Exploration #144

Hi all. Greetings from the Twin Cities, where I’m attending PMVG’s “Future Proofing Public Media” summit. Talking with folks here, there is still good work for us to do, and we can ensure public media exists in the US for future generations….

But First…

You can register now for Creative Hustle our August webinar (and find the full description in the webinar section below).

Also, you may have seen that the NETA Conference, originally scheduled for Tucson in September, is now virtual. That’s a brave call on NETA’s part, and kudos for reading the room. We had been planning a Public Media Innovators track there, and that will now shift online. I’ll have more info on sessions in a couple of weeks, but you can expect AI, games and other innovative opportunities to be covered thoroughly over the three days.

And I don’t usually push our previous webinars two weeks in a row, but I do think our July webinar on Uncertainty could be helpful to check out or revisit now. If you missed any part of it or want to see it again, the video is now live.

The Status Quo is Dead, Start Asking Questions

Now that you’ve had a little time to grieve the loss of federal funding and gird yourself for the next chapter, it’s time to ask questions. I’m not talking about asking who’s to blame for this cluster of fudge (though, yeah, someone should probably be asking that question too 👀). I’m specifically talking about asking questions about the future we want to build. Any futurist will tell you that the future is not prescribed, it is made.

Who makes it? Lots of people. Some of those people care most about their bottom line. Some of those people care about the accrual and application of power. Some people care about their communities and their neighbors.

Anyone can take responsibility for building a better future, so why not you? But you’ve got to start by asking questions.

There are lots of ways to tackle this. But for me sitting here in the middle of 2025, I’m organizing my questions by themes, and these themes end up forming a natural funnel of focus from broad impact on public media organizations to specific tactics for action. Here’s a sampling:

• Theme: Future of Society 

  • Does public media require democracy to exist, or can it exist in (a competitive) authoritarian society?

  • Societal disruptions come in cycles, when do we expect this one to subside?

• Theme: Future of Media 

  • What futures seem pre-determined right now? What seems inevitable to you?

  • What outcomes do we want to create in the future?

  • What is the role of AI in content ideation, creation, and distribution?

    • Will the attention economy become the intention economy?

  • What is the role of a next-gen (spatial) internet (e.g. a metaverse) for media and our role relative to it?

  • If public media’s original role was to bring a certain set of values to 20th century mass media (i.e. broadcast), what sectors of the 21st century media landscape need a similar injection of our values?

• Theme: Defining Public Media (If we save public media, what are we saving?)

  • Is public media a set of medium-agnostic values that manifest themselves through content and experiences?

    • If so, what is valued?

    • Can public media include algorithms?

    • Can public media include “safe spaces” in a spatial internet?

    • Can public media include games (tipping my hand with this one, I know 😉)?

  • Or is public media simply an editorial + technical approach to creating media?

  • Or is public media just a portfolio brands and the content/products that make them resonant with audiences?

  • What do our stakeholders and communities think public media is and what do they value in it (the product approach)?

• Theme: A Public Media Organization’s Purpose 

  • What problem(s) are we trying to solve? And for whom?

  • What outcomes we want to see as a result of our work/product/experiences?

  • How do we define communities and then prioritize them? (And for that matter, what is community?)

  • If AI is seemingly going to have a homogenizing effect, can public media elevate the “human” perspective or point of view?

• Theme: Organizational Culture 

  • How do we translate organizational purpose into a daily lived experience that supports our teams and our colleagues?

• Theme: Organizational Strategy/Tactics 

  • How do we translate purpose through the force magnifier of culture to arrive at specific strategies and subsequent tactics?

  • How do we treat strategies as experiments (as opposed to destinations on a map that we must reach by a certain time threshold) and use a sprint to ideate, test, iterate, test, and so on?

I’m not sure these are all the right questions, or if they are worded in the most effective way. But consider them a starter pack. Perfect can definitely be the enemy of the good here…none of us are going to kick that particular public media habit overnight.

We’re beginning engage this process in Nebraska, having collectively generated about three dozen questions at this point. And in full disclosure, I omitted the questions created by my colleagues because I didn’t have their permission to share them here. So the ones you see above are just out of my brain. Suffice to say, their questions make our process better, and I’d encourage you to work with your peers on this, not go it alone.

In that spirit, send me the questions you are considering! I’d love to consider them too.

Okay, on to the links.

Webinars and Tutorials…

Creative Hustle (Thursday, August 21, 1pET/10aPT)
Join Creative Hustle authors Olatunde Sobomehin and sam seidel from the Stanford d.school for an energizing conversation about charting your own creative path — one that connects your gifts, goals, and the communities you care about. Whether you’re an educator, producer, or strategist, this session will offer tools and frameworks to help you think differently about ambition, values, and impact. Expect real talk, practical inspiration, and ideas you can use to reignite your own creative hustle.

