Can Journalism Survive AI? — with NYT CEO Meredith Kopit Levien

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2:01Scott Galloway:Episode 388. 1988, Prozac was introduced to the U.S. market. Depression for me is like having a huge dick. It's just something I've learned to live with.

2:16Scott Galloway:Go, go, go!

2:47Scott Galloway:because 50 % of America hates the New York Times. It's also in a business that's just not a great business. They do it better than anybody, but it is long-form journalism that's fact-checked. It's just very expensive and a shitty business in the world of Google and Facebook. But Meredith has done a great job. Anyways, we discussed with Meredith the future of media, the impact of AI, trust, polarization, and the evolving role of journalism. So with that, here's our conversation with Meredith Kopet-Levian.

3:28Scott Galloway:Meredith, where does this podcast find you? I am in Washington, D.C. today, which is unusual for me on a Tuesday coming to you from the Washington Bureau of the New York Times. Actually, let's use that as a jumping off point because it's kind of a tale of two cities in terms of The Times and The Washington Post. The Times, this is kind of the mother of all softballs, but it's true. The Times just posted its strongest year in recent memory, 13 million subscribers, your revenue approach with revenues approaching 3 billion. Meanwhile, The Washington Post has laid off around a third of its staff. And it seems that generally speaking, legacy media companies are in a bit of a crisis mode right now.

4:08Scott Galloway:and the Times is, I think, on any objectionable measure or objective measure. What have you done right or what do you think is working that's not working at other legacy media companies? That's a big one to start off on. Let me start by saying, you know, I'm rooting for all high-quality independent journalism. I think The Post is still doing plenty of high-quality independent journalism, particularly original reporting on big, important topics. And there are a number of outlets doing it. You know, I can talk to you about what we are doing and what I think has gone right so far at the Times. Probably the biggest and most important part of the story of the results that you just described is that we have made a sustained and very deliberate investment over a very long period of time in original independent journalism.

5:05That's in journalists and in the support system structure around them to make sure they can do extraordinary work. We've got the largest newsroom in the history of The New York Times now. It's 2 ,300 people. We have 3 ,000 total journalists and content makers at The Times. And they are pursuing just an extraordinary range of coverage. You know, things that are of great civic and geopolitical consequence and also stuff that's just deeply relevant to people in their personal lives. And I think, you know, the Times has invested sort of throughout its history in that and recognizes that that's, you know, where the value is most derived.

5:53And that's the thing we do best in terms of long-term value creation. I'll add to that, that we have had a very clear strategy that we've been at now for, you know, in some ways, multiple decades, but I can at least speak to the last decade. And we've given that strategy to be the essential subscription to curious people everywhere. where we've given it the time and the space and the resources to play out. And I think we also have a long history of using tech and format innovation to make our work more and more accessible to people. So I think all those things are working. And I just want to say, and we will be hard at them for years to come.

6:39I mean, this is a high-quality independent journalism is a hard business. Doing the kind of work I just described is hard work, particularly the journalism part of it. And you're going to, you know, I will be talking about the deliberate investment in that and the fight to keep doing it for years to come.

7:00Scott Galloway:So you're the CEO of a public company and public investors want growth. Where do you see as the biggest avenues for growth for the New York Times company? I always say I think our best days are still very much ahead of us, and I say that as the CEO of a company that's been around for 175 years. Um, growth, we see growth, you know, in news and in our lifestyle products, and I hope we get a chance to talk about those too. We see growth domestically and internationally, and we see growth in an opportunity to take so much of the extraordinary work we are doing and push that work into new formats and modalities where lots and lots of people are getting their information, and particularly this year, video.

7:48We are very, very focused on making the times, so it'll take us some time to do it, but making the times as preferred a brand for watching the news and the other things we do as it is for reading and listening to it.

8:06Scott Galloway:So, my understanding is you have sued several AI companies. At the same time, you have just signed a deal with Amazon. What is your strategy and approach to AI? Yeah, I would regard the two things you just said, enforcing our rights in court and also doing the deal we've done with Amazon as kind of of a piece. The idea here is this is a business that is grounded in making high-quality, original, independent journalism and other kinds of content that is intellectual property. And copyright law protects that intellectual property from its use by others without our permission and without control over our work.

