ATLANTA—Former news anchor Valeria Sistrunk has officially announced the launch of RateMyStation, a digital platform that aims to bring more transparency to the broadcast journalism industry by offering a kind of "Glassdoor for News," where journalists, producers, and newsroom staff can rate their work environments, share experiences, and advocate for healthier professional cultures in a secure, anonymous environment.

The launch comes at a time when broadcast stations are under increasing financial pressure to produce more local news with the same or fewer resources, a dynamic that has made it difficult for some stations to recruit new talent or retain existing talent. Stations have also come under fire for offering low pay to entry level journalists and producers, a problem that could become even worse if the ongoing industry-wide consolidation results to layoffs.

The inspiration for RateMyStation stems from Sistrunk's personal experiences navigating toxic newsroom dynamics. Recognizing a systemic lack of accountability in the industry, she developed the platform to empower media professionals with the data necessary to make informed career decisions. By centralizing reviews on management, pay equity, and workplace safety, the site aims to bridge the information gap between station leadership and prospective employees.

As part of the effort to provide journalists with more transparency about work environments, RateMyStation said that it serves as a dual-purpose tool for both employees and newsroom leaders. For journalists, it offers a collective voice to highlight excellence or signal red flags regarding newsroom morale. For station groups and local managers, the platform provides a clear metric of internal reputation, offering a roadmap to improve retention and foster more supportive environments.

The initiative also focuses on the specific challenges of the media industry, including high-pressure deadlines, contract negotiations, and the mental health toll of daily news cycles.

To help fund the effort, the site includes merchandise shop featuring products designed to resonate with the unique lifestyle of media professionals. Proceeds from the shop directly support the platform's mission to provide advocacy resources and maintain the digital infrastructure required for verified, anonymous reporting.

More information is available at https://ratemystation.com.

AI seems to be everywhere these days. Predictions abound and range widely, but very few news outlets stop and analyze what AI actually is, and how ChatGPT—the innovation that seems to have brought the topic to the center of our attention—differs from the things that preceded it. 

So before we dive into predictions, I'd like us to pause and define our terms.

A Brief History of AI
Artificial intelligence is a broad term that refers to all the methods used to give a computer the appearance of intelligent thought. In the old days, most AI systems were rule-based - they followed specific instructions on how the system needs to behave in every situation. 

Over the past 2 decades, the field went through a major upheaval as "machine learning" gradually supplanted rule-based systems. In this new paradigm, machines behave as miniature model brains (or simply "models"). A model can learn to perform certain tasks by ingesting data and finding patterns in it. 

This approach is similar to the way children learn—for example, given enough photos of dogs and cats, a child (and a computer-vision model) can learn how to tell the difference between a dog and a cat.

Most recently, we have seen great advances in a narrow field of machine learning called natural language processing. First, with the advent of transformer models, and now with the creation of the large language model (LLM).

Large language models (like GPT4) are trained on very large sets of data—essentially the entire internet. They are able to produce natural-looking text by following patterns that have occurred in the (human-written) text they’ve ingested during their learning phase. 

Incorporating the GPT4 large language model into a chatbot gave us ChatGPT. 

The Strengths and Weaknesses of LLMs
The way LLMs are trained makes them incredibly good at performing certain tasks. They can recite everything from Shakespeare to particle physics journals, and to paraphrase, summarize, explain and illustrate the entire corpus of human knowledge as only a world-class expert could.

At the same time, these models cannot distinguish between real knowledge and complete nonsense, except through a feedback process that teaches them what people like (and not what is true). The result is that these models hallucinate a lot - and usually err in the direction of telling people what they want to hear.

LLMs are also unable to tell the difference between original writing and plagiarism, and often write text that is itself plagiarized (without knowing it).

Finally, these models are incapable of originality. Everything they output is some version of text they have encountered in the past, fine-tuned to make people like the output. 

How LLMs Will Be Used in the News Business
The effect of LLMs on the news business is already palpable, and will continue to grow with each day. 

