paralysis in,

Brian:

in many companies, you don't know what you're, what you should be building.

Brian:

You don't know what you're gonna need.

Brian:

I mean, people are saying we're not gonna have nurses in like a couple of years.

Brian:

Like, I don't know.

Brian:

Our doctors, your radiologists are done.

Brian:

Everyone is cooked.

Brian:

If I go on acts, everyone is cooked.

Brian:

I just wanna go back to bed.

Brian:

and so I wonder what is, what does that look like?

Brian:

'cause you talked about AI doing commodity content, and I feel like there's

Brian:

this third rail of journalism with AI in, in, in the journalistic process.

Brian:

It seems very clear that that AI is going to be embedded in most.

Brian:

Information services, if not the entire economy.

Brian:

Now, whether it will work or not, I don't know, but it is

Brian:

going to be, it's gonna be tried.

Brian:

That, that is for sure.

Brian:

so what does that, what does that end up looking like?

Brian:

Because we see a lot of pushback, and I mentioned this like, you know, the,

Brian:

the Cleveland, newspaper here in the us you know, the editor wrote, this piece

Brian:

that they sensibly put behind a paywall.

Brian:

it, the, it about like how interns now were not doing writing, they were

Brian:

just doing reporting and you know, the AP had had a little kerfuffle

Brian:

around, around this recently.

Brian:

And I, I just thought there was always a divide between like

Brian:

editors and, and the reporters.

Brian:

'cause a lot of editors, they probably weren't going on X or LinkedIn and saying

Brian:

it were like, Hmm, yeah, that sounds good.

Brian:

Because anyone who knows a lot of reporters are not good writers

Brian:

and a lot of writer, a lot of good writers are not good reporters.

Brian:

so what does that look like?

Brian:

What is AI doing?

Brian:

And what, what is the most valuable skills in that newsroom

Brian:

of the future in like five years?

Dmitry:

So I actually made the point to ringy that the most

Dmitry:

valuable, trait of a person for the future will be their flexibility.

Dmitry:

So because the, everything can be learned, all, all the traits can, all, all the,

Dmitry:

all the skills can be learned, but your flexibility to actually move from one

Dmitry:

thing to another after six months or after a year or something like that.

Dmitry:

Because I remember the time when I would wanted to do something different at the

Dmitry:

bbc, you would ask somebody and they will say, well, it's not in my job description.

Dmitry:

I will not do it.

Dmitry:

Well, it's a little bit different in the states, I would imagine, but

Dmitry:

it's, um, like it's a conversation.

Dmitry:

It's a

Brian:

news is increasingly unionized here.

Brian:

And, and that is a, a wrinkle that, I mean the reality is, no matter

Brian:

how you feel about, about unions and, and their place in, in these,

Brian:

in these types of businesses is.

Brian:

I mean, the whole point of it is to be resistant to change.

Brian:

Like, I

Dmitry:

No.

Dmitry:

Pro protecting, pro protecting workforce is a very, very

Dmitry:

important

Brian:

spillover of that is, is throughout their history, unions have, have been,

Brian:

have tried to hold back the application of technology, of the workplace.

Brian:

And, and to be fair, a lot of this technology is explicitly trying to replace

Brian:

the, a labor function with software.

Brian:

That's the point of it.

Brian:

It's on the

Brian:

tin.

Dmitry:

made, okay, but I also made a point.

Dmitry:

Okay.

Dmitry:

Say for example, you know, everybody, it's, it's everybody

Dmitry:

is asking the question.

Dmitry:

Okay.

Dmitry:

If AI makes you 20% more efficient in a shift.

Dmitry:

Not in a, in a month, but in a shift.

Dmitry:

Okay?

Dmitry:

So you can do some your, your thing faster.

Dmitry:

What do you do in another two hours that suddenly, you

Dmitry:

know, become available to you?

Dmitry:

Okay?

Dmitry:

So you either introduce kind of, ongoing learning and upskilling type

Dmitry:

of thing, but you don't ask people to actually learn work more because we

Dmitry:

already have, we're already dealing with people who are, flat out and who

Dmitry:

are overworked and everything else.

Dmitry:

And you actually, sometimes it's, it's a very important thing to say.

Dmitry:

You do it faster, but you need to go and experiment with something that

Dmitry:

you have never done before and you need to publish it and you, you need

Dmitry:

to show it to me after a month that I have done those experiments and

Dmitry:

I, in my, in my kind of free time, but not, not free time, but the, the

Dmitry:

time that

Brian:

People are just gonna work

Brian:

more.

Brian:

Dmitri, the the, studies have shown here, people just do,

Brian:

people just have to work more.

Dmitry:

I think it's about the messages that your C level and your board is

Dmitry:

actually going to, go publicly and talk publicly about what you, what you exist

Dmitry:

and why you exist and everything else.

Dmitry:

But I'm, I really am a great believer that the progress always

Dmitry:

comes when the intersection of disciplines start to work together.

Dmitry:

And actually you suddenly, you and somebody else has more time to go and

Dmitry:

speak to each other about something else.

Dmitry:

Then something really nice can be published in like in a month's

Dmitry:

time or something like that.