Thoughts on Public Media…

Introducing Adopt A Station (Alex Curley - Semipublic) 
Key Line: "The process of “adopting” a station is easy: First, donate (or up your donation) to your local public media station. Then, the site will automatically recommend a station that’s losing 50% or more of their revenue to “adopt.” Afterwards, congratulations! You’ve adopted a station."
Why It Matters: Former NPR employee Curley is now covering public media as an outsider, and I'm intrigued. I like the product skew to his focus, but if you run marketing for a station (or like someone who does) you might share this with them to ensure your branding is consistent.
Related: Jump straight to the Adoption site.

The New Frontier in Media: Investing in Resilience and Innovation (Wesley Park - AInvest) 
Key Lines: "The CPB cuts are a wake-up call. Public broadcasting's vulnerabilities are real, but so is the potential for innovation. For investors, this is a chance to align capital with purpose—funding media that strengthens democracy while generating returns. The key is to avoid one-size-fits-all solutions. Success will belong to those who understand the unique needs of local communities and the power of trust as a currency."
Why It Matters: On the surface, this doesn't look like a piece on public media. But the old maxim of "follow the money" applies. Defunding CPB, rightly characterized as a "shockwave" event, is the catalyst for these recommendations on investing in local media. And the investing angle might feel crass, but even if you feel "aligning capital with purpose" is a bridge too far, it's a good perspective to interrogate.

Thoughts for My Public Media Colleagues (Steve Bass via LinkedIn) 
Key Line: "[T]here’s an even bigger challenge – how to adapt to the changes in society and media. The world will not stop changing and we’re already behind."
Why It Matters: There's a reason we chose Steve to speak at our Future of Public Media webinar last January. He's kind-hearted without sugar-coating things for you. His piece is short but provides many good points for rumination. Current picked it up as well.

AI + the Internet…

A Cash Infusion from Chatbots? (Yona TR Golding - Columbia Journalism Review) 
Key Lines: '...[I]n his experience, even the kind of change that seems most unlikely can happen with time. “I’m in this for a decade-long effort to shift people’s views,” Gross said. “I think that long term, the right side of history will be protecting creative rights....”Creators need to have a reason for doing their creative work,” Gross said. “If that goes away, if there’s no incentive, then everything will all turn to AI slop.” He paused for a moment. “We’ll all be AI slop.”'
Why It Matters: For a while, I've been advocating for harping on this idea that we should be finding ways to monetize our content with the AI companies that are scraping our sites on a daily basis. Maybe there are deals in the works behind the scenes. I hope there are, but as someone once said, ‘hope is not a strategy.’ Tools are emerging that could handle this for us, and ProRata is one that is intriguing me (Tollbit is another). We're beginning to research these now, and if there's anything here to report I'll let you know.

Google’s latest core update leaves publishers rattled, but its consequences are still to be determined (Sara Guaglione - Digiday) 
Key Line: "Publishers’ visibility on Google search results has fallen since 2019, but this trend has accelerated sharply since April, according to a recent report by Enders Analysis. And since March, publishers’ search keywords have become over three times more likely to trigger an AI Overview. For now, the impact on publishers’ businesses is minimal, according to the analysis. Publishers’ discoverability and top-of-the-funnel brand awareness are most at risk."
Why It Matters: There's a lot of handwringing around "Google Zero." I appreciated that this piece took a more measured tone.
Related: As reported by Emma Roth in The Verge, Google rethinks search results with its new AI-curated ‘Web Guide’ 

AI + Content Creation…

The Media's Pivot to AI Is Not Real and Not Going to Work (Jason Koebler - 404 Media) 
Key Line: "The only journalism business strategy that works, and that will ever work in a sustainable way, is if you create something of value that people (human beings, not bots) want to read or watch or listen to, and that they cannot find anywhere else. This can mean you’re breaking news, or it can mean that you have a particularly notable voice or personality. It can mean that you’re funny or irreverent or deeply serious or useful. It can mean that you confirm people’s priors in a way that makes them feel good. And you have to be trustworthy, to your audience at least. But basically, to make money doing journalism, you have to publish “content,” relatively often, that people want to consume."
Why It Matters: There's no one "right" take on AI in media. We're all figuring this out together in real time. This is a particularly spicy counter-take to the conventional wisdom that AI is inevitable. There are some aspects of this argument that appeal to me, but I don't think the path is all in or all out. I get why people feel they need to occupy those poles of the argument, but a middle path that does prioritize humans should be mappable.

Powerful new Photoshop innovations for creators and creative pros (Deepa Subramaniam - Adobe Blog) 
Key Line: "We’re introducing Generative Upscale in beta for Photoshop on desktop and web, bringing high-quality resolution enhancements up to 8 megapixels without sacrificing image clarity. If you're a photographer, Generative Upscale is helpful for refining edits and especially useful for enhancing image quality for print, delivery, or reworking older files. If you're a social media manager, it can also be useful to help you adapt assets for various platforms."
Why It Matters: Since so many of us use Adobe tools in our work I like highlight their occasional advances. If used ethically, I can easily see how this generative upscale could improve the quality of our content.
Related: Sarah Fielding's take on the new Photoshop feature for Engadget.

