Ok, I know that we’re almost a quarter of the way through the year, but please indulge me while I share some of my hopes for this year.
In no particular order, I wish that:
- Having a ‘human in the loop’ will become professional publishers’ USP. As usage of AI increases and more and more products and content incorporate elements of AI in their creation, keeping humans in charge and in control should be what sets us apart from unprofessional publishers.
- Social media will no longer be seen as a news destination. Facebook’s lamentable decision to do away with fact checkers will hopefully provide a boost for professional publishers. If it starts to be taken as read that ‘news’ on social media platforms is inherently unreliable, then people will start to rely on professional publishers for their news.
- The publishing industry won’t abandon its DEI initiatives. With the new US administration doing everything in its power to denigrate DEI and hold it responsible for every disaster (from wild fires to plane crashes) that befalls the country, as an industry we must not lose sight of the reason why DEI initiatives are important and why we should persist with them.
- Similarly with sustainability. It’s become fashionable of late, in some quarters, to bad mouth sustainability initiatives. As an industry, we need to remember that for the vast majority of reputable scientists, man-made climate change is a thing and we should all be doing as much as we can to lessen and reverse it. As an industry, we need to back the science and continue to make the case for industry-wide action.
- People stop referring to parts of what we do as ‘legacy’ media. The word is riddled with negativity. The vast majority of professional publishers are multi-channel businesses, who, because their audiences demand it, publish content through a range of platforms, some of which have been around for centuries and some which haven’t. The word ‘legacy’ implies something with a limited future, and that is not how many publishers view those parts of their business. For what it’s worth, I recently overheard by my gen Z son saying that the moment his subscription to The Spectator (which he chose to receive in print) lands was one of the highlights of his week.
This article was first published in InPublishing magazine. If you would like to be added to the free mailing list to receive the magazine, please register here.