Most often, we see them used in one of three ways:

• Replacing background research (to save time)
• Filling in specific paragraphs / sections of an article that require no originality (for instance, covering the history of a past event)
• Writing low-quality content that requires no originality or truthfulness—clickbait, cheap entertainment, sensationalist gossip, etc

It is this third use-case that I'd like to hone in on, because it is likely to change the course of the entire industry over the next five years. Since most content is monetized through ads, and most ads pay per click or per view—clickbait and other forms of junk content already make up the majority of the internet.

The introduction of LLMs into this process will reduce the cost of producing low-quality content by an order of magnitude. As a result, we will probably see even more junk content created, and at the same time - less jobs for people creating any kind of content. 

What Part of the News Business is Safe (for now)
Real journalism requires investigation, thought, interaction with other humans, and original writing. ChatGPT can do none of these things.

Nevertheless, if low-quality content multiplies, it will likely pull some clicks away from higher-quality content—resulting in budget cuts and layoffs throughout the industry. 

Finally, while these models are great at manipulating text, they do nothing to solve the uncanny valley problem—whereby robots that appear almost (but not quite) human are actually less appealing than either real humans or robot-like robots. 

In other words, news anchors—the people we actually look at when we watch the news—are probably safe for a few more decades.

Summary
The greatest threat posed by the latest advances in AI is their ability to generate low-quality content, which is likely to make the entire internet look like the spam folder in your email account. We are likely to see more and more junk chasing fewer and fewer clicks, which will result in significant budget cuts at all levels of content creation (including journalism). 

Low-quality content creators will suffer because their ability to generate much more content will mean that fewer of them are required; high-quality content creators will suffer because fewer people will be able to find their content in the vast ocean of junk that surrounds it.

It is my personal belief that the only way to ameliorate this risk is by developing AI-based filters that allow readers to filter-out junk, clickbait, and other forms of low-quality content. Such filters would serve the interests of the readers, and they would also serve the interest of journalists who want to create high-quality content that readers will actually find.

This is why I have personally devoted my life to developing such a system, and have founded a public benefit corporation that commercializes it. 

TYSONS, Va.—Tegna’s charitable foundation, the Tegna Foundation, has awarded a number of grants with the goal of promoting diversity in journalism and professional development for media professionals and students. In addition, the foundation is providing a grant of $75,000 to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) for its mission to protect First Amendment freedoms and newsgathering rights of local journalists.

“As the First Amendment rights of journalists are increasingly under attack, it is critical to safeguard our most basic democratic freedoms,” said Dave Lougee, president and CEO of Tegna. “And fostering greater diversity in media to better reflect the voices of the communities we serve is more important than ever, starting with the recruiting of young talent. We are proud to partner with our 2020 grantees to develop and create opportunities for the next generation of journalists.”

The special grant for RCFP is meant to help efforts for improving conditions and protecting local journalists who are covering news in what Tegna describes as an “increasingly hostile environment.” Funds will help with training and outreach measures for the protection of the legal rights of local news gatherers, as well as improving the safety of those covering protests and demonstrations.

Here are the 2020 Tegna Foundation Media Grants recipients:

• National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) for support of the Black Male Media Project and a workshop on race and journalism at the virtual 2020 NABJ/NAHJ Conference and Career Fair; 
• National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) for student support and education, including for pre-conference training sessions and resources for students at the 2020 NABJ/NAHJ Conference and Career Fair; 
• Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) for a specialized student educational track at the virtual AAJA Fest 2020, including mentorship opportunities and skills-building programs; 
• Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) for a new program titled “Covering COVID-19 in Indian Country” that provides resources for journalists reporting on the pandemic; 
• National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) for scholarship support to waive registration fees for more than 75 students at the 2020 NLGJA virtual convention; 
• Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) for two FOIA workshops at the 2020 IRE virtual conference; and 
• Online News Association (ONA) for scholarships for students and young professionals to attend the ONA virtual conference 

For more information, visit www.teganfoundation.org.  

