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Interviews with amazing people making things happen across the world of digital media.
New episodes every Thursday.
Mike (00:01.762)
Our guest this week is a veteran of the news space. She started as a journalist and has evolved into a tech executive and founder of Forth, a new news platform. She was also the head of news at Snapchat where her and her team created groundbreaking news content and managed news relationships across the industry. And when I say groundbreaking, it truly was. Ladies and gentlemen, Xana O 'Neill. Xana, welcome to the show.
Xana O'Neill (00:30.58)
Wow, Strik, thank you so much for that intro. Maybe you could do my PR too, that'd be great.
Mike (00:34.754)
Yeah.
You're the second person to ask me that question. People are really, I think that I have like a long queue of guests that are like ready to come on the show, which is awesome. And everyone that's agreed to do this, I really appreciate it. But I'm starting to suspect that maybe it's because they want the intro, right?
Xana O'Neill (00:40.852)
really?
Xana O'Neill (00:55.252)
Right? Yes. They get a personal hype man. Like who wouldn't want that?
Mike (00:59.842)
Yeah, I know. Yeah, maybe in another life that could have been me. So Xana, I mentioned here in the ridiculous intro that you have this big news background that's been your whole career. That's where we met at Snap when you were the head of news there. The news ecosystem has just evolved so much probably from the start of your career to where we are now. Can't even imagine like, you know,
Xana O'Neill (01:04.212)
Hahaha!
Mike (01:29.218)
imagining back then what things would have been like 20 years later. And like, you probably wouldn't have picked this that we have now. Right. And really like, you know, and we talk a lot about social media on this podcast and it is kind of crazy to think about that. This thing that started as a place where you go and keep track of your friends and family and like poke each other on Facebook and like do all these like goofy things became like one of the most important places.
for news content and for information, and that is various social media platforms like Twitter, X, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, you name it. So Xana, how did we get to this place where everybody or a lot of people seem to be really relying on social media for news?
Xana O'Neill (02:18.196)
Yeah, that's a great question. And thank you so much for having me. I mean, I'm a true fan of this pod. I think it's just so great. I've loved the interviews you've done in the past. So yeah, so thank you so much for having me on. I'm sure this is a blast. But yeah, it's surely been a transformation in the digital, well, in the news space. As you rightly put, it's not just media or digital media. It's just media at this point. It's just news at this point.
You know, I think that traditional media, unfortunately, has kind of failed to evolve to meet the moment. In addition, social media has really kind of met audiences where they are, where they want to be. And it has the brevity and the formatting and just the very kind of addictive quality, frankly, of disseminating content. The traditional media just doesn't have and stubbornly kind of refused to.
adapt some of those really good qualities. And right now, we're in a moment where traditional media is not really trusted. And actually Pew came out, well, it was in 2022, but said that adults under 30 now are almost as likely to trust information from social media sites as they are from national news outlets. Which when you and I were coming up, social media was not really a thing, not to date us, but maybe Friendster. But.
Just that notion was just totally wild. So I think social media platforms have proven themselves to have better access to younger audiences and, again, meet audiences where they are. And unfortunately, even though they lack the credibility, there is an air of authenticity that they have that traditional media organizations just don't seem to be able to emulate.
Mike (04:12.834)
In when you talk about credibility, what exactly do you mean by that in terms of the traditional media versus like the platforms?
Xana O'Neill (04:22.228)
Totally, yeah. And it's really about the authenticity. So the traditional media, I would say, has the credibility, but maybe not the trust. And I think that's because of a lack of transparency. So social media is, you know, we're being so transparent. You know, I know what you're having for breakfast and all your opinions about X, Y, Z, and things I didn't even want to know. Whereas journalists have been taught, you are not the story. The story is the story. You should remove yourself. And as a result,
Mike (04:30.082)
Got it.
Xana O'Neill (04:51.156)
there's kind of this feeling of lack of transparency or inauthenticity when you're potentially putting yourself onto a social platform. So I think there's a bit of a disconnect there. And the most successful journalists, I think, online have been able to bridge that gap and kind of reveal themselves through their stories without editorializing. It's a really tough, tough line, but I think it can be done.
Mike (05:19.042)
Yeah, I mean, whoever thought it was a good idea to put incredibly important information about how you perceive the world in with pictures of breakfast. I would like to have a really frank conversation with that person. But yeah, go ahead.
Xana O'Neill (05:29.012)
Hahaha!
Xana O'Neill (05:35.508)
Yes, I mean, it makes no, it just makes the whole experience flat, right? It's like you have this kind of award winning journalism that has a serious cultural impact and it's right next to some piece of misinformation or a conspiracy theory. There's no editorial hierarchy or kind of understanding of the gravitas of one thing or the often or the credibility of another. And so, yeah, it's just this amalgam of, I don't know, it's tough to sort through for anyone, let alone kind of.
younger people who might not have the kind of critical eye that adults have.
Mike (06:09.73)
Yeah, the Bo Burnham in his COVID special Inside, I think it was called, one of his songs was kind of about the chaotic experience of scrolling Instagram, right? Where you get an update about someone got a new job and then someone's like, look at my puppy learned a new trick. And then it's like, more rockets launched at Israel. It's like, okay, this is like.
Xana O'Neill (06:32.052)
You
Mike (06:37.058)
crazy like to us to our generation that feels chaotic and like frenetic maybe is a less negative word. But like you know and we're going to get to Forth year in a second and this this will be a nice tie. But like do you think that the nature of the way news is presented like within that feed. Has an impact on the way people are able to like digest information in the sense that like you know it's just like hitting you passively now right where like.
you're there for puppy pics and for other things, and then you get a really important news story. Like, are you, like, do you think people are in the right state of mind to, like, get that information at that time?
Xana O'Neill (07:17.524)
Yeah, that's a great question. And I think, I mean, focus group of one for me, a lot of times is no. I'll go to certain platforms for certain experiences. And sometimes when news is interrupting that experience, it can be very kind of disjointed feeling. And especially with just the severity of news today, to your point about, hey, I'm looking at my friend. My friend just had a baby. Somebody had a new puppy. And then let me see what the latest on, you know.
the war in the Middle East is that's a very jarring experience. And so I think not having kind of a curated approach can make things feel a lot more just, like I said, jarring and people just, you come away not feeling good at the end of the day.