Dmitry:

But the problem here is not about publishing just

Dmitry:

for the sake of publishing.

Dmitry:

It's actually about productizing it.

Dmitry:

Because that's another problem with we, we don't even asked because the

Dmitry:

innovation is one thing, but the biggest, biggest hurdle to innovation and media is

Dmitry:

about actually making it into a regular thing after you have done it once.

Dmitry:

we have seen lots of CTOs and CPOs publicly saying it that, yeah, no problem

Dmitry:

with innovation at all, problem with actually embedding it in your own daily

Dmitry:

life and daily output and everything else.

Dmitry:

So I think that we will see a lot of interesting things and agents and, you

Dmitry:

know, all of this, but I'm only interested in things that actually become productized

Dmitry:

and becoming, becoming regular rather than

Dmitry:

one-offs.

Brian:

So give me an example beyond the obvious, like, so give me a

Brian:

European example for a convert.

Brian:

Like, like not New York Times, please.

Brian:

of someone who is, is really pushing forward with rethinking the journalism.

Brian:

The product of journalism and the product is the journalism, like of these

Brian:

newest organization that is the product.

Brian:

It's not an

Brian:

app.

Dmitry:

you, you, you, you see some interesting things, with, say for

Dmitry:

example, commodity content happening in Access Springer, for example.

Dmitry:

how they, automize auto automat, automize, hoovering, everything

Dmitry:

around that is happening and rewriting it in their own style.

Dmitry:

And then kind of not spending any time on those things and really

Dmitry:

allowing people to actually go and do proper original reporting.

Dmitry:

And, know, and then that's what we are trying to do.

Dmitry:

I still work with Ringa, and I help them to make the niche work happen and.

Dmitry:

Without a doubt that niche, segmentation from one topic to another always will

Dmitry:

be based on two things, your original reporting and your commodity reporting.

Dmitry:

And you need to find a way of actually rewriting things.

Dmitry:

Like, for example, I created this, I wrote this thing in my head and then gave it

Dmitry:

to technologists and, to build it, a tool for reversioning content from one ringy

Dmitry:

publication to another Ringy publication.

Dmitry:

So you come in the morning, you, don't have a night shift.

Dmitry:

Another company that had night shift is already in your system

Dmitry:

as well, and you see all the articles that can be rewritten.

Dmitry:

you don't need to spend time on that.

Dmitry:

You just press the button and those articles are already in your cms, written

Dmitry:

in the style of your organization.

Dmitry:

You, and that is a really important thing, it really helpful thing because

Dmitry:

you don't need to do that commodity thing right from, from the very

Dmitry:

beginning because somebody else has already done it potentially for you.

Dmitry:

So,

Brian:

I think what I'm trying to get at is it better to

Brian:

be a reporter or an editor?

Dmitry:

I don't know.

Dmitry:

I, I did both and I love both.

Dmitry:

And I think that

Dmitry:

it's,

Brian:

No, I mean, in the market, not what you'd like.

Dmitry:

you will

Dmitry:

be, you'll

Brian:

Everyone likes being an editor versus a reporter.

Brian:

Being a reporter is exhausting.

Brian:

Being an editor is like, uh, let's do a story about this or that, and like,

Brian:

it's much, it's, it's being a house cat versus being like an outdoor cat.

Dmitry:

become a better reporter if your surrounding disciplines are better at

Dmitry:

their jobs that will, they will make your job better and easier and more

Dmitry:

interesting and

Dmitry:

everything

Brian:

gonna be, I think there's gonna be, there's gonna be more,

Brian:

there's gonna be more value that is accrued to the reporting LA layer

Brian:

than to the pushing copy around Layer.

Brian:

And I say this to someone whose career, you know, shifted into the

Brian:

pushing copy around, part function.

Brian:

that's why I've gone back to actually making stuff in this part of my career

Brian:

because I think it's a really, I think it's not like there's not gonna be

Brian:

a lot of managers out there, but if you're not like literally producing

Brian:

and shipping the product, I think that's gonna, that's gonna be tough.

Brian:

There is gonna be a lot more orchestration.

Brian:

So maybe, I don't know.

Brian:

Maybe I'll change my mind on that.

Brian:

I think the editor, the editing function will be far different than it, it, it

Brian:

was, obviously we've seen the copy.

Brian:

I like to say the copy editors always go first.

Brian:

RIPI like, I love a good copy editor, particularly when they're crochety.

Brian:

You know, like, I like a stereotypical copy editor.

Dmitry:

yeah.

Dmitry:

But, but ultimately you are right.

Dmitry:

The, your originality, whatever you are doing needs to be so different than it is.

Dmitry:

I mean, you show it by the actual existence of rebooting show, right?

Dmitry:

That, the niches are the future.

Dmitry:

We just need to treat every single topic around us as a niche and

Dmitry:

micro niche, and to try to make it work financially as well.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

No, part two.

Brian:

That's, that's the tough part.

Brian:

All right, Dmitri, this is great.

Brian:

I love

Brian:

talking

Brian:

about this stuff with

Dmitry:

you.

Dmitry:

thank

Dmitry:

you.

Dmitry:

very much and thank you.

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