Journalism Today. 21 Jan 2025

By Marina Adami and Gretel Kahn

??? 3 Top News Stories

1. How newsrooms will manage the challenges of 2025 - a podcast. Our annual Trends and Predictions report explores the biggest developments affecting news media worldwide and how news publishers plan to adapt to them in the year ahead through a survey of over 300 newsroom leaders in 51 countries. The two authors of the report, Reuters Institute Senior Research Associate Nic Newman and Director of Leadership Development Federica Cherubini discuss what they found, including how news leaders are harnessing generative AI, what platforms they'll focus their efforts on, and how they view the rise of news influencers in our latest podcast episode. | Listen

• A key quote: "The big story of the year is what happens to search, and primarily Google, as disruption gathers pace because of AI. It's really about the transformation of search engines into answer engines, and instead of returning 10 blue links they're going to return the answer in a format that can be digested within the page, so you don't have to then go off to a publisher website or somewhere else to get the detail," says Nic Newman.

2. Reporting under attack in Burkina Faso. Since a military takeover in 2022, Burkina Faso has experienced a rapid decline in press freedom. Journalists are disappearing and facing exile, media organizations are shutting down, and hate speech is used frequently against journalists. Our contributor Patrick Egwu spoke to journalists and experts in Burkina Faso about the situation in the country. | Read

• A key quote: “Threats of suspension or intimidation of all kinds impact our journalism,” said Arnaud OUEDRAOGO (CENOZO) , coordinator of a Burkina Faso-based investigative journalism nonprofit. “There are fewer in-depth treatments of topics of interest. Our true role as journalists should be to point out dysfunctions so that solutions can be found.”

3. More X exits. French newspaper Le Monde announced it will stop sharing its journalism on X. “The alliance between Donald Trump and social platform bosses such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg represents a global threat to free access to reliable information,” the announcement read. Le Monde will also be vigilant about other social platforms like TikTok and those belonging to Meta. Other recent departures from the Musk-owned site include journalist and environmental activist George Monbiot, who moved over to Bluesky, and the Institut Pasteur , a research institute for tackling infectious diseases, which cited “several serious abuses observed on the platform”.? | Read

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?? Applications for our Journalist Fellowships are now open. The deadline to apply is 13 February at 23:59 UK time. Here are the key links: All you need to know | How to apply | Projects from our Fellows | Our funders | Our current Fellows?

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?? Chart of the day

Launching more products. More than a quarter of our publisher respondents say they are actively thinking about or planning to launch new products around games (29%) or education (26%) with one-fifth (20%) looking to launch an international or foreign language version. These new products are likely to be bundled into ‘all-access’ subscriptions in a bid to reduce churn. At the same time, more than four in ten (42%) say they’ll be looking to launch or trial a ‘youth’ product this year.

?| Read the report

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? Coffee break

The trial over complaints filed by Prince Harry against Rupert Murdoch's tabloid newspapers starts today. Harry's claim alleges that Murdoch's journalists and private investigators unlawfully gained access to the prince's personal information for years. | Read

Newly inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump revoked a 2023 executive order signed by Joe Biden that sought to reduce the risks of AI. Biden's order required developers of AI systems that pose risks to U.S. national security, the economy, public health or safety to share the results of safety tests with the U.S. government. | Read

The BBC’s North American editor has pledged that the broadcasting company will not be intimidated by legal threats from Donald Trump to muzzle the media. | Read

The News Media Alliance is gearing up for legal action against a major artificial intelligence company for copyright infringement and violation of intellectual property laws, according to reporting by Semafor. | Read

UK news organisations have attacked the BBC for using public money to promote its services above their media apps on smartphones on Apple and Android platforms, claiming this has diverted audiences away from commercial news, radio and television brands to its own services. | Read

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?? One piece from our archive

How problematic is AI slop? Slop, low-quality AI-generated content, can be found both on social media and on websites purporting to be news outlets. Is it a threat to the quality of the news ecosystem? Marina Adami spoke to three experts about what news slop looks like in practice, and whether fears about it may be overblown. | Read

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