Mike (08:08.894)
Yeah. I mean, absolutely. I, yeah, I tend to not really scroll on, on those kinds of platforms as much as for Tik TOK. That's like my number one, but I don't get a lot of news on the, the algorithm has just figured out that I don't want it, that I don't like to like get tons of news, at least there. Like I obviously like expose myself to lots of news, but not there. Like that's for memes and other nonsense, like golf videos and other things that I like. Right.
Xana O'Neill (08:12.244)
Yeah.
Xana O'Neill (08:21.908)
Ugh.
Xana O'Neill (08:38.836)
Tip -tok.
Mike (08:38.978)
which is interesting. But so anyway, you mentioned, you mentioned curated and you mentioned journalism with like all the things that we were just talking about. It's a really nice bridge into Forth, the, the venture that you've started. can you, for those of us unfamiliar to, to Forth, can you just give everyone a primer of what it is and what you're trying to accomplish?
Xana O'Neill (09:00.276)
Absolutely. So Forth is a platform for news. And essentially what we're doing is we're taking the look and feel of social media, the format, and applying journalistic rigor and creating a platform that is specifically for news. So when you go to Forth, the idea is that you get headlines from down the block and around the world.
And it's served up to you by individual journalists, vetted journalists, in a format that feels like any other social media feed. But it's a very intentional experience. You're going there for the news specifically. You're not going there for opinion or commentary. All of our journalists sign on to our editorial policy.
which for any journalist would be a pretty low bar, but it's more just to explain to our audiences that this is what we expect of our journalists, of journalists in general, which is that they're in pursuit of the truth, that they will not have conflicts of interest, that they are transparent when there are errors made, things like that. So it's...
Yeah, a newsfeed that actually has credible and authoritative news.
Mike (10:14.178)
So, okay, for everyone listening, it's F -O -R -T -H, like go forth, rather than, you know, forth in line or something like that, if you're curious. When you say no opinion or commentary, so if one goes into forth and you get a feed, you guys do, there's no opinion or conversation, it's just like updates about news stories from journalists, that's the idea.
Xana O'Neill (10:22.516)
Right, exactly.
Xana O'Neill (10:40.5)
Exactly, exactly right. So we, you know, you could do, you could post -reported analysis, but anything else is really skirts the line. We feel like other platforms really can kind of take care of that. We want to be the home for news and especially as other social media platforms are shying away from news and sometimes just being outright hostile toward news. And, you know, we want to be the home for credible news and information, not just people shouting at one another.
Mike (11:11.17)
That's so interesting that you are making a delineation between news and commentary, right? Because that line has been so blurred in the last, you know, since really the last 15, 20 years. I mean, there's always been, right, some element of that where there's like an opinion section in a newspaper back in the day, right? So there was like, quote unquote, real news. And then there was like opinion, clearly labeled opinion in this other area of the medium, right?
But over time that has like truly been just been like combined and it's hard to tell what's opinion and what's news. So like were you were you guys like I mean and obviously everybody is doing that because opinion is generate generates clicks and you know a lot of engagement around controversial takes and all of the you know all of that sort of stuff. Do you guys like have worry about not being part of that or like you said you're letting other people do that which is wise. But do you.
Do you think like the modern audience is like going to be interested enough in the non opinion stuff?
Xana O'Neill (12:15.252)
It's a great question. I think that we're really interested in audiences who just kind of want to cut through the BS and just want to know what's happening. And you know, we've, my co -founder and I are both former journalists, or I don't know if you can ever be former, but journalists. And so who kind of gone on to tech lives. And so,
the kind of foundational principles of journalism were really important to us. And we've seen kind of traditional media kind of cave to the will of different platforms just so that they could get more audiences. And obviously the business model doesn't help. And we really wanted to not make those same mistakes and not just be, you know.
a content farm or clickbait factory, ultimately that's not going to win you any loyalty. It's kind of a short term play. So we probably will miss out on some things. And ultimately journalism, we want it to be a thriving business. And there is a business part of this. So we don't want to be just eat your broccoli's journalism. We want to have some dessert there too. But we don't want to be part of just the chaos online.
we want to kind of cut through that noise.
Mike (13:32.13)
That's yeah, that would be welcome. I do feel like and I've spent some time on Forth. It is refreshing like candidly refreshing to be on a news site or news feed that doesn't have all of that other nonsense happening like it is. It is clean in a way right where it's just like here's a thing and here's an update. Here's an update. Here's an update and you're like you're not having to sift through all of the fake stuff and all of the opinion and all the other things so.
Okay, now that I've given like a super sick endorsement of Forth here, can I, can I come up, can I be a forther? Can I be a Forth journalist? Is that something that like, like what I qualify for this?
Xana O'Neill (14:14.996)
It's great that you ask. We have an application. So essentially, we do actually have an application. So any journalists who want to apply can go to journalists .forth .news. And there is an application there. And essentially, it's a Google form. And we kind of ask for three examples of work product, in addition to some other details, but three examples of work product. So.
show us something that proves that you have sound editorial judgment, you can report objectively that you are credible and authoritative. If you have any examples of places you've worked or any additional kind of work samples you want to provide or point us to your LinkedIn. And so we'll go through the application and kind of evaluate each individual based on criteria that we put together.
from the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics, drawing heavily from their documentation, and also from our own experience. So looking through just because we really didn't want to be a platform where everyone had to have a Columbia J School degree. That's not what we're looking for here. We don't believe that you, I do not have a Columbia J School degree. But I'm just saying that, OK, all right, well, great. But.
Mike (15:33.154)
Me neither.
Yeah.
Xana O'Neill (15:37.908)
That's wonderful if you do, but we're saying that journalists come in all different shapes and sizes today, and we wanted to be mindful of that. So we wanted to take a look at just anyone who had a history of credible and objective reporting. So we'll go through that and take a look at the reporting itself. Does this person source properly? Are they taking into consideration the potential biases of sources? Is this?
objective or are they playing to one side? And have they appeared on what typically what we would call credible news organizations? That can be helpful. Check mark. And then ultimately, if we have any questions or follow ups, we'll generally ask to set up a call for 30 minutes and just kind of talk to them about forth and get a sense of.
of their approach to journalism, they get a sense of who we are, and we kind of go from there. So we really want to make sure that, you know, obviously that people who say they're journalists are who they say they are. And so we'll kind of use our own journalistic skills to determine that. If we have any follow -up questions, then we'll set up an individual call.
