Can media regain trust in the age of AI and disinformation? NAB grapples with loaded question

The NAB Show is known largely as a boon for tech geeks and engineers, and its edition in New York last week was no exception.

But the broadcast industry lobby group made a statement by bringing to the forefront debate on a central challenge for its members: regaining public trust in the age of AI and misinformation. Opinions flew among broadcast and digital executives, a union leader and veteran journalists, and top station executives weighed First Amendment concerns in the wake of ABC’s suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt moderated a renowned panel titled “The Future of Information: AI, New Revenues and Risks, and the Policy Response.” About 70% of newsrooms, he noted, have already implemented AI, raising “serious concerns about copyright, consent, compensation and credibility of the information disseminated.”

Ahead of the panel, campaign strategy firm OnMessage unveiled new survey data from 1,000 likely voters nationwide, an even mix of Republicans and Democrats, surveyed in mid-September about the rise of AI. The results showed remarkable bipartisan consensus around the technology, with 82% of respondents saying they were “concerned” or “very concerned” about the development.

Some other survey data was more directly relevant to discussions happening on NAB stages, said Tommy Binion, vice president of OnMessage. One of them was the answer to the question: “How concerned are you about AI stealing or replicating local journalism and news published online?” » “Concerned” or “very concerned” responses accounted for 76% of those surveyed, a level Binion called “dizzying.” He called the figure “good news” as politicians or regulators believe they have strong popular support to rein in AI companies. He also highlighted the degree to which respondents distrust information about AI (68%) and would support congressional legislation restricting it (77%).

Nick Radziul, executive vice president of Hearst Television, which owns a major local station, said he was surprised by the survey’s findings regarding the lack of trust in AI as a source of information. The magnitude of that sentiment, he said, “highlights the challenge of how to implement AI” at his company’s stations. For all the dangers of injecting them into the information gathering process, AI tools have also become seen as useful, less complicated ways to create efficiencies in publishing, advertising, and other areas.

Jon Schleuss, president of NewsGuild-CWA, said union members build trust with readers and viewers “brick by brick,” but widespread adoption of AI will put that position at risk given the “garbage” proliferating online. “There’s real tension here,” LeGeyt said. The survey data “exceeded my wildest expectations,” he added. “And we’re in the trust business.”

The problem focuses on specific outcomes and does not invite itself into the “wreck and debris” of the Internet, said Brad Silver, vice president and global head of public policy, AI and intellectual property at Advance, parent company of Condé Nast. AI search results, notably through Google Gemini, should be provided with “the right compensation” to news organizations that are scraped by models using major languages. (Penske Media, Deadline’s parent, is the plaintiff in an ongoing lawsuit against Google over its current search practices.)

Licensing and contracting are “possible,” but “we need incentives” for AI companies to participate in a licensing system, Silver added.

“The leverage is in favor of big tech companies,” Radziul said. “Policymakers need to step up,” LeGeyt responded. Radziul agrees, saying the scale of the tech sector has made them “anti-competitive” gatekeepers to news content. “If Congress doesn’t step in, I’m not sure there’s another solution in time to, frankly, save local news producers.”

Another NAB panel zoomed out to look at the trust factor more broadly – ​​and unlike AI, there is a yawning partisan divide.

Patrick Healy, deputy editor at New York Times who moderated the session, highlighted recent examples of media resistance from the Trump administration. One of them was White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who recently responded, “Your mother” when a reporter asked how Budapest was chosen as the site of a summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Another example was Trump’s response in Texas that “only a really mean person” would ask him, as a reporter did, about the U.S. response to flooding in the state.

Healy asked panelists Brian Stelter of CNN, Sara Fischer of Axios and Oliver Darcy of Status how they think news organizations should build their “resilience” in the face of such attacks.

There are “many, many bad faith actors trying to tear things down,” Stelter said. “Most trust is gained or lost in ways beyond our individual control. But we each, individually, have a little power and responsibility.”

Darcy, who was Stelter’s colleague at CNN before co-founding independent media outlet Status, lamented recent trends at many major news organizations. They are “largely run by corporations and billionaires trying to cover up for people who have been trained in various ways to hate them,” i.e. conservative viewers and readers. “You see that at Paramount with CBS News, you see that at Los Angeles Timesmaybe at Washington Post on the editorial side…. Owners are asking themselves, “How can we get Republicans to like us?” And the fact is, Republicans, or many of them, will never like you.

When networks and digital publishers “try to win over that audience by softening the coverage of Donald Trump, or softening the coverage of Charlie Kirk because you’re afraid of offending them, what’s really happening is you lose trust between people who rely on New York Times” or the rest, Darcy said. CNN, he added, has lost audiences over the past year, in his view, for the same reason.

Healy noted that the Times provokes much criticism from the left. He cited a headline a few weeks ago describing murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk as “charismatic.” Many readers felt that “racist” would have been a more appropriate word, he said.

White House reporters for the Times During Trump’s second term, Healy observed, “we’ve been pretty professional…When we ask questions and seek information, we get answers.” He contrasts the current state of things, despite all the chaos that surrounds it, with the relationships between Times staff and the Biden administration.

Dealing with the old White House was “much more difficult,” Healy said, marveling at “the amount of pressure the White House put on.” Times and others were criticized for our reporting on Joe Biden asking the American people to re-elect him and make him the oldest president in the history of this country, and the reporting we did on his age and cognitive abilities caught quite a fire. There has been enormous pressure from Biden and the Democratic Party.”

The intensity of pressure on journalists has only increased, Healy added, and the stakes continue to rise as well. “We all know it: When you start preemptively giving in and bending the knee out of fear, it only strengthens the authority’s resolve to further chip away at your independence,” he said.