Exploration #132

Hi all. Happy New Year! And welcome to a bonus edition of the Public Media Innovators newsletter. This week, we’ve got some announcements about this newsletter, think pieces on Gen-Z audiences and blue-collar creators, Sesame Street’s free agency, a look at the state of xR, and finally, a list of all the titles that hit public domain on January 1.

But First…

I will admit, I wasn’t planning on doing a post right off the top of the year, but something about the rest of the industry taking a break makes me feel creative and productive. So, this one just happened. But it’s good, because I’m going to start making some changes to this newsletter and this lets me try them out.

Process Junkies, This One is For You 

If my thinking behind these changes doesn’t excite you, then feel free to jump to the next section. But I’ve noticed that newsletter writers like to cover their process the way classic rock bands liked to write songs about being on tour. So, I’m going to indulge that impulse for once.

As I was reflecting on the past year, a lot of my reflections focused on this newsletter. Last year was the first year this publication officially existed as a product. Prior to 2024, this was simply an email that I sent out. It had structure, but it was more of less information sharing without the need for window dressing. Sometimes I wrote an intro column, but many times it was just a collection of relevant links with context. White screen writing something original about public media every week has been a challenge, as has generating clever (but not too clever) titles and relevant cover art. Some weeks, other project and travel demands meant the packaging parts of the newsletter just didn’t come together. Which then means no newsletter.

What I found was that the natural rhythm of this newsletter as a product was more bi-weekly than weekly. So, instead of writing a weekly newsletter, and missing editions, in 2025 I’m going to switch the newsletter to a bi-weekly publication schedule and write bonus editions when I have bandwidth. This particular Exploration is the first of these.

Next, I’m trying to find a way to streamline the writing. Instead of building a conversational context for many of the links I share, I’m going to focus my writing on this intro column, and links will be accompanied by two sub-sections: a key line from the article, and a line (or two) from me on why I think I matters. If I have more than a hot take on a particular subject, I’ll focus on it in my column.

Correspondingly, the “Focus” section is gone. This was always a holdover from when I didn’t write columns each week but still wanted to focus readers who only had time to click on one link. I still intend to direct your focus, as a reader, on important topics, but I’m going to do that via my column…which, I hope, will also improve my columns.

I also hope to focus more on the ‘Think’ section in the coming year. Previously, I’ve been shooting for a 3:1 ratio of ‘Know’ stories to ‘Think’ stories. This year, I’ll be shooting for something between a 2:1 and 1:1 ratio each week. Ultimately, I think you can get the biggest tech news anywhere, but those pieces that get you thinking about our business are ultimately more important to our survival. So, I’ll still try to include the biggest tech news from the week, but at the same time I hope to give you more food for thought.

Going forward, this newsletter will be formatted into the following sections:

• Intro: Quick summary of what you’ll find in that week’s exploration

• “But First”: My op-ed column…as always, my thoughts are my own

• Learn: Professional development opportunities you might find useful

• Earn: Grant opportunities you might find profitable

• Think: Thought pieces about the future media, journalism, creativity, innovation and tech

• Know: News and other informational pieces from the worlds of media, journalism, creativity, innovation and tech

• And Finally…: Something quirky, off-beat or fun tied to media in some way

My PMI colleagues, Amber Samdahl and David Huppert, and I are also kicking around ideas with NETA for iterating the Public Media Innovators peer learning community in 2025. More on that in coming weeks.

Start the Way You Want to Finish 

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks focusing on making some changes for 2025. You can see some of the effects of that work in the changes to this newsletter (see above).

Beyond that, I’m endeavoring to dive more deeply into the daily use of AI. By the end of 2024, I had more or less fallen into the habit of only generating images for this newsletter and dabbling with the major new tools as they were release (e.g. Sora and Veo). Like many of you, I had pulled back from using chatbots as a work enhancer (partly the by-product of being a writer and not needing that assistance). But in 2025 I’m recommitting to finding the boundaries of what these tools can and can’t do. And that started with hitting the reset button on my ChatGPT Plus account.

Being an early adopter, I had a fairly extensive history of experiments in ChatGPT that went nowhere. As a result, my ChatGPT history resembled a pretty spammy inbox. So, I declared chatbot bankruptcy and started over from scratch. Deleting 95% of the threads in the history, archiving the rest (just in case) and starting 2025 with a clean slate. This also meant maximizing my personalization fields (customizing ChatGPT is my professional history and with custom instructions for how I’d like it to respond to me), and carefully reviewing and curating ChatGPT’s “memories” about me. And I’ve turned off data-sharing with OpenAI. But I’m not naive enough to think they aren’t still accessing that data, so I didn’t include anything about family or non-public information about Nebraska Public Media.