WASHINGTON—Is there a tech reporter at your station or network who could offer more insightful reporting with a better understanding of artificial intelligence?

If so, you might want to pass this info on to your news director or general manager. The National Press Foundation has announced an all-expense-paid fellowship for journalists selected to attend the “What’s Next In Artificial Intelligence” program, four days of training on all facets of AI.

Journalists will learn about the basics of AI, how it will impact jobs and the economy, the ethics of AI and what may be right around the corner for artificial intelligence.

The training, available to U.S.-based journalists only, will be Oct. 28-31 in Washington, D.C. The fellowship covers airfare, ground transportation hotel accommodations and most meals. The program is supported by a grant from IBM.

To apply visit the National Press Foundation website.

Part I

Even though news consumers are increasingly turning from conventional television to the internet for news, the good news is they’re also demanding more video. That gives video-savvy broadcasters an edge, online, over their newspaper competitors, who are also attempting to cope with digital disruption. The bad news is that legacy television newsgathering gear and workflow—whose origins date back to the 1970s—are ill-suited for producing video for web consumption. The cost is too high and the process too slow. Consumers want their news fast, on-demand (not linear), often live, and on a variety of screen sizes, especially small, mobile screens.

A mobile journalist covers the 2016 EHF EUro Championships in Poland.

The high cost of outdated video news production is unsustainable, especially online where monetizing is tough, where broadcast news providers are competing with cute kitty YouTube video and where social media behemoths like Google and Facebook are sucking revenue out of the ad-o-sphere.

ENG HAS RUN ITS COURSE

Broadcasters are burdened with expensive electronic news gathering technology—camcorders, edit bays and live trucks; with inefficient workflows and with the nearly obsolete, linear news show format. (We don’t even know if many younger viewers are willing to sit through a newscast because they’re not watching TV at all.)

Television journalism quality, especially at the local level, has been sinking steadily in the United States due to a variety of factors, among them, FCC deregulation, cable, then internet competition, media consolidation, agenda-driven ownership like Sinclair Broadcasting and the Great Recession.

Low-quality newscasts are not exactly viewer magnets, thus also less attractive for advertisers. Seemingly never-ending layoffs result in fewer boots on the ground, that is far fewer reporters to ferret out actual news. (The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts reporter employment will yet continue to drop, another 9 percent over the next decade). Journalism by police scanner and press release is too common. Some TV news practices insult viewers’ intelligence, such as ubiquitous, black-hole (aka dog-lick) liveshots.

It appears that no U.S. television news outlet has gone all-in, online. They use internet delivery to supplement, not replace legacy delivery methods. And they still rely on ENG-based systems and methods that were developed when broadcast licenses were licenses to print money.

It does not take a crystal ball to see where we’re heading. Key words describe the trends: “online,” “IP,” “video,” “live,” “on-demand,” “mobile,” “small screens,” “fast,” and “low cost.” News dissemination will continue moving in that direction, slowly if television station owners continue to resist change; faster if enough of them manage to wake up and accept reality. (How fast can conventional ENG equipment can be pried from cold, dead hands?)

News outlets could afford to hire more reporters, give more raises and get by with less ad revenue if video production costs were substantially reduced. Cheaper, faster and better video news production, by itself, won’t guarantee online financial success or reverse the journalism quality freefall. But it could help.

LOWER COST, HIGHER SPEED SMARTPHONE NEWSGATHERING

"It's the economy, stupid!" is the phrase campaign strategist James Carville coined when suggesting key messages for Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign.

"It's the economy, stupid!"

“It’s the workflow, stupid!” is good advice for any broadcast news manager trying to figure how to deploy new technologies, especially those involving video production and delivery. Technogies like smartphones replacing camcorders, edit bays and live trucks. And like IP delivery between the news scene and station, replacing microwave and satellite.

