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May 14, 2018, 10:17 a.m.
LINK: www.canadalandshow.com  ➚   |   Posted by: Joshua Benton   |   May 14, 2018

If you’re interested in Canadian media — and who among us is not — you probably already listen to Canadaland, the flagship show of Jesse Brown’s growing podcast empire, which dives into the nation’s journalism issues. I was happy to appear on the show to talk digital news strategy in 2016, and Jesse just had me back for today’s episode, where — contrary to the doom and gloom that accompanies most discussion of the technology’s impact on the media.

Well, I’m not going to say we avoided doom or gloom entirely — but we did get to have a fruitful discussion of some of the more tech-forward ways the industry is changing. In particular:

— Will blockchain meaningfully change the fundamental questions about how we journalism gets funded? (I’m skeptical.)

— Will AI and bots replace reporters? (Maybe on the fringes, but they’re mainly for scale and speed.)

— What is Apple News planning? (Dunno, but I’m hopeful the mobile OS companies can play a more useful role in news than Facebook does.)

It’s a fun conversation, and I hope you’ll give it a listen here.

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The media becomes an activist for democracy
“We cannot be neutral about this, by definition. A free press that doesn’t agitate for democracy is an oxymoron.”
Embracing influencers as allies
“News organizations will increasingly rely on digital creators not just as amplifiers but as integral partners in storytelling.”
Action over analysis
“We’ve overindexed on problem articulation, to the point of problem admiring. The risk is that we are analyzing ourselves into inaction and irrelevance.”