Netflix is now using generative AI – but it risks leaving viewers and creatives behind (Edward White - The Conversation) 
Key Lines: "Netflix’s generative AI approach marks a fundamental shift. Instead of building digital scenes piece by piece, artists simply describe what they want and algorithms generate full sequences instantly. This turns a slow, laborious craft into something more like a creative conversation. But it also raises tough questions. Are we seeing a new stage of technology – or the replacement of human creativity with algorithmic guesswork? El Eternauta’s building collapse scene demonstrates this transformation starkly. What would once have demanded months of modelling, rigging and simulation work has been accomplished through text-to-video generation in a fraction of the time."
Why It Matters: Hollywood is doing a lot of handwringing over generative AI, but we don't have that luxury anymore (if we ever really did). I still advocate for a code of ethics around the use of AI (and a policy to back it up), but if you can improve your workflows then you should be exploring those options. That doesn’t mean we can’t prioritize and celebrate humans (“People first, people last). We just need to do it cost effectively.
Related: Steven Zeitchik's Rise of the Machines: Inside Hollywood’s AI Civil War, n The Hollywood Reporter.
Also related: THR's piece by Chris Gardner, Daniel Kwan Has a Plan to Tackle AI’s Hollywood Takeover and It Requires “Unprecedented” Action 

AI + Education…

OpenAI launches Study Mode in ChatGPT (Maxwell Zeff - TechCrunch) 
Key Line: "Study Mode is OpenAI’s attempt to address the millions of students who use ChatGPT in school. Studies have shown that using ChatGPT can be a helpful tutor for young people, but it also may harm their critical thinking skills. A research paper released in June found that people who use ChatGPT to write essays exhibit lower brain activity during the process compared to those who use Google Search or nothing at all."
Why It Matters: AI may be new, but some things never change, in this case the urge to hook 'em while there young. We saw deals for college students back in May, but here they're aiming younger.
Related: James O'Donnell has a critique of OpenAI's new initiative in MIT Technology Review. 
Also related: The editorial Writing is Thinking from Nature is definitely giving me a some strong confirmation bias vibes.

AI & Us…

‘AI is already eating its own’: Prompt engineering is quickly going extinct (Henry Chandonnet - Fast Company) 
Key Lines: "At the beginning of the corporate AI boom, some companies sought out large language model (LLM) translators—prompt engineers who specialized in crafting the most effective questions to ask internal AIs, ensuring optimal and efficient outputs. Today, strong AI prompting is simply an expected skill, not a stand-alone role. Some companies are even using AI to generate the best prompts for their own AI systems. The decline of prompt engineering serves as a cautionary tale for the AI job market. The flashy, niche roles that emerged with ChatGPT’s rise may prove to be short-lived. While AI is reshaping roles across industries, it may not be creating entirely new ones."
Why It Matters: Well, that was fast. It took the better part of 5-7 years for the equivalent social media jobs to become de rigueur. The scary part is the rising assumption that you will know how to coax value out of a chatbot or that you yourself will start to have diminishing value as an employee.

AI is driving down the price of knowledge – universities have to rethink what they offer (Patrick Dodd - The Conversation) 
Key Lines: "Universities can no longer rely on scarcity setting the price for the curated and credentialed form of information that used to be hard to obtain. The comparative advantage now lies in cultivating human skills that act as complements to AI. If universities do not adapt, the market – students and employers alike – will move on without them. The opportunity is clear. Shift the product from content delivery to judgement formation."
Why It Matters: This one is for all of you university employees out there. I know you can feel your world changing, because we can feel it in Nebraska. Things have been different in education for a good 15 years now. This piece is one of those gentle breezes that announces a coming storm, and I really like the idea that the university's role is to teach judgement. A lot of universities are trying to sell the social experience of college life as the value proposition. But unless there's a financial upside to graduating college, college will go back to being a club for wealthy folks. Employers prizing judgement and universities prioritizing judgement could be that missing link.

And finally…

An AI-generated band got 1m plays on Spotify. Now music insiders say listeners should be warned (Lanre Bakare - The Guardian) - And finally, I finally gave The Velvet Sundown a listen. The lyrics are very reminiscent of what I've randomly generated via Suno, when I've experimented with that app. And by that, I mean they make almost no sense…like, whole songs made up of the filler lines that songwriters use to get in and out of tight rhyming schemes. Obtuse lyrics aren't a problem, but this makes me realize that when they come out of a human, they provide the promise of some potential insight into the human condition. When they come out of AI, they feel like (to use the word of the moment) slop.
Related: Apparently, Spotify is all in on AI music, based on this piece by Emanuel Maiberg in 404 Media: Spotify Publishes AI-Generated Songs From Dead Artists Without Permission

Have a creative, productive week!