Many television stations already use smartphones and IP transmissions, but to a very limited extent. Perhaps worse, they impose outmoded ENG workflows onto smartphone newsgathering. That’s why, “it’s the workflow, stupid.”

One step at a time: First begin with a clean-sheet, internet-optimized workflow. Then add the tech to make it work. Just as the Bible advises against putting old wine in new bottles, new technologies should get optimal ways of using it.

Take, for example, this faster, cheaper web-delivery workflow:

Write, shoot, and edit (including voiceovers when applicable) in the field and transmit live reports and completed packages directly to the station, and on occasion even directly to news consumer’s viewing devices.

The key is in-field editing. Not at the station where editing usually takes place. In-station editing is the millstone hanging around legacy video production’s neck. It’s the main workflow obstacle blocking faster, cheaper production. Video editing for most stories needs to undergo a major shift to an earlier time and space, to the scenes where news is made.

The field-editing workflow element is not new to the television news industry. It’s been used, on occasion, ever since there were ENG vans with edit bays and microwave links to get edited video back to the station. Field editing is simply not a predominant practice.

One reason it’s been rare is that ENG and SNG trucks only appear at relatively few news scenes. Another is that with linear newscasts there’s usually time to return, write and edit. Few commercial station managers permit interrupting regular, paid programming for breaking news anyway. So, what’s the hurry?

The internet likes hurry. Online live and on-demand stories do not need to be delayed until there’s a regularly scheduled news show. Online news sites don’t have sponsored, non-news programming to interrupt.

What equipment and methods work best with that “new” workflow? Spoiler alert! It’s not ENG camcorders, edit bays and live trucks, nor is it field-to-station transmissions via microwave or satellite signals.

The best technology suited for that workflow is based on the device that’s right under the noses of television station owners and managers: the smartphone. It’s an off-the-shelf product that was not developed for mobile newsgathering as was the minicam in the 70s. Yet it’s a device the combines the shooting, editing and IP streaming of live and on-demand video in a single, inexpensive, easy-to-use, compact product. (Although smartphones are way cheaper than ENG tech, reporters still need to add rigs, lights, tripods, external mics and, when affordable, bonded cellular apps that boost bandwidth between the news scene and station.)

It takes more than the phones and related accessories to build a smartphone newsgathering infrastructure. It takes a blend of several concepts to make it work.

Key Video Newsgathering Infrastructure Components:

Smartphone newsgathering—Smartphones replace traditional ENG equipment like camcorders, edit bays and live trucks.

Video journalism—Video (film) journalists who report, shoot and edit replace most videographers and all video editors.

In-field editing—Most video is edited at or near the news scene and nearer the time of the news event. Field editing becomes the rule rather than the exception.

Field-to-newsroom (or direct to news consumer) streaming of live and edited video over IP—IP transmission replaces most if not all microwave and satellite field-to-station news video delivery. (Can be enhanced with bonded cellular technology.)

None of the four key components is new. What’s new is their being combined and prioritized over ENG. Smartphone should predominate until ENG is phased out completely.

Part II will look at smartphone journalism overseas and the impact of 5G.

Lynn Kenneth Packer is a freelance journalist and television news consultant. He has worked as reporter and a university adjunct instructor, and conducts newsgathering workshops.

WASHINGTON—The Radio Television Digital News Association is calling for entries for the 2016 Edward R. Murrow Awards. Entries can be submitted via RTDNA's online registration system through Febr. 5. Stories told between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2015 on radio, television and digital media are eligible for entry in the 2016 contest. Complete contest rules are available on the Call for Entries site.

Nominations also are being accepted for the 2016 Kaleidoscope Awards recognizing coverage of diversity issues. According to the RTDNA Kaleidoscope Award page, “the purpose of the award is to encourage and showcase journalistic excellence in covering issues of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity. It is presented annually to news organizations that show an ongoing commitment to covering the diversity of the communities they serve.”

The Student Edward R. Murrow Awards entry period also is open.

