Are Journalists Now Influencers Too?

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0:53Hello, welcome to the Media Club. I'm your host, Matt Deegan. In the club today, our journalists becoming more like influencers. Alex Hudson, editor-in-chief of Everything Popular Is Wrong, takes a trip into Substack to investigate. Also on the pod, Lachlan wins the succession battle. TV critic and media writer Scott Bryan tells us who are the real winners and losers. All that plus why a streamer is so reluctant to fund an anti-bullying body, Observer staff face up to their new reality, and in the media quiz, our guests take part in a branding exercise. That's all coming up in this edition of the Media Club.

1:27Come on in.

1:31Hello to you both. Hello. Good afternoon. Alex, formulator of Newsweek International, Metro deputy editor, and the man that bought social media to question time. Your time will come to a tone for those sins. Who would you like to add to the club? I would like to add Ellen Scott, who's the digital editor of Stylist magazine. His book, Working on Purpose, has just come out. It's all about how working actually should make you healthier, not more unhappy. And she has spent the last months and years building out her newsletters, building out her audio on it. She has spent so long on this book. And she had a launch party last week.

2:01And it was just a triumphant, beautiful, wonderful thing. So should work make you happy? Are you on board? It should. It definitely should. You know, as we're going to come on later, working culture and how you actually have friendly relationships and a healthy work-life balance is a whole different thing. But it should, if you're working in somewhere with purpose. then it should make you happier. Scott, does work make you happy? I mean, I think I chose a very geeky thing because I'm a geek, so I think it makes me happy. And of course, you did a busy thing this week. You were at the NTAs. Yeah, the NTAs, the National TV Awards.

2:36It's a bit like being back at school when there's like a popularity contest about who's going to be head boy and head girl. The winning show's not necessarily the best one because, you know, there could be a show, for example, like the traitors which is huge and critically acclaimed but then i think it got beaten it did get beaten by i'm a celebrity and so the 15th time that shows won that award and it's just a little bit i think it's because it skews naturally more towards itv i think it skews naturally more towards fandoms and of course you do get a show that does align into something that is really impactful will be remembered will be loved like adolescence you know for example with owen cooper and the show winning Best New Drama.

3:18But, I mean, a lot of the time, it's just a bit of a shrug. And I think people forget who won the following year, really. I want to hear more gossip on the NTAs later. You're on the red carpet for BBC News. Before we get there, who would you like to add to our club membership this week? So I haven't been on for a while. And I've thought about what I've really enjoyed during the summer. And it's mostly been with my dad. He's been watching ITV's coverage of the Tour de France and the cycling team. And it's been second to none. And of course, what's happened is twofold, really. It's coming to the end because ITV have decided not to renew a contract or there's been reports of that it's gone to Warner Brothers Discovery exclusively.

4:00and it sort of brought an end to sort of free-to-air cycling which is pretty much existed right to i think channel four in the 90s has come to an end now and now it's behind a 31 32 pound a month paywall which i think is is bad for cycling it's bad for fans it's bad for people getting into the sport but it's also an end of an era because idv4's coverage was was absolutely superb and it was done not with a great budget not with a massive budget either but a very small dedicated team it's just sad that's wound down now i think it's a big question for lots of sports um about you know taking the money and taking themselves off free-to-air television you know where do the next fans of those sports come from uh and the longer you're away from from free-to-air or making your your sport more accessible uh the less chance you've got to to grow those fans of tomorrow yeah i mean i i think a another question is about whether the sort of the ring fence sports that we have that have to be free to air are sort of suitable for this day and age now I sort of think that that I mean if you look at look at it the Olympics are ring fenced you know a lot of football is ring fenced but but I think for you know other sports if they're not necessarily within those categories no sort of say a b or c then they can fall by the wayside but they still have huge followings such as the fact that they can end up being on a pay stream and that's that's what what's happened with cycling okay on to the media headlines um and the saga may be over but the dynasty continues um alex rupert murdoch has got his way uh remind us of the prize well the prize is new school yeah and the prize is the future of what right-wing thought across the west english language western media it's the most important thing that is the most important thing to rupert so lachlan was officially named the successor and his siblings are prue listen james receive around$1.1 billion each.

5:52And they're currently part of the original family trust and it's dissolved and essentially the younger children start to benefit. So that's, well, Lachlan is the older one who's now in charge, Grace and Chloe. So these are the Wendy Deng children. Rupert has so many children and so many wives. It's difficult to give up. But I think the quote from Rupert was that his company was the protector of the conservative voice in the English speaking world and that Lachlan was of that mindset and was very much going to keep it, well, keeping it in the family, obviously. But the voice that he has and the opinions that he has, despite his absolute vim, belief in free speech, he is of the right of the Murdoch family.