8:56So, you know, that's what the lawsuits are about, enforcing the rights around our intellectual property. And I'll just say there, the companies that are making the LLMs are spending, in many cases, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars on things like talent and power and compute, all the stuff that goes into making models. And one of the things that goes into making models is high-quality information. And, you know, we'd like to see them pay a fair wage for that as well. And at the same time, the Times has a long track record and history of, you know, forging partnerships and doing deals with companies where we feel like we're getting sustainable fair value exchange for our work.

9:50and where we have control over how our work is used and where it comports with our strategy. And that's what you've seen us do with Amazon.

10:00Scott Galloway:It strikes me that, so there's essentially two or three LLMs that dominate the market and there are just a ton of media companies that they're crawling, or I would argue hijacking their information. Would the Times be open to either participating in or leading a coalition similar to what the music artists have done that demands or speaks with one voice. Because one of the flaws I see in the ecosystem, Meredith, is that each media company has a tendency to overestimate its importance in the ecosystem, recognizing that no one company is indispensable for Alphabet or Meta or, in this case, OpenAI.

10:42Scott Galloway:high. It strikes me that the, and I remember arguing this 20 years ago at the Times, that you shouldn't go it alone. You might get 10 or 20 or$50 million. So one of the LLMs or companies can brag, put out a press release saying that they have a licensing agreement with the New York Times company. But it's in some, isn't part of the problem that companies, including The Post, The Times, Condé Nast, Nikkei, you know, name all these media companies, News Corp, that you guys just don't play well together. And as a result, having created a coalition to push back on big tech, which has absorbed so much of the market capitalization and attention that used to be the domain of those traditional media companies.

11:30Scott Galloway:Quite frankly, I'm saying this as an ecosystem that you're part of. Aren't you guys the perfect enemy, and that is you don't get along on form coalitions? So many questions in there. No, let me try and get at least a few of them. The first thing I want to say is I think everyone running a business doing high-quality independent in journalism, doing original journalism, thinks of the other companies doing that sort of first as in the same pursuit and thinks about protecting that pursuit. And I want to say, as it relates to the enforcement of our intellectual property rights, we have taken the actions we've taken to benefit the times, but we've also taken them because we think we've got a really strong story in terms of how much intellectual property we have, how long we've been doing it, how much of it is copywritten.

12:36And we think that that is quite important to how things go from here. And we thought we had a big opportunity to do something here that was important for the times, but also important for journalism more broadly and important for society in terms of, you know, there being a continuously sustainable model for high-quality independent journalism. And by the way, over time, probably important for the LLMs because the LLMs need high-quality information sort of coursing through their models as well for the models to actually be good. So that's the first thing I would say. And then I would also say, if you look at the issues that kind of animate collective interest in the industry, and I mean sort of small c, collective, we're all, many of us are focused on the protection of, you know, the rights and safety of our journalists.

13:36And we go at that together when America was leaving Afghanistan, the Times worked with a number of news organizations who you would consider close competitors to help get people, journalists and the people who supported them for 20 years, safely out of Afghanistan. And when we think about defending the rights of journalists to do their work in an unfettered way, you see a lot of support coming out from other organizations. So I don't totally agree with you on the characterization of, you know, we're such enemies that we can't do things together. And even having said all that, I do think that every company's intellectual property rights really matter and companies should be in a position to control how their content is used.

14:34And I think individual companies having that control really, really matters. Okay.

14:41Scott Galloway:So Paramount Studios, Warner Brothers Pictures, New Line Cinema, DC Studios, Miramax, CBS, The CW, CNN, HBO, TBS, TNT, True TV, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Discovery Channel, HGTV, bear with me, Food Network, Travel Channel, Animal Planet, TLC, Investigation Discovery, ID, Science Channel, and the Oprah Winfrey Network, and the Magnolia Network, in addition to Paramount Plus, HBO Max, Discovery Plus, CBS Sports, TNT Sports, Bleacher Report, CBS News, CNN, CNN en Español, HLN. I'm almost done here. CNN International, Warner Brothers, Discovery, Paramount International Channels. And then a variety of production companies are all about to be under the control of one family, the Ellisons.