Mike (16:57.058)
Okay, so I produced national television for 10 years. I also ran a sports content team at a major tech platform. I now host a podcast. So there's three examples. I'm submitting my application to you directly right now. So after my pitch here, if I'm not eligible, if I'm not the right person, maybe you're afraid I'm gonna have too many opinions and stuff. I get that.
Xana O'Neill (17:01.556)
Yes, okay.
Xana O'Neill (17:14.356)
verbally. Okay, excellent. Yes, yes.
Xana O'Neill (17:25.844)
for watching.
Mike (17:26.178)
Like feel free to deny me. This is not like there's no pressure here. I know I'm putting you putting you on the spot a little bit, but based on what you know about me and what I've just said, I think that covers, I'm trying to think I did go, I do have a journalism degree from the university of Connecticut, national champions back to back. so I don't know. So, so, okay. I I've, I've now just hit submit on your Google forum. You and your team are looking at it. Do I, am I.
Xana O'Neill (17:32.02)
No, no.
Xana O'Neill (17:44.756)
Hahaha!
Go Huskies!
Xana O'Neill (17:54.74)
Yes.
Mike (17:55.522)
Am I approved?
Xana O'Neill (17:57.3)
So we would look at what specific shows that you had produced, right? And the reputations of those shows. And I happen to know that those shows are very reputable, credible, and yes. But we would look through that. We would make sure there were no major controversies that would need to be maybe followed up with a conversation. For example, there was some scandal where there was a
you know, major factual inaccuracy or something like that, we might say. I think a helicopter was involved, but yeah.
Mike (18:30.626)
like a Brian Williams reporting from the beach thing or whatever he did. I don't even remember what he did. Yeah.
Mike (18:39.138)
So you heard it here first, Brian Williams would be declined for Forth. No, that's great. Okay, so I'll tell you what we'll do. And I appreciate that you take this very seriously and you're not just gonna give me an approval here on the spot on a podcast. So I totally respect that.
Xana O'Neill (18:55.956)
Well, yes, no, but I have done my due diligence on you, Strick, and I have looked at your application. And no, truly, I'm just kind of walking you through. Because I know you, I know that you are a credible and authoritative journalist. But these are the steps I would take if I didn't know your work product. But.
Mike (19:18.626)
Of course, yeah.
Xana O'Neill (19:21.3)
Yeah, so we would go through those steps. And then again, if there were any issues, I would follow up with you in a call. But I think based on the criteria that you just outlined, you would in fact be approved. You would also have to agree to the editorial policy.
Mike (19:33.986)
Okay.
Mike (19:38.146)
Okay, I'm gonna have to look at that. I'm gonna have to go through that with a fine tooth comb. No, but you've all heard it here first. I at least have a very good chance of being approved on Forth, Ezra Forth. You're telling me there's a chance. So here's what we'll do. It sounds good, right? I think everyone listening would probably agree. It sounds pretty good for me. My chances seem good. I'm going to go through the full.
Xana O'Neill (19:39.924)
Right. Yes, get back to me.
Xana O'Neill (19:49.16)
So you're saying there's a chance.
Mike (20:05.89)
official process and make sure that the Forth team is comfortable. But I will update you all at some point when I get in. And then if I get in, I will start posting. I think it's interesting. I would like to partake. So consider that a tease for at some point in the future, my official Forth launch. How about that?
Xana O'Neill (20:20.788)
Awesome.
Xana O'Neill (20:26.516)
Amazing. Thank you. And I will say just, and thank you, Strik, I appreciate that. We are building forth, right? And it's, building a news platform is not easy. I think this is why whenever people attempt to do it, they either, things slowly fizzle or they just kind of fade away quietly. News is a tricky business. It's never been hugely lucrative. It's expensive to do journalism.
And so a lot of the folks in tech, they want to see like 100x returns in a very short time horizon. And that's not why we're in this. So we really need kind of dedicated people who are interested in the mission of credible journalism to both consume forth and if you're a journalist out there, come and join us. We're small but growing. And also we just really
love the community and want to find sustainable ways forward for journalism. So I'll get off my soapbox now, but.
Mike (21:32.002)
No, that's great. And look, I will say I am genuinely interested in participating. I also was very interested to just hear you talk through the process of how you vet people that do apply, because that is in and of itself a very interesting discussion. And I'm sure you guys talked about this at length on your end of things and you broke it down for us really nicely. So that was not just designed as trying to like get myself snuck into the Forth platform.
I really wanted to hear about how you were thinking about these things. So, okay. So you mentioned, so that's Forth, go check it out. Maybe you'll be finding my posts on there pretty soon. That would be sick. We'll see. Forth .news. Okay. Yep. Forth .news. F -O -R -T -H .news. We talk a lot about on this show. We've, we've talked a little bit about this already, like off the top here, but.
Xana O'Neill (22:04.436)
Yeah.
Xana O'Neill (22:14.836)
Forth .News.
Yes.
Mike (22:29.25)
content algorithm platforms. And after seven episodes of doing this show, I've got to come up with a name for this. Like I'm tired of saying content algorithm platform. So I'm going to start calling them caps. Okay. because in many ways they are cap, right? but it also is just way easier to say than content algorithm platforms. Now you might be thinking, stop trying to make fetch happen, but like we're going to try. So,
Xana O'Neill (22:42.004)
caps.
Xana O'Neill (22:46.292)
Good one, yes.
Mike (22:57.57)
We've talked about these caps, okay? These content algorithm platforms and they have pros and cons for the world. I had Rachel Richardson on a few weeks ago talking about where she thinks that all nets out. From a news perspective, from your seat, looking, you've worked at a big cap platform like Snap, you consume them, you've made content for them. Is it possible to have the good parts?
of this and from a news perspective, what are the good things about a cap? And is it like, is there any way to just have those and like sort of limit the bad parts, the things that like we don't want.
Xana O'Neill (23:37.812)
Yeah, I go back and forth on this a lot. I'm a user of caps, but also a lover and a hater of caps. I'm sorry, I'm just trying to get used to caps, but.