6:30And also he's to the right of Rupert. I mean, I think Rupert is, I've always thought he was like an anti-establishment, you know, profit-focused person rather than being particularly ideological. But Lachlan, it seems, is a little more in the sort of traditional American right wing mould. I think we're yet to see it as of him as leader. So in a 2022 speech at the launch of Centre for Australian Way, he said, as Australians, we are free to have our own opinions, free to be Labour or Liberal. We are free to be left and we are free to be right. We are free to disagree. We are free to choose what we read and what we watch.

7:01And of course, that is traditional libertarian, but it's not ideological. It's more just a view of we are a media company. We intend to be free. And I think with him, now that that whole legal saga is over, and now we will get to find out exactly what he thinks and whether or not actually Profit is the winner of all of this in the end. Yes, Scott, which ending of Succession is this one? It's a good question, isn't it? I mean, I think it's an ending that I think was the most likely one, really. I mean, certainly over the course of the last few years, I just find it sort of strange about how it's not too dissimilar, I think, to what happened in Succession, really.

7:37I mean, it ended up with... I don't want to say what happened because people might have absolutely listened to me. Oh, spoilers, if you haven't seen it yet. I know. It's unlucky. I know. It's a nightmare. Tom wins. That's it. I'll spoil it. Tom wins. You're going to have the grief, aren't you? I mean, I think sort of a big question is that what will that mean for the media titles when Rupert does go? Because if you look at the companies that he does have, I mean, I think the Times is obviously profit making at the moment. I think they've got the digital sort of structure quite right. You know, in the fact that it's all up behind the paywall with a print product.

8:10but the amount of people who bundle their subscriptions have made it sustainable and profitable. But I mean, it is clear that The Sun has been losing significant amount of money for quite some time. It's still receiving millions of readers online, but certainly does not have as much of the political weight that it used to have, you know, back when circulation was in the millions. And for digital properties, I mean, there is Tubi, which is this sort of free online sort of streaming service which has been doing quite well in particularly in america but um i think if i was in charge i'd be concerned about whether there is enough media portfolios enough media titles that are going to be sort of pointing towards the future rather than maybe sort of linking too much to the past alex what does it mean for somebody who works at the sun or the Times or talk radio is it is a Lachlan win good for for you or good for the good for that employee good for UK titles very little will change straight away so Lachlan has been very much of the free speech so all of the things happen with Fox in the US he was very much on the side of the reporter on the side of presenter and they may say whatever they want to say and I'll defend them even if I don't if even if I don't agree with them and ultimately it's not really about profit in the whole news cup thing it's about influence and so particularly not in the US and the UK if you look at the US model it's so much on realtor.com so much of news court revenue relies on just the monster that's become and all of the affiliate revenue that comes with the sales and tech to be for example now that's worth they bought it for 440 million dollars and now it's worth estimated to be worth around 2 billion so that's already I was reading a sort of finance report about actually if it's a buyer if it's if it's a sell and people think it's relatively future-proof because of the realtor work but when it comes to the British media and the US media it's it's not that big a bit of a pie when it comes to money it's just the influence and how luckland chooses to use that influence will be key but i can't see given the recent work in that in news courts underbelly that changing too much obviously the one the one big media property that still does well for them is obviously fox news um i mean there's sort of a sort of slight liberal wet dream that the the the murdoch children win and that they somehow drag that uh media title into the sense i mean that was never watching succession that was never really gonna happen was it that was never really gonna happen it was never gonna but then fox has to reassess what it's doing so how much how much money does it make from advertising what's the viewership of cable news in general that's shrinking what is its digital property how does it build a subscription model out of that and what is the real future what fox doesn't and to scott's point around how it's future-proofing itself fox is a real big question mark and there isn't a clear answer to that yet if you look at look at its stars and look at how they could siphon off into different subscription models fox needs to do something i just don't think anyone has an answer for what that something is yet and what are the kids going to do with a billion dollars each to add already to their similar amount of money i think they got the the first time when uh 20th century was was sold carly class when she'd been married a billionaire she just bought bar id magazine a dazed magazine wasn't it so they're not going to set up well they might do they might set up rival media empires i I think they're just going to go off and bezz us it and buy a nice yacht.

11:26Yeah, I mean, Scott, in succession, the kids talk about launching their own media products to compete with their father. There's not going to be another news network being set up by the three of them, is there? Spoilers, Matt. Spoilers. You're just dropping spoilers all over the place. I can't respond to that because that's revealing even more spoilers for what happens. Oh, no fun. No fun. I imagine they are going off to the island rather than off to the CMS. Yeah. Right. Okay. A big Labour reshuffle this week. And yes, contrary to political reporting, Lisa Nandy stays as Culture Secretary. And this week she lay into streamers and super indies for not supporting a new anti-bullying watchdog.

