News CEOs Talk Of Headwinds In Biz As AI, Misinformation And Audience Avoidance Challenge Traditional Media

deadline.com:

Just about any CEO panel these days will inevitably reach the topic of artificial intelligence, and today’s NewFront sit down with the leaders of five major news organizations was no exception.

But it was CNN Worldwide CEO Mark Thompson who warned of what was at stake. “If we get it wrong, we’ll get disintermediated, and people will get our stuff one way or the other in the way that AI companies have scraped everything we have ever done anyway, and they will provide it in other ways and our businesses will collapse,” Thompson said. “If we get it right, it could be a golden age of news experiences for people in this country and around the world.” Thompson talked of AI being used as a way where people can find content “easier and quicker.” AI was among a number of challenges that the CEOs addressed at the event.

Thompson also elaborated on what CNN is aiming to do in digital, as he has previously outlined in a strategy memo. “I don’t think anyone has built a great video-led news product, and we want to build that.

We have hundreds of millions of views of vertical video. But many younger people find it on TikTok and YouTube. And most news websites kind of look like they are in the newspaper tradition.