Mike (23:39.234)
and
Mike (23:49.73)
Yeah, I know it's it's it'll be an uphill battle, but we're I appreciate you trying. Yeah.
Xana O'Neill (23:52.532)
It will, but we'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get there. You know, it's interesting, right? Today, the Surgeon General in the Times said that he felt like it was time to require a Surgeon General's warning on social media platforms, akin to what's on cigarettes and alcohol. And that's specifically for the mental health harms for adolescents. And he was specifically calling out...
platforms collecting sensitive data on kids and features like push notifications and infinite scroll and how addictive those things can become to young kids. And so I think when we talk about CAPS, I always keep that in mind that especially for young audiences, it can be really detrimental because the...
the algorithms are so good. I mean, I really am loathe to tell you how much time I spend on TikTok. It's obscene. It really, really is. And, you know, I often think, okay, well, when we were coming up, you know, magazines, right, like Seventeen Magazine, was that any better because, you know, as a young girl growing up, seeing like models on the cover and I'm constantly comparing myself to these people and...
Mike (24:54.562)
Yeah, same.
Xana O'Neill (25:13.876)
You know, young girls were still struggling with body issues then, but it pales in comparison to what we're experiencing now with youth and depression, because at least then, you know, you can pick up the magazine, you can put it down. It's not a place where you're connecting with your friends, where your entire social life is fully engaged on these platforms, in addition to constantly being fed these images that are just reinforcing these negative beliefs about yourself and comparisons about yourself. So...
I think there's a real tremendous downside to these algorithms. That said, I think there are things we can do. And when it comes to news, I think you can harness that for good. I think right now, because attention is really the primary way of keeping people on platforms and generating more ad revenue, platforms will do whatever it takes to keep your attention there. We all know that anger,
really helps kind of fuel social media consumption. And so when you're getting fed headlines that will just outrage you minute after minute, and the platforms are doing that because they will keep you engaged, that's just not a healthy news ecosystem. It's not a healthy ecosystem, period. I think if we can move away from that model, or if somehow our better angels prevail and we decide that's not this kind of society that we want to build, that algorithms could be used for some really
in really interesting ways and kind of to highlight stories that kind of serendipitously come into your feed, just like you would, you know, back in the day, go through a newspaper and the story would pop out at you that you weren't necessarily seeking, but it had some interesting adjacency to something you were reading and you were just like, that's really interesting. I wasn't seeking out that story about XYZ, but you know, I'm glad that I encountered it. I think there's a lot of that that algorithms can do in the news space, but right now they're just so programmed to...
you know, turn up the volume on outrage, that it's really hard to see kind of how we can get there.
Mike (27:21.442)
I know. I mean, yeah, I've made the case to some people on this show that the way to fix it is to take the money out. You know, like take the money out and then all of a sudden you're less incentivized to pump the outrage machine. But it's probably a gross oversimplification of the issue. And like we live in America, so like taking the money out is like a challenging conversation always.
Xana O'Neill (27:30.772)
Mm -hmm.
Xana O'Neill (27:46.74)
That's true. Yeah.
Mike (27:48.354)
But let's, can we quickly go back to the surgeon general thing? Cause that, that is, I'm so glad you brought that up. And I just want to read what Murthy said to the center, the, the surgeon general said it is time to require a surgeon general's warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents. A surgeon general's warning label, which requires congressional action would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe.
Xana O'Neill (27:51.444)
Yeah.
Mike (28:17.474)
I mean, it's just, it's crazy that we're getting to this point now and it's probably long overdue. you know, especially for us when we were at snap and snap was trying to fight the good fight. I honestly believe that, especially when we were there and I'm sure now, to some degree. but yeah, like, I don't know when as a news person and you look at that, I mean, that is a huge deal. That is a massive, like if they actually put a search in general warning on social media, that would be such an indictment.
Xana O'Neill (28:29.428)
I do too.
Mike (28:47.97)
on what it's doing to our culture and our society. Like as a news person, how do you navigate that reality? That like you're participating in a platform that's harming people, you know? But like at the same time, you have to because that's where everybody's getting their news, you know?
Xana O'Neill (29:09.108)
Right, right. Well, that's the thing. I mean, I think that news organizations have made and continue to make a big mistake when they completely cede ground to social platforms. And that's why with FORTH, we're really trying to partner in a different way with news organizations, because we've seen that parasitic relationship, and it doesn't end well. Well, it ends well for platforms, but not necessarily for individual journalists or news orgs.
But you have to be on these platforms. If you want younger audiences, you have to be there. But you don't necessarily have to put all of your IP there. You don't necessarily have to devote millions and millions of dollars of investment into these spaces where you get very little return. It's far more important to build direct relationships with your audience than to be out on these platforms. And not just financially and for business reasons, but
for moral reasons too. And I agree with you about SNAP. I think SNAP was always the walled garden. Nothing could go viral on SNAP. And I think that that really helped guard against a lot of the issues that we're seeing on metastasize on other platforms. But.
It's tricky, you know? I don't have all the answers. I just know that, yeah, when we were coming up with FORTH, we really wanted to build something that we could feel good about, that takes the things we liked about social media and really kind of threw away the rest.
Mike (30:40.77)
Yeah. So, I want to go to, you mentioned publishers and news organizations and partnering with tech companies. I want to go to artificial intelligence. I also want to talk to you about the debate that's coming up here. And at the time of this airing, I think a week after that, if I'm doing all the cal the calendar math correctly. so that'll be towards the end. We'll talk about that. that very interesting event coming up.
Xana O'Neill (31:03.252)
So excited.
Mike (31:10.018)
but, unless you've been living under a rock, you know, that artificial intelligence is kind of having its moment here. and open AI is sort of the biggest and perhaps most important, AI company that's emerged in the last couple of years. the, one of the latest stories among, I mean, there's constantly new developments happening in space, but one of the ones that really is directly related to this conversation is how open AI.
is partnering with publishers. So OpenAI has been announcing a bunch of different deals with news companies like News Corp and also with other ones like Axel Springer. So, okay, the deal, the money, like OpenAI is paying these publishers in a lot of money. And we'll get into that in a second. But why do you think like publishers are doing this? We were just talking about how,
publishers and how they went to the social media platforms, how that all sort of played out. And really they kind of got the short end of the stick on that one at the end here, it seems like. So what is there, do you, can you sense from the community of in the, in the news industry that they're going to try to approach this differently as we have like a new crop of like technology companies that want to partner with them and leverage their content and their branding and those sorts of things.
or are they like going to walk into a lot of the same mistakes they made in the past?