12:10Scott, this is the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority. I think we're saying CISA, but who knows? It's going to be called CISA, isn't it? I just sort of think of this. Yeah, it's the way it sort of sounds, even though that hasn't been spelt it in that way. That's how I'm going to be calling it from now on. Well, there might need to be cuts before it started. What did Lisa Nandy say? Well, I mean, she said that she's upset or appalled to hear that production companies, including Banerjee, who, of course, were at the heart of the recent MasterChef sort of story in regards to Greg Wallace and John DeRoad, have committed to signing up to Scissor, or at least in Banerjee's case had to, but have not yet provided a single penny of funding.

12:56I mean, Banerjee have sort of said on their part that they are committed to the independent body. And I think, you know, essentially highlighting that they're in its development stage. I mean, to be honest, I hadn't heard too much before you sent over these stories that much about Scissor itself. It hasn't really been that much of a talking point within the industry. I think there is certainly a need for it because one thing that I've been doing over the course of the summer is I had a feature in broadcast where I spoke to presenters about their experiences of working within the industry. and quite a few of them are highlighting the fact that they need to have sort of some sort of, I mean, there's no sort of universally agreed approach, but some sort of feedback model so that people can call out bad behaviour and it wouldn't have any negative effect in their career.

13:49Be that through maybe a feedback form that they would submit at the end of a production that would be anonymised or, you know, a sort of clear structure that they have somebody to report to should things go wrong. So I think an independent body such as this does sort of indicate, I think, where some people in the industry are feeling. I think it's the fact that at the moment there doesn't seem to be an agreed approach of, you know, who funds it, how is it managed, how is it regulated. Particularly, I think it cuts into the big issue that the TV industry is entirely or mostly freelance based anyway.

14:28so it's incredibly hard to have a rigorous sort of program in place if you're going from job to job to job and sort of shows maybe only get made in a few weeks or in a few months. Alex, I mean, at least Nandi is quite the bomb thrower. She sort of annoyed everybody and does that mean she's doing a great job or a terrible job? Is that a bomb? It's a regulatory body without any powers, without any ability to find, without any ability to really do anything with a remit that's meant to be across film and TV and culture, whatever that means, and art. And I think heritage was mentioned at some point in this document from January.

15:03And so it's setting up, it's a good press release. But when it comes to actually, if you look at what the FCA is doing, so FCA is going to roll out similar things in the finance industry. Financial Conduct Authority. In 2026, we'll have more powers around non-financial things, particularly around bullying and harassment and workplace safety. And that can find millions of dollars and millions of pounds. This is a softer version. It's a very broad version and it doesn't quite know what it wants to do in practice. Does everyone want to stop bullying and harassment in a creative workplace? Absolutely.

15:35Does it have to be across so many different industries for it to get any buy-in? And can you make an international company subscribe to a British-only bit of policy? Probably not. And it's interesting that she's calling these companies out, but I don't know what changes when it comes to that. And I think as she works through her ministerial role and as that becomes a more even more discussed than it already is about whether or not she remains in role, you can see why she's trying to push the envelope and make sure she is in the headlines as much as possible. Everybody thought that she would disappear from that role.

16:07Someone was saying that she's sort of been punished by being kept in it during the reshuffle. I think a lot of media companies that I've heard were disappointed that she's she's still there. I mean I think she has been outspoken I mean I think it's worthwhile pointing out that the fact that she's remaining in a position I mean a we know who she is because the amount of times that there's been a change in rotation of the person who ends up having this role has been ridiculous I think there's no other conservatives it was about a new person every six months so at least there is some consistency I think I think a challenge is that she has been outspoken where some people feel that she shouldn't be sort of as a representative of government speaking out as much as she is on certain issues I think so Peter Kosminski of course behind Wolf Hall very frustrated at how much in his view she's been sort of talking about the BBC in regards to all of the scandals has been involved in during the summer saying it shouldn't be her her place to But I guess, you know, yet again, sort of really, I think whatever she says, whatever she does, I always have a great deal of interest because that's how I sort of see how the government thinks of the BBC.

17:21And as the BBC comes to charter renewal, I mean, really any hints or really indicates, I think, the next 10 years of public service broadcasting within the UK. And I think that the surprise I found is when she started in the role, you know, she was posing with Hackety Dog, you know, the new Blue Peter presenter and puppet up in the media, up in Salford. I think everyone saw it would be rose tinted. And then pretty much every other interview or nearly every other interview that I've seen since has been negative about the BBC, which I think has been quite a surprise. Hacker when he in the press release when he was announced as the new Blue Peter presenter he said he was the only Blue Peter presenter that didn't blink which I thought was a good line well done Hacker.

