Changing news formats, ever-evolving audience preferences, continued volatility in the advertising market, and rapid advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI, particularly Gen AI) are reshaping how content is created, delivered, and consumed in the media landscape. 

For the last twenty years, the canonical text-based article had been central to how news information flowed across the Internet, but that is no longer true. Catalyzed by the pandemic, the news and digital media publishing industry witnessed an accelerating speed of journalistic innovation.

In the past decade, evolving audience preferences forced publishers to do more with less. While success in publishing requires a mix of commerce, retail, media, audio, video, and social media, publishers have had few useful tools at their disposal. 

But AI is set to change that for good. 

And the publishing industry is already showing signs of this trend.

Burhan Hamid, TIME's CTO, believes that AI tools can 10x productivity in publishing. Addressing concerns around AI, “We should not be worried about losing jobs because of AI; we should be worried about losing jobs because we are not using AI,” Hamid says.

But the industry is going through a rough patch. Wars, climate change, the aftermath of the pandemic, and the economic downturn have put unprecedented strain on newsrooms, and that relentless pressure is set to continue through 2024.

Source: Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2024 (Reuters Institute)

Clearly, these changing times require media publishers to do more to address digital skill gaps and review processes, workflows, and workplace policies.

In this blog, we explore six trends in newsroom and digital media publisher workplace policies that may reshape how digital media publishers and newsrooms operate.

1. Policies around the use of AI

As of mid-2022, few newsrooms worldwide had guidelines or policies regarding the use of AI. Today, most newsrooms, including USA Today, The Atlantic, NPR, CBC, and the Financial Times, have developed AI guidelines and policies. 

 

Policies in Parallel by Kim Björn Becker, Felix M. Simon, and Christopher Crum

 

This signals a wave of recognition that AI could fundamentally change the way journalists do their work and how the public thinks about journalism.

Source: Changing Newsrooms 2023 (Reuters Institute)

A study of AI policies and documents covering 52 news organizations found that commercial entities had more detailed policies than public-funded ones. These policies clearly defined what was permitted and prohibited and served as guidelines or best practices to help journalists interact with and use AI. Here are some key findings:

  • Some 44% allow journalists to use AI to gather information and develop story ideas, angles, and outlines. Only 4% disallow this use, while half do not specify.
  • 42% allow journalists to use AI to alter editorial content, such as editing and updating stories, while only 6% disallow this use, and half do not specify.
  • 63% specified the guidelines would be updated at some point in the future.

Clearly, AI's role in the newsroom is evolving. Its applications range from journalists using AI as a primary tool to newsrooms producing publicly-facing content.

Expert David Caswell sees Generative AI as a journalism innovation that can transform the news ecosystem. Journalists, editors, and newsroom leaders should “engage with these new tools, explore them and their potential, and learn how to pragmatically apply them in creating and delivering value to audiences,” David says.

2. From remote to hybrid, newsrooms have become more flexible and distributed

The overnight shift to remote work that took place during the COVID-19 lockdown has matured into a durable change in the structure of work.

According to a December 2023 Reuters survey, 65% of newsroom leaders said that their organizations have largely implemented flexible and hybrid working models with new rules in place for staff.

Source: Changing Newsrooms 2023 (Reuters Institute)

Compared to other industries, digital media publishing has resisted returning to fully in-person work. Employees seem happy with the flexibility they’ve been given with hybrid work, and employers are willing to continue offering that to them.

Flexibility about “where to work” seems to be most desirable among newsroom staff. And this is about to collide with a transformation in who is doing that work. 

The emergence of generative AI has prompted a lot of excitement and anxiety because it arrives at a moment when the ways of working are changing. Various GenAI tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Sora have appeared in the last two years, allowing publishers to accelerate workflows and improve decision-making.

For instance, publishers can use video to captivate and connect with their audience like no other content form. However, traditional video production workflows are expensive, time-consuming, and complex to manage remotely. Gen-AI-based services can solve that while making remote collaboration possible. 

The future of hybrid work will be one in which organizations are made up of a mix of on-site and remote workers, and teams are made up of a mix of human and artificial colleagues.

But hybrid work has also led to growing concerns about a sense of disconnect between staff and their organizations. 38% of news leaders feel that the shift to hybrid and flexible working has weakened staff’s sense of belonging to the organization.

Then there is the ​​question of productivity:

Source: Changing Newsrooms 2023 (Reuters Institute)

 

While some newsroom leaders believe productivity dropped, they did not change how productivity is measured when the work became hybrid, which could have influenced the situation.