Xana O'Neill (32:43.62)
And I should just preface this by saying I'm a big proponent of AI assisted reporting. AI assisted reporting. I think that AI could be transformational and will be transformational for journalism and a ton of other industries. So I'm not, you know, I'm very fascinated by AI. That said, here we go again. We've seen this movie before, just as you said, it's...
Mike (32:49.538)
Hahaha!
Okay.
Xana O'Neill (33:12.596)
When Facebook Watch came out, news organizations were just falling all over themselves to become a part of it. And Facebook was paying a lot of money for various series commissioned from top tier news organizations. And that was a really nice feather in these news organizations' cap. They came to rely on it until Facebook just kind of yanked that away. And so we've seen this over and over. It's not just Facebook, but...
News organizations are, because of their struggling, they're always looking for short -term cash grab. I think this is another example. And this helps the short -term interests of Newsroom and the long -term interests of the tech companies. Because ultimately, you know, I think the News Corp deal is five years. When that runs out, what's going to happen?
Right, like is OpenAI gonna go back and sign another five year deal now that they've kind of milked News Corp and its archives dry and what's the purpose? Are they, you know, I often was thinking, okay, could they do a licensing deal where if the algorithm, or I'm sorry, yeah, the algorithm is using a bit of, you know, newsroom X's information that they would get some kind of.
fee, but nobody even can track that. So it's kind of impossible. I just think that either newsrooms are either getting into deals with these guys or, you know, suing them, hoping to get a settlement. But ultimately, AI, like open AI is just going to run rickshaw over these guys, rough shot rather. It's
Mike (34:56.258)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Xana O'Neill (34:59.06)
I just think that newsrooms need to continue to focus on direct relationships with their audiences and protecting their IP and preserving their IP at all costs. And this is just another example of them kind of saying, okay, open AI is the next new thing, but they said that they're gonna take our journalism into consideration and our guidance into consideration and we'll be able to advise them on XYZ. I mean, I just don't, I don't buy that. And...
I just think from a number of journalists, they should approach it with that skepticism. And I know rank and file journalists do have that skepticism. But I don't think that that's shared by executive teams. And again, these are big numbers that they're being offered when ad revenues are down and they're just struggling to make even digital dollars these days with changes in Google's algorithm and everything. So.
Yeah, I just think this is deja vu, unfortunately.
Mike (35:59.938)
Yeah, I, I tend to agree. That is sort of like the knee jerk reaction that I had as well, especially if you consider the fact that so news Corp in particular is getting $250 million over five years from open AI. Okay. And now you might be listening to this and being like $250 million. That's like good money for news Corp. It might be good money. Like they might be high fiving over that. But if you consider that a Jalen Brown of the Boston Celtics,
has a five year, $286 million contract to probably by the time this airs win the NBA championship. Finger, okay, finger, okay. Sure enough, sure. But like, consider like if you're News Corp and you're like, $250 million isn't actually that much money in the grand scheme of things. You know, there's like one NBA player making more than that for five years. And I know it's like a kind of a ridiculous comparison.
Xana O'Neill (36:36.82)
Fingers crossed.
Hahaha!
Mike (36:58.274)
But I think your point, it's to your point about like a short -term cash grab versus like long -term strategy. And like, you know, News Corp and the other news organizations may be forced into that situation because there are, a lot of them are publicly owned companies with revenue targets and they're trying to please shareholders and revenue is like sort of going down into the right in a lot of other, in a lot of other areas of their business. And so there, here comes.
Xana O'Neill (37:17.3)
Exactly.
Mike (37:24.034)
an extra 50 million a year on their balance sheet. That's got to be super appealing. I understand that. But yeah, like these huge wealthy tech companies can come in and just like spend their way into their towards their goals.
Xana O'Neill (37:38.324)
Right, no exactly. I mean, I think that you're right. They don't really have a choice. They really don't. And so they're probably trying to just get as much money as possible. I mean, the New York Times is going the other way, which is suing OpenAI. But ultimately, that will probably result in a settlement as well. So it's a difficult spot that they're in. But I don't think that this is going to be some boon for news organizations.
Mike (38:07.234)
Yeah. How do you see OpenAI utilizing the News Corp library? How will that actually manifest? Is it like, hey, chat GPT, what's in the news today? It's as simple as that. Or is it a lot more complex?
Xana O'Neill (38:24.468)
I mean, I would imagine, and this is just complete punch, but I mean, if you could go to one platform and say exactly what you said, like, give me the top headlines today, or what was that thing that I heard that Biden talked about the other day, or can you clarify for me what exactly is happening at the border right now? Or just like all of the things that immediate questions that you want answered, and it would just pull that up.
Mike (38:44.578)
Hmm.
Xana O'Neill (38:49.492)
I mean, that would be a fabulous experience. I think that would be incredible. If you have a question about the news, you don't have to go to your friend who reads 10 newspapers a day and be like, hey, can you answer this for me? Or Googling around forever. You can just ask whomever and chat GPT more specifically. But I think that would be fantastic. The news could be specifically tailored to your interests. Like, top five headlines, also tell me.
Give me the top 10 trades last night in sports or, you know, just everything could be more tailored to, sorry, I was trying to make it more like sports, like adjacent for you, Strick, but maybe not the best analogy, but you know what I'm saying.
Mike (39:28.642)
I really appreciate that. You don't have to do that. This podcast is like 70 -30 sports to other stuff. So we do everything here, but I do appreciate the effort. Yeah.
Xana O'Neill (39:35.795)
Okay, got it. You've got a range. Yeah, so personalization, customization. Yeah, and of course it could also help just like guard against hallucinations because they'll have more factual based information about events in history and things of that nature.
Mike (39:56.802)
So as a journalist, when you hear that News Corp, the publisher of Fox News, the New York Post, many outlets which some would consider to be not very credible, are you at all concerned that those are the sources that is going to be feeding the algorithm? Do you think it matters?
that like, are we going to end up with like a real, I guess, like a hyper conservative artificial intelligence because they use News Corp as like their foundation for like current information or is that like less of an issue?