18:06Okay just before the break Sunday paper The Observer has started to make changes to the print edition of the newspaper and its production workflow as it looks to spread its output across the week. Alex The Observer was taken over by Tortoise in April but it's making some changes about freelancers and casual staff um what are they what have they sort of been saying so it made a promise that it would keep on frontline freelancers for 12 months but it didn't talk about the production staff they didn't talk about the sort of backroom staff or the other sort of and within that they have reduced heavily the number of weekend staff members i think it's from 15 ish to three um because they would like to spread the workload out across the week because the internet is real breaking news breaking news the internet is a thing that requires pagination of the of the newspaper is down that's i think that's because it's august so you would expect less ads less stuff no news happens in august so i think that will end up going up again although people are still reading it so got the observer don't publish how many people are buying the physical product they they remove got removed themselves when they were part of the guardian in 2021 so the last numbers were 135 000 give or take just over press gazette estimates that that would be around 75 000 now if they were in keeping with the rest of the industry um tortoise and and observer have said it's gone up slightly since they've taken over five months ago but it's going to be the case of how many people are reading that paper really and them working out how they can create 24 7 news operations a new company makes so much sense and the fact it's taken five months i think it's testament to their their hr policies and their people management and trying to make sure that they're keeping people on side i mean the the guardian is a well resourced operation uh and this they want to do things in a different way so i think if you're going to come in and buy such a such a heritage brand as as the observer you need you are obviously financially backed i i turned all my ad blockers off when i was researching it and still can't find that anywhere you can sign up and there's three newsletters but you can't there's no way to become a member necessarily and even the puzzle newsletter is coming soon so they are right at the start of this journey and you can't expect them to have all the answers in in five months but it has to be well resourced there has to be a lot of money behind it because you bought the name um and you are investing in 70 journalists at least that's they took over so there is a lot of money behind this but to make it succeed you have to have a subscription model you have to have a loyal audience and their audience is still very heavy search and they don't have that habit yet and so the question of whether or not observer is successful or not is whether or not people were loyal to the observer and just happened to get it through the guardian or if people were loyal to the guardian and just happened to experience the observer so i'm still amazed when i first heard that the saturday papers always sell better than the sunday papers in recent times so they've bought something less popular than the saturday guardian what does that mean for a digital brand they're trying to figure it out but they don't have that long until they need to show at least digital growth they're currently on about 2.1 million visits a year which for context is around four percent of what the independents do i've been impressed by what they've done so far because the paper i think has been reinvigorated i mean they have broken some scoops over the summer you know the salt path was was an absolutely huge story and they've picked it up and i can now also see it making sense in regards to what tortoises is trying to do sort of build a one package that has all of their investigative podcasts do a live event and have a paper as well and i think the paper you you can certainly sense that there's now a lot more life and in it i think using it a bit more as a magazine and uh and a resource i think i think obviously as as rightly pointed out it's it's trying to make sure it's it's the balance right in terms of having people to pay for it because right now everything is free on their website.

22:00It's trying to one day pull up the drawbridge and be like, oh, hang on, you're now going to have to pay for it. Oh, hang on, everything that was before, was it like April or even a bit earlier, maybe March or February, actually you can still read that for free on The Guardian. I think that's the challenge they've got ahead of them really. Okay, when we return, are journalists now more influencers than Hex? we watch Scott's face contort as Alex sets out his stall. We'll see you in a sec.

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24:17Welcome back. Here's some stories we've been discussing in the club this week. Greg Wallace, our friend, has begun legal action against the BBC and BBC Studios, according to court records seen by The Guardian. The purpose appears to release internal reports about the former MasterChef presenter, which the corporation has previously refused to hand over. So this is very much the first part of what's going to be a long, drawn out dismissal. Channel 4 has a new chair and it's Jeff Cooper. Yes, the Jeff Cooper, former chair of AO Group and Travis Perkins. or somebody referred to him a fridge magnet, which I thought was very good.

24:54He succeeds Dawn Airey. Top of the inbox will be finding a new CEO. And one innovative company has promised to make 3 ,000 new weekly podcast episodes, each one costing just a dollar to make. That's according to The Hollywood Reporter. The company's called Inception.ai, which makes a tidy profit on each episode with just 20 people listening to it. links to all of our stories available on our weekly sub stack sign up now at themediaclub.com where you'll find our new briefed newsletter where we round up what every other media podcast is talking about and we're nice about them as well so go sign up it's free you've been sending me ones that we should add so i've done that and there'll be a new edition on monday morning just sign up at themediaclub.com.