(And then, for fun, I’m running a little experiment where I’m using ChatGPT as a personal trainer. At my local gym, I noted all the attributes and certifications of the trainers that I thought would work for me and prompted ChatGPT in a role that is a composite of those. We’ll see how it goes, but so far, it’s novel and interesting, which 90% of the challenge for me when it comes to exercise.)

For now, I’d encourage you to look at your own chatbot account (ChatGPT, Claude, Google, Mistral, whatever) and clear out the detritus from your early experiments and start 2025 with a more focused, disciplined gAI usage. Then keep it going for the whole of 2025.

Okay, on to the links…

Learn…

Innovate with Current: Visions for Public Media’s Future - Thursday, January 16, 1pET/10aPT - There’s a saying: “What got you here may not get you where you’re going.” PBS and NPR have rich histories of service to Americans. But, frankly, the speed of change in media poses a serious threat to any organization that isn’t prepared to be an innovator of that service. How do we tackle a future with this much uncertainty? This webinar will present multiple visions for what public media can and should be as we race toward 2030 and a media landscape that looks increasingly alien. You can register for the webinar here.
—And you can still catch last month’s webinar Unleashing Creativity and Applying Standards to Generative AI.

Ditch These Pointless Midjourney Photography Terms (Daniel Nest - Why Try AI) 
—Who Is this For?: Anyone needing to create generative art that looks like photography.
—Why It Matters: Midjourney is still the reigning champion for generating photographic-like gAI art (though Google’s Imagen 3 is coming close, see the end of this newsletter). Of course, that doesn't necessarily make it the most popular because it's not the easiest to use. As a photographer, I appreciated the hip check to stop trying to program Midjourney like it's knows cameras and just tell it what I want in an image. I'm going to try these tips with other similar tools, like Adobe Firefly and DALL-E.

Earn…

Open Call on Infrastructure (Press Forward) - This one has a tight turnaround (deadline is noon ET, 1/15) but if you have an idea already baking in your shop then give this one a look.
—Going forward, when we find them, we'll be publishing grant opportunities here in the newsletter. If you see one that we should share with the community, send it my way!

GNI AI Lab for News Sustainability (Google) - The deadline for this one is also 1/15/25. The following is from their application form. “The program will begin in March 2025 and run approximately six months…. This program will help organizations use AI to drive the business of news, giving participants a structured way to test AI tools in pursuit of key business goals such as: audience development, revenue growth, product development, operational efficiency, data analytics, or other focuses as sought by the participants. The AI Lab is a perfect fit for operational leaders inside news organizations who have dabbled in generative AI but haven’t yet found a way to put it to work for their major business goals.”
— It continues. “Your organization is a good fit if: You are a local news organization (digital, print, broadcast, etc.), nonprofit or for-profit, focused on public service for audiences in the United States or Canada; You have an interest in experimenting with AI applications to better support your business in any of the areas listed above, and you are committed to a test-and-learn mindset to pursue it; There’s a particular focus on applicants who self identify in the following ways: Your news organization is owned, led by, or serves Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and/or other people of color; your news organization is owned, led by, or serves women or the LGBTQ+ community; and/or your news organization serves a defined local community.​​”

Think…

Blue-collar creators are both inspirational and aspirational. They’re pioneering a new era of content creation. (James Hale - Tubefilter) 
—Key Line: '“We’ve found that raw, one-on-one storytelling supported by personal anecdotes has really taken hold in the minds of the public,” he says. “What makes blue-collar creators special is that they are both aspirational and relatable. Regular folks see themselves in the blue-collar creators they follow, but also look to them for inspiration.”' —Why It Matters: This one is for the content managers in the crowd. This doesn't seem like a big stretch for public media, but it's a stretch we all should take nonetheless.

The End of News (Charlie Warzel with Julia Angwin - The Atlantic) 
—Key Line: "...we have to start taking creators seriously—especially the ones who are doing journalistic work. We need to stop worrying about how to protect our own brands and individual institutions and focus on what we can do to make sure that important, trustworthy information is flowing to the public....I believe that journalists have to expand their thinking. The question should be, How do I get my information out there? And maybe an answer is: It doesn’t always have to be delivered by me."
—Why It Matters: There are lots of good thoughts in this piece, and every one of us involved with content needs be exploring how we innovate our way back toward relevance for different audiences.