Xana O'Neill (40:37.492)
Well, it's interesting. I mean, I think that, I don't think Fox News is part of this deal, but the New York Post is, and the Journal is. And I mean, they're typically conservative. So yeah, I mean, I think one way that journalists could really be helpful here is working within OpenAI to help kind of navigate biases in the algorithm and figure out how to delineate.
what is conservative versus left leaning and how that can be expressed in the outputs. And so I think that actually that's a huge new, hopefully emerging role for journalists in this new ecosystem is that they can help and work with engineers to refine the outputs. But yeah, I think just like any, garbage in garbage out and not saying that New York Post or the journal are.
But I'm just saying if you have, in fact, I read both religiously. But if you have biased inputs, you're going to get biased outputs. And so you need to really help find a way to kind of mitigate that. And I think that that's just, they're constantly going to be evolving that issue.
Mike (41:53.346)
Okay. So earlier you mentioned very quickly AI assisted reporting. So there is all of the inputs and all of the drama around where these AI companies are getting their information to feed their models. But zooming out a little more, do you think AI can be a good journalist? Do you see a world where there is a true artificial intelligence?
that is actually like being a journalist? Like is that in play?
Xana O'Neill (42:29.236)
Short answer, no. AI can be a fabulous assistant, a wonderful assistant for reporters, but it is not a journalist. I don't see that on the horizon, maybe down the road, but certainly not in the near term. Good journalism requires critical thought and evaluation and much of what we see,
Mike (42:32.674)
Yeah.
Xana O'Neill (42:57.076)
today from AI -generated sources are just kind of rewrites and rewarmed press releases and derivative storytelling. And I'm really hoping that because many organizations are, well, not many, but several organizations are leaning more on AI -assisted or I should say AI -driven content entirely. And that's a mistake. I think AI...
Assisted reporting is kind of where it's at and that can be really helpful to journalism. But you know, there are certain stories that are where the raw data is the story and I think that is where AI can also shine. So, you know, stock updates or, you know, sports scores or, you know, an earthquake hits LA, you know, those things that are just kind of binary, right? That I think AI is fine at, but anything that you need...
you know, critical eye skepticism, that's where you need to bring, you know, the human into the loop. And even when you have those stock updates and everything, you still want a human to review. Oversight is always going to be key.
Mike (44:04.45)
Yeah, I was going to bring up the stock update thing because in the Apple stock app, right? Like they have loads of that and it definitely feels flat. You definitely know that it's not a person. Oftentimes, like the writing structures are very repetitive and whatnot. Now, the biggest buzzword in the AI community is this is the worst it will ever be, right? Which is like, I think.
Xana O'Neill (44:28.024)
Yes.
Mike (44:28.962)
mentioned this in last week's episode, but it's like my favorite thing I wish like that I could get away with that excuse more often. Think about just it. This is the worst it will ever be. It's only going to go up from here. And like I understand the point. The point is that it's machine learning and it's constantly building and improving and evolving over time. But yeah, like how exactly. You know, does AI assisted journalism like if you see.
Xana O'Neill (44:35.132)
Right.
Mike (44:59.042)
Like the stock update thing is only like sort of partially useful. And I tend to agree with that. How, like, what is the end state of this? Like you have a journalist, a per a human who just has like kick ass AI tools to help it, you know, find information and, you know, sift through sources and that sort of thing as like a little like a buddy, almost like a little like assistant. Is that, is that sort of how you, how you see it playing out?
Xana O'Neill (45:25.908)
Totally. I think that AI can help with finding patterns and documents that humans wouldn't necessarily be able to see. Or in visual data, satellite images, let's say, it can help find interesting information in campaign finance reports on a level that would take humans weeks that could be done in minutes.
Mike (45:45.986)
Yeah.
Xana O'Neill (45:50.292)
It can also help identify and find sources. So diversity in sources and stories. So if you're able to say, OK, help find, I need to find an expert in XYZ subject matter and put out a blast to these 500 people. And you can do that in a matter of minutes with something that would take a day. The responses are going to be probably of much higher caliber. So there's a lot of ways that you can leverage AI.
But when it comes to the writing, the crafting of the actual journalism, the actual interviewing of people, the kind of the skepticism that you need to kind of introduce into the process, that's really where you need the cumin. So I think, yeah, you can, journalists can and hopefully will have great AI tools. And by the way, I love using AI for headline writing.
right, just to kind of riff off somebody. Be like, hey, and again, I would never take a headline that, you know, without looking at it that AI wrote or anything that AI wrote. But it's very useful. Like I go into chat, JPT sometimes and I'm like, make this into a New York Post style headline. And, you know, half the time it's like not great, but the other half I'm like, all right, because it requires a lot of humor, a deeper level of understanding, you know, but it can be a really helpful like buddy when you're trying to bat around some ideas. But it's not like,
I just don't think it's going to replace journalists anytime soon. It will replace journalists who are not doing original quality work. I think that's absolutely the case.
Mike (47:26.05)
Yeah, no, that's such a good point. This relationship between the content creator and the artificial intelligence as almost a someone to like bounce ideas off of. I have had that exact same experience actually for this show way back episode two with Pete Conforti. I'm not sure if you heard that one, but we did a chat GPT roast of Pete.
Xana O'Neill (47:45.844)
I did? Yes, of course.
Xana O'Neill (47:51.092)
I guess, yes.
Mike (47:53.666)
And like, okay, I will, I'll just reveal everyone has been wondering, did chat GPT really write this whole thing? I mean, no one has probably really been wondering that, but like it was, it was a teamwork. It was a collaborative process, right? Like I did exactly what you're talking about for that. I sort of worked with chat GPT, like it fed me some lines. I combined the cherry pick the best stuff from a bunch of different takes. Like I'm like, punch it up, make this more funny, make this more mean, you know, and like for that.
It's like, it's incredible. It's so helpful, for that. That for now we've, we've also seen some people try to use AI in a way that is terrible. And like, not even just from like the writing just feels a little flat, but my, my favorite story about like an early stumbling block here is how sports illustrated had like fake reporters that were actually artificial intelligence and not real. And someone found out someone figured it out and.
busted them and like, I find that fascinating for so many different reasons, but like, why do you think that didn't work? How did they get to that point where they actually like tried to do that?