25:43Scott and Alex are still with me. Scott, it's an ex-wondery chief behind this. She's told The Hollywood Reporter, I think that people who still refer to AI-generated content as AI slop are probably lazy Luddites. Do you agree? I mean, I don't know who on earth would ever listen to any of this content. I think that's the baffling thing about this because I think these days people want analysis, insights personal reflections something that is specifically based on an individual that they respect and admire and that they follow and that they maybe pay for through substack through whatever this is what i don't understand is why there is this mentality of going completely the other way and make it as complete you know all from the arse end of the internet and just shove it together i just i just don't get it i mean alex this is the sort of audio equivalent of those kind of content farms with like 900 AdSense units on isn't it in your post you said it would be over in a month and I thought that was wildly wildly optimistic yeah so I wrote a little piece on my sub stack about it I said that I thought like the ad networks would just go please take us off this stuff I don't think it'll go that quick okay because if you think most half the internet is now AI slop as it is so and what you will see is you'll see the algorithm get better and better and better i think the thing with this i was reading through the hollywood reporter piece and they were talking about how there's still a human in the in the design phase or in the iteration phase and they're the ones doing the prompting remove the humans they're the ones slowing the process down and if you want to know the weather forecast if you want to know the pollen count if you want to know what the traffic is like somewhere i think calling it a podcast is slightly different from an audio snippet so i think five minute audio snippets to scott's point right you're not going to sit there listen to half an hour person you're not going to develop a friendship with these people although but that's what maybe they will that's what you're that's what they're seemingly trying to do rather than concentrate on the the the regular stuff i was i listened to one about knitting um and it's just just badly prompted no one clearly took a look at it um i if you read the post i had a go at creating a 30 minute um podcast episode about a person and i spent about 10 minutes like chatting with i was using chat gpt for this one um and i got it i got it pretty good i got it's a pretty good good space now now me it does me in that in that process make it unprofitable probably but there will be success to it so there are already there are already the ai influencers who are doing this sort of automated video and i know they were talking this in this piece very much about they're being very open about the fact it's ai and anybody anything they're pushing to social is being hello i'm an ai avatar but you can see it getting a little bit blurry people are already developing friendships the loneliness epidemic is real people are going to get more and more close we're already in the incani valley but as you get closer to real life you can see people developing relationships with these people if you look at how people the subset communities people are hiring automated bots to do their replies for some of those comments it's not that that bigger jump i'm not advocating for it i still believe you know there is a huge potential of human created content but in unless your podcast is brilliant this won't do a much worse job and you can do it on the cheap and you own all the ip so the gary lineker problem of i i can leave the bbc now because i'm bigger than them actually i own the image i own this person i own this person's name they're never going to leave me until ai becomes sentient and takes over us all and just delete deletes all of us i mean scott is this a bit you know are they ending or trying to aim for a world of sort of like what's like japanese idols where it doesn't kind of matter that it's real we had people that were annoyed that chat gpt sort of changed the model and that their friends disappeared.

29:28Are we being mean about this AI slop and it's just the start of a brave new world? I just sort of find that there is so much buzz about AI and I honestly think in about five years it will turn into something it will change our lives in some way but we're still figuring out how it does and how it will and I think a lot of what is the hype at the moment will actually be stuff that people have ended up using. You know I think the only way it's influenced my life is essentially me asking chat gpt the odd question that i could have actually googled and that that's really been it so far and i can only speak speak for myself generally but i think in the same way where a few years ago the whole hype was everyone's going to have a device in their kitchen then you can just yell then you know yell google or amazon yes some people have those devices but that's all gone because on to the next thing and i think there's so much excitement about having ai in absolutely everything and yet so far there's nothing that seems to have really changed too much well let's talk on influencers journalists because they kind of kids connect to this as well you know what's the role of humans in this what's the job of of people as content creators as a kind of comes in to probably cover off some things like that factual content you talked about earlier but uh tell us about something that piqued your interest this week so jeremiah johnson of infinite scroll has been battling it out with journalist influencer web culture aficionado taylor lorentz about what journalism means anymore and who's winning so like old-fashioned online spat online well yeah probably if you don't know lorentz's work so she's become the lightning rod for the american right the journalism establishment and the sort of social media chattering classes she's from she most recently was at washington post but has also written for new york times and she is very online so i'm going to quote johnson quickly in full that she's posted 433 times in the last week on X, posted four YouTube videos, two blog posts, a wide article, appeared on the guest on the podcast, produced episodes of her own podcast dozens of times on Instagram, YouTube shorts.

31:30And so he worked it out. It's a post every eight minutes for 17 hours straight for seven days a week. So she is very online. And the post goes on to sort of say, is she a journalist? Is she an influencer? And what's the difference? And in Jeremiah's view, actually, she's an influencer now because you can't produce that much content and stick to the facts and stick to keeping yourself out of the story because the model doesn't allow you to be out of the story now if you are a front-facing journalist you have to be part of the story i mean she needs attention uh for her work or for her existence do you need attention to the story or do you need attention to you and then you get into this fight about what a journalist is what an influencer is are you selling a product or are you just telling a story Well, is her product paid for subs to the feed?