🎥🔊AI's Media Transformation: From Newsrooms to "Content Polymorphs" with Clare Spencer (Pete Pachal - The Media CoPilot) 
—Key Line (from the teaser text): "Pete and Clare delve into the implications of this innovation for the media industry. They explore how AI-powered tools like these can enhance efficiency and creativity while raising critical ethical questions about transparency and accountability in journalism. Clare also shares her perspective on how newsrooms can thoughtfully integrate generative AI, including a practical policy for using AI-generated images without compromising integrity."
—Why It Matters: I recommend tracking anything the BBC does in the space of emerging media, and Spencer was key to their early efforts to experiment with AI before ChatGPT launched. Journalists and content folk will also find the UK’s Newsquest Media Group’s use of AI interesting.

Gen Z's drive toward niche pushes brands to change strategy (Eleanor Hawkins - Axios) 
—Key Line: '"In today's increasingly fragmented culture and media landscape, communicators planning next year's campaigns must prioritize the niche communities in their orbit. By showing up authentically— honoring a community's rituals and meaningfully contributing to its culture —brands can inspire a deeper devotion that drives loyalty and turns members into enthusiastic advocates," he added.'
—Why It Matters: This clearly plays against our historic strength as a broadcaster. But we do have skills in terms of community engagement. So, what is public media's niche?

Attention is what makes us human (Daisy Alioto - Dirt) 
—Key Line: "The real question is, where does scarcity still exist? It exists where it has always existed—in the distribution layer, with the limits on human attention. Artificial intelligence can generate abundance in creation, it can even create new currencies, but it cannot convert attention into currency. Only human beings can do that."
—Why It Matters: Generative AI can help us make public media in a more efficient way, but we still have to connect with our communities. People first, people last.

AI x Game Industry in 2025 - The Unspoken Part (Michail Katkoff - Deconstructor of Fun) 
—Key Line: "Fighting against the AI revolution is not the answer. It feels almost as foolish as embracing everything AI. What’s left is being diligent, strategic, and focused on the long term. In practice, this means constantly evaluating various AI tools and working transparently with the staff when doing these evaluations. In my opinion, the goal should be for AI to help the existing team to complete tasks faster, and with better quality."
—Why It Matters: AI will ultimately help public media companies transition into game development as another mode of service our communities. But we need to embrace in an ethical fashion. We have a sense of what that means for journalism, and Katkoff's explanation for gaming is a good starting point for the discussion within our systems.

Know…

‘Sesame Street’ Hits the Market: HBO and Max Opt Not to Renew Deal for New Episodes (Alex Weprin - The Hollywood Reporter) 
—Key Line: "Sesame Street will get a new look, dropping the “magazine”-style format it has had for years, and leaning into longer narrative-led segments, paired with a new animated series Tales From 123. The changes will be the most significant since 2016, when the show went from one hour to 30 minutes. “It’s going to give us an opportunity to dive further into the narrative,” Kay Wilson Stallings, executive vp and chief creative development and production officer for Sesame Workshop, told THR at the time, calling the changes a “reimagining” of the show, and adding that the longer segments will allow for more “dynamic” and “sophisticated” stories."
—Why It Matters: I see Sesame Street at an unintentional experiment in what happens when content developed under public media's values, has to become a product that competes on the open market.

Trump’s threat to defund all US public media has NPR and PBS on the back foot (Cecilia Nowell - The Guardian)
—Key Line: “Although Republican-sponsored bills to eliminate federal funding of public media are already before Congress (including the No Propaganda act and the Defund NPR act), two details may slow those efforts: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is funded two years in advance and many local public media stations run emergency alerts, a crucial system that would have to be transferred elsewhere. Efforts to defund public media are likely to affect local newsrooms the most in rural areas where Trump was the favored candidate, as federal grants can make up a significant portion of a member station’s budget.“
—Why It Matters: While there isn't anything in this piece that we don't already know, I think it's useful to see how our situation is being reported outside the U.S. It's also useful to see how some of the details and nuances of our working world were mischaracterized by the writer (e.g. the 356 number of public television stations).

Every AI Copyright Lawsuit in the US, Visualized (Kate Knibbs - Wired)
—Key Line: "This wide variety of rights holders are alleging that AI companies have used their work to train what are often highly lucrative and powerful AI models in a manner that is tantamount to theft. AI companies are frequently defending themselves by relying on what’s known as the “fair use” doctrine, arguing that building AI tools should be considered a situation where it’s legal to use copyrighted materials without getting consent or paying compensation to rights holders."
—Why It Matters: Interestingly, there are far fewer lawsuits than I would have imagined, and yet we can't assume that gAI as we know it will survive these.