Xana O'Neill (49:09.46)
I mean, sorry, it boggles the mind. No, they were, I mean, I have no direct knowledge of this, but my guess is they were trying to increase the number of stories they were producing each day to help goose traffic. They didn't wanna hire any more new reporters or any reporters, and so they just created synthetic media.
brands, which is just outrageous because it flies in the face of, first of all, it assumes that the audience just has zero intelligence. Like it's disrespecting your audience, which you really should never do. Audiences will tolerate a lot if you're transparent about it. You know, if you say this story was used AI assisted reporting or AI wrote part of the story, at least they say, they're not going to say, I'm not reading this for the most part. They'll just say, okay, I appreciate the transparency.
Now I know why this story isn't as good as it could be or whatever. But to just completely make up journalists out of whole cloth also just flies in the face of everything that journalism stands for. So it's not only do you not know your audience, but you don't even understand the medium or the industry in which you're working. So it's just outrageous on so many levels. I don't even know where to start.
Mike (50:26.914)
Do you, I, I found, I agree with all of that. Of course. I found also that like the fact that they weren't honest about it felt like a coverup. It felt like deception. Right. Which, which is an interesting thing, right? It's like, do we think that if sports illustrated came out and they were like, we've got these four new journalists, they are robots. And they just were like super transparent about that.
Xana O'Neill (50:39.7)
Yes.
Mike (50:56.802)
Like would that even like, would that actually be, is that viable? Like would people be like, all right, I'll check out what SI robot two has to say about the Celtics. I, I'm not even.
Xana O'Neill (51:06.804)
I think they would get burned so bad, right? They would just get roasted. But there would be some level of respect they would be able to maintain for just at least trying something new, because so many people are just like have no creativity around how to approach this. And I think at least somewhere, be like, well, at least they were transparent and trying something new, even though it was very misguided, right? But.
Mike (51:12.886)
Yeah.
Mike (51:22.082)
Right.
Xana O'Neill (51:35.892)
To be exactly like deceiving your own audience. Like the whole point is building trust with your audience, building a community. And the easiest way to just completely ruin that is just to lie to them. It just it makes it's outrageous to me.
Mike (51:52.578)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that they, they would agree with you because they stopped doing that. And they were like, no, we've been caught. Let's change direction. You know, so I, yeah, it's, it's a wild thing to try to like fool people with. Okay. June 27th presidential debate. Number one. you know, in history,
Xana O'Neill (51:58.804)
Hahaha!
Xana O'Neill (52:03.7)
right.
Xana O'Neill (52:15.284)
Yes.
Mike (52:19.842)
Obviously presidential debates are just these massive events for a newsroom. Okay. I obviously don't have to tell you, it's weird to me that like we're doing one here in the summer, you know, like there was a time where there was three and they were in like September and October. and there was a structure to them. And now like, I mean, I don't know, that's maybe a whole nother discussion, but you've been in newsrooms for a presidential debates. I watched you cover debates at snap.
Xana O'Neill (52:36.052)
Yup.
Mike (52:48.002)
I'm sure you've covered many others going back for this one in particular, right? Take into account this entire conversation, right? Like not necessarily like looking for like the political, who's going to win and stuff like, at least in this conversation, but taking into account that you're putting content on social media, you could leverage AI, you know, just like this modern world that we have, you have Forth, like maybe Forth complain to this somehow if you'd like it to.
But like if you're in a newsroom right now, how are you covering this debate? Like what's important to you as you sort of set off on the night and then watch it and then report on what happened in the first presidential debate?
Xana O'Neill (53:29.332)
Yeah, well, I think it's definitely going to be a harbinger of the election, basically the late summer and early fall leading up to the election of just what we as a country can expect. And I don't mean that just coming from the debate stage. I mean that from also all of the other platforms where the content will be pushed out and disseminated. If I were in a newsroom, I would be.
You know, obviously watching for important things like the substance of the conversation, you know, even though they have, they've agreed to kind of a mute button this time around, there's not gonna be an audience there. So a lot of like the hijinks that normally ensue in these things won't happen, but that still won't guard against misinformation. And so I think, and just flat out false information. So I think making sure that,
fact checkers are kind of on notice. If I were advising the people who are moderating the debate, having smart follow ups just really quickly. But I think the coverage of this debate is so much more than the debate itself. It's really a lot of how it plays out on social and how people are experiencing the debate, a lot of which will be on social, is even going to matter more.
in some cases than the debate itself. And I think kind of the court of public opinion is going to be fought over in those spaces. So I'll definitely be keeping an eye on Twitter. It'll be interesting to see threads who, you know, they definitely do not want politics to trend on threads. They're very against that, but inevitably this stuff trickles in. So I'll be curious to see how they handle it, see what happens on TikTok as well. And,
you know, even Instagram to some extent. But I think the memes that emerge, the clips that are identified from both sides will be really interesting. And then to see how much of it is, you know, AI driven, how much of it, you know, are bots being involved like on Twitter and elsewhere to push specific narratives and what are those narratives? So I think having kind of, you know, I would definitely want somebody on the team who's like,
Xana O'Neill (55:49.268)
into social forensics and could kind of paint that picture by the end of the night of where is this stuff coming from as best as we can tell in terms of the memes and the messaging and what are the main messages that are being pushed and who is pushing them if we can identify specific groups. So I think there's what's gonna be happening on streaming or on TV and then there's what's gonna be happening in social spaces and it's gonna be fascinating, that's for sure.
Mike (56:16.738)
I want to dig in a little more on how you describe, especially on social, that the way people will judge the debate is based on how they feel about how they've experienced it, especially on social. It's vibes. It's like, I choose the candidate based on vibes. And I'm being snarky right now, but that's always been somewhat true.
Xana O'Neill (56:33.428)
Mm -hmm.
Xana O'Neill (56:37.588)
Yes. Yeah.
Mike (56:45.314)
it's just maybe amplified now. And so if that's the case, like what kind of content are you like, are you trying to lean into that? If you're in a newsroom, are you trying to be sort of like describing people's emotions as they watched, or are you trying to like help? Like, how are you leaning into that dynamic? If, if that's the case.