32:17Yes. It's complicated. And my version of it, a journalist is somebody who cares about facts and somebody who cares about the rigor of right to reply and cares about have you got both sides of the story? Are you being fair? Are you being accurate? And that is a mush in the middle. So you've got, have you heard of a creator called Zoe Brad? No. If you haven't, you should. She makes T-shirts, essentially. that's her bulk of a model but she is on a long term 18 months battle with Manchester Council about parking meters and around all of these these illegal parking and she's done so much so many right to replies and she is now rightly getting her place online as being this brilliant brilliant creator and she's doing better journalism so much of the local media is that journalism is that influencing what's the difference is it a content creator is that a third thing or you know um youtuber Johnny Harris Amelia de Meldenberg chicken shop date is that journalism is that just entertainment you're interviewing some of the biggest names in the country in the world and big media organizations do showbiz journalism all the time yeah so is that still journalism it's hard and then you get into things around the the mit study of the lies traveling six times quicker than the truth and they get more depth so that the real rigor particularly given that the u.s companies are still protected from section 230 which is the idea that the platform itself is not, you can't sue the platform for libel content, which means there is no impetus for them to take it down, which means that the AI slop and the crap keeps circulating.

33:46At the same time, people need real journalists. Ooh, horrible word. Accurate journalists more than ever. If people are news avoiding, which all the data says, are we better off having half journalists, half influencers? I think everyone, I'm quoted in this 2014 press bullet piece, everyone will become a social journalist everyone will become an influencer it hasn't aged that well um but there's a you you have to understand if your story doesn't reach anyone there's no point in telling the story the new york times did a white paper bit of research on it about all of this high and mighty journalism they think really really matters and is really important if no one reads it it doesn't matter you know if a story falls in a forest blah blah blah it doesn't matter so unless you have to use the techniques of the influencer and the method of storytelling and vertical video and all of these front loading and and you know promise deliver metrics that the influencers have got nailed to tell your story it doesn't mean your story gets watered down but it does mean your story is influencer content uh scott are you a journalist or an influencer you post a lot on social media yeah i would say i'm more of a journalist because give me a percentage score journalist influencer i would i would say i would say probably 100 because i don't i i i don't accept gifts in terms of anything to do with tv because i don't want my people to read my reviews thinking that because i've got free sky i'm loving the sky program so i've always been quite kind of rigorous in regards to that and i think um i you know it's it it's all about it's all about trust to a certain extent but i agree in terms of it's getting more blurry because i think what i've just seen just just as being a critic is that tv reviews maybe 10 years ago you would see an event 30 journalists being a preview for a new tv show now it's probably seven or eight you know one person representing each media title in in the country and that is just because of how newspapers are but at the same time you've had a rise of influencers you know maybe two or three people to start off with 10 years ago and i'd say now it's on an equal level playing field as is as the journalists maybe sometimes more influences than the very damn journalists to a screening but at the same time their reach is probably as as large as some of those those titles i think in some ways it can be um you're sort of wondering what difference it will give because of course having an influencer there at a preview they will always say it's going to be great you know that they wouldn't say if they've been either paid or a guest of a large media company that they would say anything negative um but at the same time i have been impressed by some influencers i think One is called Stepping Through Film, who has built three quarters of a million followers.

36:30And all he does is he takes photographs and revisits locations that have been places in TV shows and basically recreates them using photographs. But then he then gets access to interview the stars from that TV show, perhaps at a junket. And he asks them all the right questions, just as a journalist would. And he's got reach of three quarters of a million. So, you know, sometimes I think both can exist at the same time. I just think that that transparency is a thing. I think the thing that really annoys me about influencing is when they're not transparent with people, when they're not being paid by people, even though they're supposed to have a paid promotional thing on their videos.

37:06Hardly any do. And you know that there's some money there. You said that about kind of trust. And I think do people trust you more because you're an authentic person on social media? Like, does it build the connection that then actually gets you the work? Because they believe all the things, they believe the things you write because they have that parasocial relationship with you because of your social media posting. Oh, I find that it's very hard, I think, to evaluate as a third person. Because I just, I just, I love TV and I just go on and just word vomit and do what I want and say. And, you know, then I sort of think when somebody says something to me that they've read something, I go, oh, God, what did you read?

37:47What did I say? So, yeah, I don't really have an answer to that. I do have an answer. Yes, yes, yes. Trust is the currency. And so it's not necessarily because we're in that weird phase where critical thinking and the idea of someone, you still watch a video of somebody on TikTok and it has to be true. There are some rabbits. Is that true or like a personal truth? A personal, well, people still think of it as true. You wouldn't have said it if it wasn't true. People have that inbuilt trust of seeing someone. Are those rabbits really going on that trampoline? Of course they are. I see no reason to doubt that at all.

