NewsBrands Engage event in Javelin

Education session for Javelin featured insights from Sunday Times Editor Kieran McDaid on AI and Journalism, and a presentation showcasing the effectiveness & creativity of newsbrands’ print and digital advertising platforms.

NewsBrands Ireland held the fourth of it’s Engage agency education sessions in Javelin last week. Speakers included Kieran McDaid, Editor of The Sunday Times, Lisa Buckley, NewsBrands Ireland Communications Director, Laura Hennessy, Commercial Performance Manager, Reach Ireland, and Hugh Quigley, Head of Programmatic Trading, DMG Media.

Kieran McDaid spoke about what AI means for journalism and how it will be embraced by newsrooms but only when overseen by human editors. Journalists will still need to find information that has never been published before and hence isn’t available to search. That vital need to uncover new information – the lifeblood of journalism – will live on.

Key take-aways from the talk included:

Transparency is key: There is potential for AI to offer huge advantages to journalism such as streamlining repetitive tasks, sifitng through data, creating new formats using text-to-video or text-to-audio tools, and improving headline SEO. However news publishers will have to make clear how AI is being used and how it’s not, to avoid erosion of trust.

Human in loop crucial – Editors will have to be involved at the outset and end of the process to set it off correctly and then verify. There is potential for AI to offer huge advantages to journalism but it’s currently unreliable and there is no space for unreliability in journalism.

Audience targeting: AI will unquestionably help news organisations cater content to audiences better and reach more precise target audiences.

The Power of Attention

Hugh Quigley from DMG Media and Laura Hennessey from Reach talked about the power of attention showing how Newsbrands’ member platforms see an average attention of 2.02 minutes compared to 2 seconds on Meta platforms. The sesssion included examples of innovative creative solutions across print, audio, mobile, desktop, and video platforms. See examples on the NewsBrands Engage website

If your agency or brand are interested in a NewsBrands Engage education session, please contact Lisa Buckley, NewsBrands Ireland ( lbuckley@newsbrands.ie) , who will tailor a session to meet your needs.