Xana O'Neill (57:09.3)
Yeah, no, it's a good question because you don't want to amplify things that aren't necessarily just because somebody says something. And so you have to really kind of figure out, is this a litmus test for what people are actually feeling? And also, there's the reality, right? Like if, let's say, one presidential candidate has a vacant stare and is staring off into the distance and somebody makes that video into five minutes long, obviously, that is fake.
But there is a concern in the election of the candidate's suitability because of age. And so you want to be sensitive to that because people have expressed concern over it. So you have to, you don't want to give any credence to conspiracy theories, but you also want to see what people are talking about. And so I think it's a delicate balancing act and you kind of have to weigh each individual kind of piece of content.
with through that lens. And also, how many times has this been shared or liked? Is this really a trend or are you just saying it because it's, you wanna get the ratings or the clicks or whatever. It's something that people will gravitate toward because you know that it's a controversial topic.
Mike (58:29.442)
I, the, the idea you can easily see like one of the candidates like staring off and then someone just like extends that, you know, in, in a funny way with like a funny song or something. I always like wonder about that. Cause like we're entering this era for video creation, especially as like AI video creation gets more powerful. It's gonna be so much easier to make video content, right? As the, the, you know, the, the barrier to entry for that gets lower and lower.
all the time. That sort of thing, right? And like all sorts of memes and like editorializing of like what actually happened in the video. It's like, I understand that it's partially like, okay, it looks very real. Therefore, like we should think about this differently than if someone like drew a political cartoon, right? But I also like sometimes I think about it as like, this is just like, this is editorializing.
Xana O'Neill (59:22.164)
Right.
Mike (59:28.386)
something that happened much like a political cartoon. Is there room for that? And how do we make that so it's also not damaging and so people don't think it's real?
Xana O'Neill (59:44.116)
Yeah, I mean, there's kind of like the, I mean, I think when it's clearly satirizing something, obviously that's, you know, that's one thing. When somebody takes a clip and makes it into something it's not with the intention of trying to manipulate reality to prove it an outcome that didn't happen, that's when it gets dangerous. And I know,
There are a number of companies that are looking at watermarking certain videos and things like that. But the reality is, at least right now, that kind of video content gets rocketed around social so fast. And just those safeguards are not in place. So I do think there absolutely is room for satire. And we can't just be totally humorless. At the same time,
We also have to be just super, keep our eyes open and help audiences figure out when something is put out into the ecosystem that with the intention of misleading. And that's getting increasingly more difficult.
Mike (01:00:50.658)
Yeah, there's, I mean, there's a, there is an app that I have on my phone. It is incredible. You just pick a celebrity and you type in some words, hit a button and it produces the deep fake video like that in like one minute. It is incredible. It's so fun to use as like a gag, but obviously you can also see how that could be weaponized. Like I could have, I could have Biden, you know, do a ringing endorsement of play the point.
You know, and that it may not be right. I can't imagine that it is. I can't imagine that Biden and Trump, they're both on it. I can't imagine that this, this platform, and I'm not going to say who they are. I can't imagine that this platform like went to them and was like, Hey, we want to give people the ability to super easily just like take your likeness and make you say whatever we want. You know, I can't imagine everybody was cool with that. Like right away.
Xana O'Neill (01:01:21.428)
and well, yes, yes, but how is that legal?
Okay, yeah.
Xana O'Neill (01:01:36.18)
No, no, no.
Xana O'Neill (01:01:46.292)
Right. Well, wow.
Mike (01:01:49.922)
I know. Okay. Okay. one more thing and it's, it's kind of funny because it's a stupid question and it's sort of like, is like meant to tie in the rest of this, but Xana O 'Neill, what is the current state of news content in this country?
Xana O'Neill (01:02:10.036)
that you couldn't even keep a straight face to that question.
Mike (01:02:13.25)
It's such a stupid question, but I just wanted you to try to summarize what you're feeling. Like, what are your vibes right now? Just in news in general, as you look across, and then we can leave it there.
Xana O'Neill (01:02:25.78)
I could summarize with an image, which is a dumpster on fire. But no, I hate to be negative because I think there's so many people just harping on the negativity in news. And so I think maybe we can focus on a bright spot, not to be Pollyanna about it. But look, the news industry is in dire straits. We all know this. But.
Mike (01:02:30.146)
Ha ha ha.
Xana O'Neill (01:02:50.516)
There are green shoots of progress and I think that we are in a turbulent time, but we need kind of smart people who are dedicated to the craft, especially young people who are committed to journalism to enter this field and really like own it and revitalize it. I think that, you know, maybe these big city -wide publications or national publications or just news outlets in general will cease to exist as we know them, but these kind of niche,
publications are kind of showing some real promise. These are publications that maybe have like four or five journalists. And maybe they have a site, they've got a YouTube channel, they've got a podcast maybe. They're really scrappy, really smart, doing great work. And I think that that's going to be increasingly where we see the journalists of tomorrow gravitating toward.
addition to just kind of being individual journalists out in the world doing their own reporting. And so I think we're going through absis - essentially, absolutely an existential crisis at the moment. But I do think that it's going to shake out on the other side and we will still have journalism and credible reporting, but it's not going to be using the same structures and institutions that we that we grew up with or with which we're familiar today. It's going to be something new.
I hope it's better. But we also have to fight for journalistic values and principles. And we can't let them fall by the wayside. And so knowing the value of journalism, its importance to democracy, I think that needs to be kind of our guiding light as we move forward.
Mike (01:04:37.218)
Alright Xana, well this interview was not a dumpster fire. Thank you so much for coming on. That was so interesting. And yeah, if I make it on to Forth, I'll tell everyone on the pod and then you can go over there and start seeing what I post whatever I decide to post. No opinions though. It'll just be straight facts. Just like spinning facts only. Balls and strikes got it. Okay, we can do that. Thank you for the support. Yeah, yeah.
Xana O'Neill (01:04:40.34)
HAHAHA
Xana O'Neill (01:04:57.3)
Yeah, just balls and strikes, balls and strikes.
That was another sports analogy. You're welcome.
Mike (01:05:04.898)
I really appreciate that. Thank you so much, Xana.
Xana O'Neill (01:05:09.076)
Thank you, Strick. This has been great.