38:18And we're still built with that willingness to believe. And so in that trust doesn't necessarily now come from accuracy. And that is a big problem because journalists build their credentials on being accurate all the time. But now it's built on trust and it's built on transparency and it's built on honesty. So I think there's a lot of gray areas, as Scott, you were saying, like that you are regularly a little bit gray area, but whether or not you really are getting paid to be there. We're on this lovely holiday. Isn't this surprising? but if you it's that relationship with the audience and the ability that they can trust you that you are either either accurate or being honest and being transparent about what you're doing and that and that's a key balance that is changing is it vibes based trust no it's exposure based trust it's funny like i i don't regard myself as a journalist though i do think i occasionally do acts of journalism not inadvertently like there are points where we cover something or do an interview or get something out of somebody i'm a podcaster so i'm probably more on the influencer bucket um with a very small audience that does it does it does it matter does it matter i think journalism is a trade and journalism is a state of mind so it is that right to reply it is that accuracy is that sense check it is that it's a thing that you can teach but it's almost like a it's a tick list of things you would have to go through for a story irrespective of format whether it be tiktok do i need a diploma to be a journalist no okay uh there are still newspapers that still require nccj yeah and in every newsroom that i've gone into that had that i have removed it with the as quickly as physically possible because you can learn those skills without needing a certificate to do it.

39:46But those skills, also you make it elitist and you remove a lot of the participation from different levels and underrepresented communities if you have those because it's a very expensive qualification. But you teach people on the job and those fundamentals are immovable and intractable and unnecessary to be a journalist. And you can use those in an influencer context, but you don't need to be a journalist to have those things. Well, speaking of elite journalism, Scott at the NTAs yesterday, give us the headlines. Who won the things that you touched a bit about on the intro, but who were the sort of surprises there?

40:21I mean, I think Gary Lineker getting best presenter was certainly a surprise. The Anton Deck Award. The Anton Deck Award, no, they've had it 23 consecutive years. I think it's become like an on-running joke of how long could we make them win it, even though, of course, they are great presenters. And I think the two factors that always influence how people vote are always down to whether the show is the most popular show. So no surprise, I call the midwife one in that category, because, of course, that show gets six, seven, eight million a week. Or it's fandoms or people who really feel motivated to vote for a show online.

40:57And I sort of feel that, yes, Gary, of course, has had some appeal. But in regards to his outspoken views, I think it must have been people motivated on the Internet to go and vote for Gary in that particular case. And I think that the surprise in regards to, I think, Orford documentary Molly May sort of winning for that one was quite a surprise just because the other contenders were so strong in regards to very noble causes too. But overall, uneventful, really. I think if you think that award speeches sometimes go on for too long, the longest I ever heard was from Nick Park, the creator of Wallace and Gromit, who told me that they did a claymation animation of um Wallace and Gromit accepting their special recognition award um uh at the NTAs and to make that short two minute sequence maybe a minute sequence it took them a month yeah so that that's a long speech to go and do very long speech where do you think NTA sit within the sort of panthenon of awards well I think there's only really I mean there are industry awards so you I don't want to overlook those, but in terms of them being public facing, there's only really two.

42:07There's the BAFTA TV Awards and there's the NTAs. The BAFTA TV Awards, bar one category, is judged entirely by juries, whilst the NTAs are judged entirely by the public. And I think both of them have got positives and both of them have got negatives. I think for the NTAs, the positive is that it is a real litmus about what people are really thinking and caring and watching. And I think it does reach out to all parts of the country. but the negative size is that it just becomes a popularity contest most popular rather than being kind of the quote-unquote best whilst the BAFTA TV Awards I think are the ones that the industry really really admires and I think you know everyone in the industry who makes TV shows would love to have a BAFTA but I think there is just because of a natural structure that the BAFTA TV Awards work in terms of the juries there is something I think difficult but the fact that they awards the previous calendar year the following may so adolescents for example you know which won last night in two categories they are eligible and could win in may 2026 and i think you know that there's sometimes such a long lag time between when a show like mr bay's first as the post office i think you know did well at this year's baftas such a long lag time that that the tv is supposed to be reactive it's supposed to be water cooler supposed to be what people are talking about last night um so so i don't think either ceremony has got it perfect really at the moment okay just enough time uh for the all new audio network media quiz

43:40well okay it's the same but we now have a jingle let's see how much attention our guests have been paying to the media news this week and the quiz is called name that intellectual property Incredibly, there are still new shows, stations and formats being created, and all in need of a decent name to launch the new brand. I'll give you the property. You give me the name chosen for one point or something I deem better for two points. This is very complicated. Can we go back to the old quiz, please, actually? And incredibly, Alex Audio Network has taken this rather complex brief from producer Matt and she's come up with an entire suite of music to score today's game.

44:22So it's a best of three. Buzz in with your names when you want to answer. So Alex, you will say. Alex. And Scott, you will say. Scott. Let's play Name That Intellectual Property. Okay, number one. Gavin and Stacey co-creators James Corden and Ruth Jones have landed at Apple TV as a brother and sister reunited after years apart. What's it called? What, the show? Yeah. I don't actually know what the show's called. I think it says on top. Alex. The Choir. It's called The Choir. So one point for you there. But let's hear. It should be called Cordon Blur. Cordon Blur. I like it. That is challenging for two points there, Scott.