Arizona School’s Curriculum Will Be Taught by AI, No Teachers (Todd Feathers - Gizmodo) 
—Key Line: 'Under the 2hr Learning model, students spend just two hours a day using personalized learning programs from companies like IXL and Khan Academy. “As students work through lessons on subjects like math, reading, and science, the AI system will analyze their responses, time spent on tasks, and even emotional cues to optimize the difficulty and presentation of content,” according to Unbound’s charter school application in Arizona. “This ensures that each student is consistently challenged at their optimal level, preventing boredom or frustration.”'
—Why It Matters: Our connections to American education run deep, and anything that pushes the bounds of AI's integration into education ultimately impacts us in some way. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that eventually, our education staff (or our home grown public media bots) will need to directly interact with AI curriculum “experts” to integrate our content via their algorithms.

Five breakthroughs that make OpenAI’s o3 a turning point for AI — and one big challenge (Matt Marshall - VentureBeat) 
—Key Line: "Indeed, next year, we’ll be operating on two gears. The first is in achieving practical value from AI applications, and fleshing out what models can do with AI agents, and other innovations already achieved. The second will be sitting back with the popcorn and seeing how the intelligence race plays out — and any progress will just be icing on the cake that has already been delivered."
—Why It Matters: On the surface, this story is more for the hard-core AI devotees. But while AI companies will continue to release new models for human augmented thinking via AI, the goal for those isn't necessarily improved workflows or business processes. The tools we already have at our disposal are amply powerful to change our working lives, but what needs refining are the products that make those tools more useful. It's definitely worth watching the frontiers of AI (progress will trickle down), but keep in mind we have what we need already.

Accelerating the Future (Andrew Bosworth - Meta Quest Blog) 
—Key Line: "The biggest thing we’ve learned is that glasses are by far the best form factor for a truly AI-native device. In fact they might be the first hardware category to be completely defined by AI from the beginning. For many people, glasses are the place where an AI assistant makes the most sense, especially when it’s a multimodal system that can truly understand the world around you."
—Why It Matters: If space isn't the final frontier for computing, it's definitely the next frontier. This post is content marketing as much as anything but taken in context with other pieces (see below), it helps offer a view of the xR/metaverse landscape at the start of 2025.

An objective analysis of XR in 2024 (Tony Vitillo - The Ghost Howls) 
—Key Line: "I think we need at least another 2-3 years for something more relevant to happen: cheaper Apple and Samsung headsets, probably Quest 4 and Quest 4S powerful and cheap headsets, more useful smartglasses, better integration of AI with XR, better development of 5G networks (that now are mostly hybrid); and especially, more understood use cases for XR in general. And this is just to have a step forward, the start of a new positive cycle for the technology. For a more explosive adoption of the technology, like it happened with smartphones, I think we are beyond 2030."
—Why It Matters: Vitillo offers a pragmatic take on xR (though by saying “objective” the native Italian really means “balanced”). 2025 will be the 10th full year of consumer VR, and the economies of scale have not fueled the breakthroughs in technology the way we hoped. Likely, the pullback anticipates a greater tsunami in the future and will eventually impact public media at scale. But there's going to need to be another “wow” moment for this tech for that to happen. Likely that will be fueled by AI, but AI doesn't yet have spatial awareness (see below).

Building a Large Geospatial Model to Achieve Spatial Intelligence (Eric Brachmann & Victor Adrian Prisacariu - Niantic Labs) 
—Key Line: "Large Language Models (LLMs) are having an undeniable impact on our everyday lives and across multiple industries. Trained on internet-scale collections of text, LLMs can understand and generate written language in a way that challenges our understanding of “intelligence”. Large Geospatial Models will help computers perceive, comprehend, and navigate the physical world in a way that will seem equally advanced."
—Why It Matters: This more engineering-oriented piece shows that progress is being made on helping computers understand the physical world the way we understand it.
—Extra Credit: If you were want to get technical on this topic, Thinking in Space: How Multimodal Large Language Models See, Remember and Recall Spaces will scratch that itch.

And finally…

January 1, 2025 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1929 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1924! (Jennifer Jenkins & James Boyle - Duke Law) - And finally, I guarantee this list has a surprise or two for you.

Have a creative, productive week!