The RTDNA said it has been honoring outstanding achievements in electronic journalism with the Edward R. Murrow Awards since 1971. Murrow's pursuit of excellence in journalism embodies the spirit of the awards that carry his name. Murrow Award recipients demonstrate the excellence that Edward R. Murrow made a standard for the electronic news profession.

past Murrow Award-winning entries. Regional winners will be announced in April and national winners in June.

There’s plenty of news about broadcast news—specifically the shifting, often unexpected, redirection of TV newsgathering and distribution. And it’s not just putting news onto mobile or online sites or engaging in social media.

During a Media Institute panel “Survive or Thrive: The Future of Journalism” last month, TV and media veterans assessed the outlook. They barely scratched the surface given the overwhelming desire of media companies to attract millennial age audiences (18– to 35-year-olds).

This focus comes at a time when the visions for future tactics of many TV executives have failed. For example, “user-generated content” (UGC)—once expected to play a significant role in TV newscasting—has not developed; it is unlikely to be used for anything beyond opportunistic spot coverage, according to Tom Rosentiel, executive director of The American Press Institute. The longtime media researcher and reporter said that, beyond fortuitous uploads (such as when a passerby pulls out a smartphone to capture images of a “news event”), neither stations nor would-be contributors have been organized to develop a reliable stream of UGC.

Rosentiel’s views on the how TV news incorporates new tools were reflected by others on the legacy-heavy Media Institute panel. The session coincided with Sinclair Broadcast Group’s announcement that in October it will launch a weekly investigative journalism show, “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson,” hosted by Attkisson, one of the panelists. The former CBS-TV correspondent describes her new 30-minute Sunday morning show, which will air on Sinclair stations nationwide, as one intended to “pierce secrecy and seek accountability from government, corporations and special interests.” The show will also be available via stations’ websites.

This year BuzzFeed has produced video interviews with President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron.TIME FOR AN OVERHAUL
Scott Livingston, vice president of news for Sinclair Broadcast Group, called “Full Measure” “serious journalism dedicated to serious topics that impact us all” and a sign of Sinclair’s dedication to reporting.

Sinclair’s tactic of contract production of a high-profile investigative journalism show is a prime example of the overhaul rippling through the journalism business.

Attkisson, a part-time Sinclair employee, declines to acknowledge a political slant to her program (which is being staffed in part by other former CBS colleagues). Observers expect that “Full Measure” will bring the perspective of politically right-leaning Sinclair. If so, it will expand the role of opinionated coverage—a direction already seen on Fox News, MSNBC and other channels.

Speaking of MSNBC, an overhaul is in the works there, starting with its name, a legacy of Microsoft’s investment in NBC, which was then owned by General Electric (how times change.) In recent weeks, Comcast (the current owner of NBCUniversal) has indicated that it will rebrand the news-commentary network.

Reports surfaced that Comcast may buy or make significant investments in Vice Media, BuzzFeed News or other digital media companies that crank out substantial quantities of video reports—from controversial documentaries to fluffy pop-culture segments, largely for Web distribution.

But Vice Media is also on TV. It produces “Vice,” an independent, weekly half-hour investigative series on, of all places, HBO, and recently unveiled substantial expansion deals. Vice Media will produce a nightly half-hour news show on HBO (start date undetermined), and also will create a new documentary channel that A&E Networks expects to debut in early 2016, replacing A&E’s current H2 channel. A&E bought a 10-percent stake in Vice Media last summer.

The new Vice channel is expected to focus on lifestyle documentary content— a far leap from Vice’s current HBO shows, which are heavy on political topics such as climate change, hunger, child exploitation and battle reports from war zones.

Vice Media and its partners have definitively enunciated that their target audiences are millennials. It’s no coincidence that Vice’s original show runs directly after Bill Maher’s “Real Time” on HBO on Friday nights (Maher is credited as an executive producer of the current shows).

Vice Media has also established a multiyear deal with Verizon Communications to supply digital content for Verizon’s new mobile-first video programming service.