Hybrid work also has had a positive impact on recruitment and employee retention. According to a survey, 52% of newsroom leaders think hybrid and flexible working has made recruitment easier, while 42% feel it has helped with employee retention.

3. Policies around the use of social media

Media companies' social media policies generally follow similar guidelines: focus on fact-based reporting, avoid misinformation, be careful with personal opinions, and don’t endorse political views.

However, newsrooms have often struggled to strike the right balance between setting boundaries and allowing journalists to use social media platforms.

In 2023, The BBC plunged into turmoil due to the backlash resulting from their decision to remove Gary Lineker, a celebrated sports personality, after he used his X (Twitter) account to criticize the UK government’s asylum policy.

The BBC controversy highlighted issues around social media policies for media houses. With the growing use of digital tools in the news industry, media organizations may need to reexamine their policies to guide their employees' conduct online effectively.

Another evolving aspect of social media policy is the use of AI for tasks like video editing and promotional activities. Many publishers are revisiting their guidelines to accommodate these tools.

For instance, Wired’s AI policy states that the publisher “may publish AI-generated images or video” and defines use cases and limitations. It also permits the use of AI to suggest headlines and texts for social media posts. 

The journalism think tank Poynter Institute, has urged news organizations to create standards for AI’s use and share the policies with readers and viewers.

4. Policies to combat misinformation

The media game now is to be quick, short, and everywhere. But does anyone care if it is true? Estimates vary, but a significant share of the audience forward posts even after being warned they are false.

Journalists, however, seem to be more concerned.

Source: Pew Research Center

Consumers prefer social media for its convenience, speed, and convenient formats like video, but they also see downsides to getting news this way. Four in ten Americans say inaccuracy is the thing they dislike the most about news from social media:

Source: Pew Research Center

 

Fact-checking remains a human-led endeavor, and manual capacity alone cannot tackle the massive volume of disinformation. Fortunately, several projects are ongoing to provide more AI layers to help fact-checkers speed up a time-consuming process.

In a sea of misinformation, readers will eventually recognize and value islands of credibility - and therein is the opportunity for publishers - assuming they keep their heads above water.

But publishers need to work harder to close the gaps. Attracting users will mean meeting them where they are (for instance, switching to a video-first approach) and putting strong safeguards in place to fight misinformation. 

5. Changing formats of news: more video

For a long time, text-based articles have been the center of news information. They were easily searchable and linkable, conversation coalesced around them, and they drove the lion’s share of monetization. Other formats, such as video and audio, mostly took a back seat. 

But not anymore. 

The change is driven partly because of new devices, partly because platforms have emerged that specialize in audio and video creation, discovery, and distribution, and partly because many younger consumers show a preference for using these formats over text.

It is safe to say that video has become the language of the internet—the massive opportunity it presents to publishers and advertisers cannot be underestimated.

For many publishers, embracing video will require a significant cultural shift away from legacy newsrooms and text toward multimedia production. According to Reuters, most news organizations plan to produce more videos:

Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2024 (Reuters)

In 2024, Reuters expects publishers to increasingly seek to bring storytelling techniques back into their news websites and apps. This will mean more short-form videos, particularly vertical videos, that may become the default.

 

For newsroom workplaces, this could mean reshuffling, investing in larger video teams, and developing efficient production workflows to meet the increasing demand for video content.

6. Dealing with news disconnection and selective news avoidance

It makes sense for publishers to lean into growth areas, such as video, audio, and newsletters, and produce more of them in 2024, but this may not be what audiences may be looking for.

In many countries, a significant number of people are consistently avoiding the news. News consumption is declining, and interest is down. Selective news avoidance is growing.

News organizations are facing a dilemma as they try to balance the needs of business and the interests of news consumers:

Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2024 (Reuters)

A survey of more than 93,000 people in 46 countries showed that the overall trust in news has decreased by two percentage points in the past year. Media executives have outlined different ways in which they will be trying to address the problem:

Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2024 (Reuters)

This could mean recalibrating newsroom KPIs that could impact workplace policies and guidelines. 

Conclusion

AI tools will significantly change workplace policies, norms, and the established order within the publishing industry. Forward-thinking publishers will use AI to generate personalized content in engaging formats, such as video, at scale. But, the value of content will always be rooted in journalistic integrity as AI can never replace the essence of quality journalism.