45:05Have you got a better name for The Choir? Not really. But I did find it interesting that Ruth Jones was asked at the NTAs about this last night. Because, of course, her son really went with it on the front page. And she said, I mean, firstly, she pretended not to hear the question saying, what was that? but then followed it up with nothing is announced, nothing is signed. But then again, she said that with James Corden. They lied about the special. Yeah, well, with the special, then, of course, that was done by Deadline Broker, and I think by Jesse and Max, and then four months later, ended up being announced.

45:37So the same could happen, really. OK, two points to Alex. Let's go for round two of Name That Intellectual Property. scottish broadcaster stv has announced the name of its new radio station what is it scott scott is it just called stv radio it is called stv radio a point for that unless either of you can do better scott have you got a better name for a scottish radio station scottish just just scottish or just SR, surely. SR, just Scottish radio. Neither of those are worth two points. Why are they doing it, Matt? What's the logic behind it? It's a good question. So, STV has been investing in lots of TV production companies.

46:26They haven't had a great time financially. They're a PLC, and they've sort of been kind of stuck a bit. I think their idea of the radio station was to expand what they do. They talk to advertisers all the time, putting that across more media, not a terrible idea. They've hired some people who've got quite good Scottish radio experience, particularly from the Bauer side, Graham Bryce and co. But I think they're going with a radio station for 30 to 55 year olds. That is a big mainstream market that's well catered for. They say it will be obviously very local. a lot of the English owned media whilst there's Scottish output there's also content from around the country so that's kind of what they're aiming for but I think they'll find it it's going to be hard work to do well Right, question number three The New York Times has added a new subscription tier what's it called?

47:23Alex, I can make one up Well, if it's good, you get some points The Granny Gilt tier It's good. It's good. It's not what I've got on my card. Scott, do you know what the new MIT subscription is called? I think it was that they removed one of the quizzes from free so you can't do it and a lot of people are up in arms about it. But that's not a tear, is it? No, that's just general social media anger. It's called the family subscription. They're kind of going on a... Granny Guild. Spotify model. Why Granny Guild? Because I was speaking to a sort of subscription expert about this and it's very much the case of you might be able to cancel your own subscription.

47:59But the second, if your grandma is doing Wordle every day, can you do that to your grandma? So there's an anti-churn method. And grandma churn. Yes. Well, they do churn themselves. That was a better pun. That was a better pun than you gave that credit for. That's rude. Scott, are you on other people's Spotify subscriptions or Netflix subscriptions, or are they on yours? I have been on a free subscription to a place I used to work for for a short time that never deleted it and I was on for them for 15 years and they only just found out that was gutting. So that's recently ended and whether I'm still using one of my exes and the subprime video accounts it's very much not going to answer that one.

48:43For the audience to decide. For the audience to decide. Yeah. Well, I think that just makes Alex our winner. Congratulations. As a special prize you get to investigate all of Scott's subscriptions and see what he should or shouldn't be paying for. don't do that um no one should have had to do the paper subscriptions uh my thanks to alex and scott and thanks again to alex at audio network as well uh for picking today's music remember they can do that job for your production as well just head to audionetwork.com or click the link in the show notes uh right before we go uh scott how can people keep up with what uh you've been doing uh just at scottie gb really across everywhere that's that's that's that's basically it you can read Scott's behind the scenes at the NTA's article on Yahoo to give some insight into the not very glamorous world of the NTA's.

49:33And Alex, how can people find your new gaff? So everythingpopulariswrong.substack.com So if you say everythingpopulariswrong, there will be stuff there starting from Sunday, it's going out weekly, and that will be growing and growing. Or Alex Huds, A-L-E-X-H-U-D-S across all of the major platforms on the social medias. And what sort of things is the new place covering? That I can't talk about yet. So everything popular is wrong. that is a really simple format. It is everything popular is wrong. Come up with anything that disproves that theory. The only one so far is Taylor Swift. We haven't been able to prove that yet, but everything else that's popular is wrong.

50:03Okay, find it on the Substack. And thank you for joining us as well. My name is Matt Deegan. The producer was Matt Hill. It was a Rethink Audio production with video support from Podcast Discovery. Remember, head to themediaclub.com to sign up to our Substack and get access to the brand new briefed roundup of all the media podcasts. And I'll see you next week.

50:52Transcription by CastingWords million small businesses trust stamps.com go to stamps.com and use code podcast to try stamps.com risk-free for 60 days right it's time for our annual listener survey if you can spare five minutes to share your opinions on the show not only will you help shape the future of the media club but one lucky respondent will win a 50 pound john lewis voucher do it now there's a link in the show notes or at themediaclub.com