Writing

If you work in journalism, you might recognize that 2024 was a year of reckoning for our industry. I certainly do. At the start of the year, I embarked on a Knight Fellowship with ICFJ to explore how generative AI can be used to improve the way we serve information to our audiences. I was determined to do something meaningful. But something sounded off-key.

Editor’s note: The following is a keynote address given by ICFJ Knight Fellow Mattia Peretti at the Media Party conference in Buenos Aires in late August. The title of this talk is “Reinventing Journalism: New Ideas for a People-Centric Sustainable Future.” There are a couple of loaded concepts in there, which we will try to unpack in the next few minutes.

From mass layoffs and diminished revenue, to lack of trust in media, press freedom crackdowns and more, the news industry today faces no shortage of challenges.

Trust in journalism is at an all-time low, engagement is declining, and the business outlook for the industry is uncertain at best. These are facts. The question is whether you think this situation is inevitable or if you believe things could be better. I’m in the latter camp.

Hi, my name is Mattia Peretti and I’m a 2024 ICFJ Knight Fellow. I became a fellow to explore how generative AI can be used by news organizations to better serve their communities, and I’ve spent the last four weeks talking with many smart people in the industry to make sense of this problem statement and figure out what to build from it.