HBO’s decision to use Vice Media for newscasts raised eyebrows among traditionalists who questioned why HBO’s parent company Time Warner would allow outside reporters to compete with its CNN subsidiary.

HBO CEO Richard Plepler, in a CNBC interview, characterized HBO as “not so much in the daily news business; we’re in the ‘Vice’ business.” He focused on Vice’s “unique voice in... storytelling” and, inevitably acknowledged its appeal to millennials. Plepler also suggested that future HBO news plans may encompass CNN, but he offered no details.

Plepler has not discussed a key factor in the HBO-Vice Media relationship: “HBO Now.” With its cord-cutting capability to reach non-cable subscribers, HBO Now provides the network with a way to get to mobile, portable and other devices—including with timely, short, topical programming that appeals to millennials.

‘HISTORIC SHIFT’
Meanwhile, BuzzFeed, the popular social media website known for its pop culture “listicles” and quizzes, is beefing up its video news operations.

“We’re in the midst of an historic shift in the media industry where news is increasingly being distributed on social networks and consumed on social devices; we believe BuzzFeed can [become] a preeminent media company,” said Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm that recently invested an additional $50 million into BuzzFeed.

BuzzFeed’s flirtation with NBCUniversal or other traditional media outlets provides cross-platform options as well as bringing in millennial viewers. This year BuzzFeed has produced video interviews with President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron. The Cameron interview was the first international edition of BuzzFeed News. The online channel has also interviewed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and entertainers such as Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Patrick Stewart and Jerry Seinfeld.

The Obama interview was tied to a BuzzFeed Motion Pictures production that was distributed on Facebook. BuzzFeed invited its social media audience to submit questions for the President.

BuzzFeed is also beefing up its data science capabilities, which could be used in the emerging data-driven journalism sector. The company acquired Torando Labs, a data engineering company, in late 2014.

A BuzzFeed spokeswoman insisted to me in July, that there is “no news to report yet on our plans around TV, but will keep you posted.” The operative word appears to be “yet.”

Admittedly, these activities at Vice Media, BuzzFeed and the “nonfiction” producers focus heavily on documentaries and soft news—not the timely, deadline spot reports that are the core of local and traditional network TV newscasts. Yet, the changing definition of “news” and the interests of millennials may well affect what broadcast networks and stations—and millennial-obsessed advertisers—consider to be “news.”

John Ford, a long-time Discovery, National Geographic and ION top executive, offered this perspective from his new role as general manager of the year-old Nonfiction Producers Association. Ford is also head of programming at Justice Network TV, a digital network carried on many Tegna TV channels (the new name for the former Gannett Co. spinoff that operates TV stations and digital properties).

“Nonfiction programs will change over time,” Ford told me, “Everyone is fearful that 25- to 34-year-olds aren’t going to be watching TV. They watch differently.” He emphasized that millennials watch conventional TV, but on their own terms, such as on-demand.

The challenge to nonfiction producers is finding the right mix of stories/topics, production values and millennial appeal— along with advertiser support, Ford said. He acknowledged that “there are a lot of gray areas” right now in delineating reality, documentary and information content.

Barbara Cochran, moderator of the Media Institute “Future of Journalism” event last month put it in context. Cochran, a Washington broadcast news executive at CBS-TV, NBC-TV and NPR, and now director of the University of Missouri’s Washington Journalism Program, characterized the “convergence concentration, or multimedia journalism.”

“Broadcast journalists need to learn to be platform-agnostic,” Cochran said in an interview after the Media Institute event. “This means understanding what storytelling techniques work for each platform and being reasonably adept at all.” She also cited the value of “understanding how to harness data for storytelling and infographics”— skills that tie closely to social media.

Cochran’s summary reflects the shift likely to reshape TV news in the years ahead.

“The lines that used to sharply delineate one medium from another have become so fuzzy as to be non-existent,” she said.

Gary Arlen is president of Arlen Communications LLC, a research and consulting firm. He can be reached atwww.ArlenCom.com.