AI and the Future of Media Consumption | Pete Pachal

Open||Source||Data

In this episode of Open Source Data, Charna Parkey interviews Pete Pachal, founder of The Media Copilot. With over two decades of experience covering technology, Pete shares his insights on how AI is transforming media, journalism and discusses how journalists can embrace AI as a tool to enhance their work to adapt and thrive in this new environment.

QUOTES

PETE PACHAL: AI is something that you control. I know, it feels like it's a wave that's coming over that it's unstoppable, inevitable. And that's true to a large extent. But at the same time, it's not, there's no there, right? There's no spark, there's no intent. (...) Never relinquish your role as the ultimate creator and person responsible for what's coming out of this thing.

CHARNA PARKEY: I think that there was a point where I found myself shifting more away from media and towards individual curated newsletters because like subject matter experts in that area, I could be like maybe they're going to summarize it incorrectly, et cetera. But at least I know my theory of mind of that individual. And then when I expand that to media, I don't know who's writing what and who's shadow writing what for who.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:00 - Introduction of Pete Pachal and his background in journalism and AI.

00:02:00 - Pete’s career journey, including his work at CoinDesk and founding The Media Copilot.

00:04:00 - AI training for media professionals (journalists, PR, marketers).

00:06:00 - Evolution of AI in journalism: From skepticism to ethical frameworks.

00:08:00 - AI in content pipelines: Idea generation vs. post-production tasks.

00:10:00 - Open-source builders needing to cater to domain experts (e.g., journalists).

00:12:00 - Meta’s removal of fact-checking and its implications.

00:16:00 - Public tolerance for AI errors (e.g., Apple’s AI summaries).

00:18:00 - Consumer trust shifts away from platforms like Facebook/X.

00:22:00 - Ghostwriting vs. authenticity in AI-generated content.

00:24:00 - Preference for human-curated newsletters over AI summaries.

00:26:00 - AI in news digests (e.g., Perplexity, Alexa).

00:28:00 - Publisher AI experiments (Washington Post chatbot, TIME summaries).

00:32:00 - AI’s impact on click-through rates and publisher economics.

00:34:00 - AI-written articles (e.g., ESPN’s use case) and copyright issues.

00:36:00 - Legal battles over AI training data (NYT vs. OpenAI).

00:38:00 - Copyright concerns with AI-generated outputs.

00:40:00 - AI search tools (Perplexity, ChatGPT) and publisher licensing deals.

00:46:00 - The unhealthy impact of social media trends on journalism.

00:48:00 - Post-interview discussion: Accountability in AI and media.

00:56:00 - Leo’s perspective as a journalist on AI adoption.

00:58:00 - Closing thoughts on balancing AI innovation with industry needs.