On April 8, the Consulate General hosted a symposium entitled “Navigating the New Normal: Media and Democracy in Challenging Times.” Organized in partnership with the Canadian Journalism Foundation, this half-day conference brought together reporters, media executives, academia, and civil society for conversations on how the industry is responding to disruptive technologies, political polarization, and declining revenues.
In his opening remarks, Consul General Tom Clark said that the media and democracy alike face severe and unprecedented threats. Consul General Clark then called attendees’ attention to the Government of Canada’s ongoing commitment to combat foreign disinformation to protect electoral integrity while upholding human rights and fundamental freedoms.
“It’s an event as significant as it is timely. Over four billion people around the world will head to the polls this year. And even a cursory glance at the headlines will give you a good idea of what’s at stake.”
Consul General Tom Clark
Fireside Chat with New York Times Publisher AG Sulzberger
The official program kicked off with a fireside chat between AG Sulzberger, Chairman and Publisher of The New York Times, and Emily Bell, Founder of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. Sulzberger laid out four existential pressures facing the journalism industry:
- the business model
- political polarization
- the rights and safety of journalists
- artificial intelligence
Overall, Sulzberger said he thinks that national news industry in the U.S. has economically stabilized, while local news remains “incredibly vulnerable.”
Sulzberger reflected on how the Times adjusted to the rise of the Internet, from tough times when the paper took out a pay-day loan in 2009 to reaching a peak of 10 million digital subscribers in 2023. Attributing the paper’s success to “investing in quality journalism at every possible turn,” he said this principle will continue to guide the paper’s business decisions as the world enters a new AI era.
The Challenges of AI and Misinformation
Katerina Eva Matsa, Director of News and Information Research at the Pew Research Center, moderated a panel on how generative AI will impact newsrooms, elections, and the spread of misinformation.
Brian Stelter, Special Correspondent at Vanity Fair, attributed low trust in the media in part to the collapse of local media in the U.S. “People don’t see themselves reflected in the news because local news has been so hollowed out,” he said. “They don’t feel reported on or covered. They become less trusting of media.”
Aimee Rinehart, Program Manager of Local News and AI at the Associated Press, called AI a “huge win for small newsrooms,” saying smaller organizations will be able to leverage AI tools for data analysis and maximizing efficiency.
Dr. Joseph Yun, AI and Innovation Architect at the University of Pittsburgh, raised his concerns about how agentic AI – autonomous systems that can act independently, make decisions, learn from their environment – will shape future elections.
Yun said, “At some point, agentic AI will be the norm and that will make misinformation and disinformation mind-blowingly accelerated.”
Dr. Yun said he also had significant concerns about the concentration of AI talent in the private sector, calling attention to the lack of incentives to work in academia and government on technical AI solutions aligned with the public interest.
Rethinking the Business Model
Evan Solomon, Publisher of GZERO Media, sat down with Axios Publisher Nicholas Johnston, Semafor Executive Editor Gina Chua, and S. Mitra Kalita, CEO of URL Media, for a conversation on how these digital outlets are reinventing the traditional news business model and positioning themselves to succeed in the AI era.
All three panelists agreed that diversified revenue streams are key for building a stable, successful media company, with a balance of income from subscriptions, advertising, and events.
On how social media has impacted the business model, Johnston said Axios’ approach is to treat platforms as a tool, rather than as a partner or an adversary: “I would much rather own the relationship with the audience than rely on platforms to facilitate it.”
I would much rather own the relationship with the audience than rely on platforms to facilitate it.
Nicholas Johnston, Axios
Panelists also touched on the role of government in funding news, particularly through legislation like Bill C-18. Kalita expressed concern that these measures would benefit large outlets that can tap into economies of scale on the Internet rather than local news outlets that are often the first to break stories.
Though she did voice support for other measures like tax breaks for employing journalists or New York State Senate Bill S6495A, which will require state agencies to spend a proportion of their advertising budget in local and community outlets.
This is a moment to demand a much bigger reset button and a much bigger reinvention.
S. Mitra Kalita
On how AI will impact the business of news, all three saw many lessons learned during the emergence of the Internet that could be applied to this new era. Kalita said, “This is a moment not to harken back to how things were, but to demand a much bigger reset button and a much bigger reinvention.”
Let’s build a cybernetic newsroom. Let’s have both sides be the best we can be.
Gina Chua, Semafor
Chua said the key question media organizations should be asking is how to save journalism and public interest information, not how to save journalists’ jobs. Chua said, “Let’s build a cybernetic newsroom, where we don’t have machines try to be bad humans and humans try to be bad machines. Let’s have both sides be the best we can be.”
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