15:27Scott Galloway:Your thoughts. Wondered where you were going with that. And listen, I don't have much to say. You know, I run this company and I've been doing that for close to 13 years. You're an iconic leader. What would you say to the FTC and the DOJ right now? Do you think this is good for the media ecosystem to have all these brands under control of one family? Look, I think I care a lot about work that is kind of first human-made, creative, expressive work that drives our culture. And that includes news and includes the work of all the companies you just named. And I am for whatever conditions are going to allow that work to flourish.

16:15You know, what the control structures are, who sits atop of them. I'm sort of, you know, not spending a whole lot of time thinking about that. You know, I do care a lot about news in particular in that context, and I am for a very healthy market of other news competitors. And that's good for the Times, good for journalism, obviously good for the public.

16:41Scott Galloway:I'm not sure what to take from that. Does this consolidation worry you or you just think it kind of plays out the way it plays out? I think what I'm really saying is I have not spent a whole lot of time thinking about, nor is it my work to think about how that will affect the Times business. I am intently focused on how the Times can keep hiring journalists, deploying those journalists in ways that help them get to the best work and making the other extraordinary lifestyle products we make. And, you know, that's where my focus is. I'm sure there are other people at the Times, including our media reporters, who will have a lot more to say about that.

17:23Scott Galloway:We'll be right back after a quick break.

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19:49Scott Galloway:Support for the show comes from VCX, the public ticker for private tech. For generations, American companies have moved the world forward to their ingenuity and determination. And for generations, everyday Americans could be part of that journey through perhaps the greatest innovation of all, the U.S. stock market. It didn't matter whether you were a factory worker in Detroit or a farmer in Omaha. Anyone could own a piece of the great American companies. But now that's changed. Today, our most innovative companies are staying private rather than going public. The result is that everyday Americans are excluded from investing and getting left further behind, while a select few reap all the benefits.

20:22Scott Galloway:Until now. Introducing VCX, the public ticker for private tech. VCX by Fundrise gives everyone the opportunity to invest in the next generation of innovation, including the companies leading the AI revolution, space exploration, defense tech, and more. Visit GetVCX.com for more info. That's GetVCX.com. Carefully consider the investment material before investing, including objectives, rischarges, and expenses. This and other information can be found in the Funds Perspectives at GetVCX.com. This is a paid sponsorship.

20:59Scott Galloway:One of the things I use AI for the most is I don't use it to write. I find that, you know, I thought my next book, I would just put in a very thoughtful prompt and boom, I'd have my next book. Get a book out of it. Yeah, and it isn't panning out that way. I find that so far, it's kind of all chip no salsa, that there's no real voice there. It sounds like what it is, and that a computer wrote it. But at the same time, I do use it a lot for editing and for fact-checking. If you were to estimate what employment or the number of people will be, not only just the New York Times newsroom, but other big newsrooms, do you think AI, what do you think the impact of AI is?

21:39Because I have generally found that it is, it does, while it doesn't replace the written word or your ability to write, it does, in fact, increase efficiency.

21:50Scott Galloway:What are you thinking in the back of your head? What is the size of the newsroom right now? Where do you see it in two or three years? So 2 ,300 people in the kind of core newsroom working on what you think of as coming from the New York Times proper, and then 3 ,000 total, including the 500-plus journalists, The Athletic and the journalists working at Wirecutter and Cooking and so forth. So roughly 3 ,000 people. Let me say, I feel very strongly, and again, I run a public company and I say this to everyone who will listen, I don't think the sort of core, you know, the work at the essence of what journalism is meant to do and sports journalism and shopping advice and high quality recipes and even the production of games.

22:44I think that's like first and foremost a human endeavor, you know, by humans for humans. And I'll just say, I don't think people talk enough about the idea that, you know, what is it that journalists do? They, reporters go out into the world and with expertise in the domain that they're covering, they unearth new facts and they, you know, work with editors to make sure they do that in as full a way as possible. And then they, you know, they bear witness to things, sometimes in very difficult circumstances. They bear witness to important things that are happening that the public should know about.

23:28And then they translate that with sensitivity and judgment and a very careful professional process in a way that's meant to get people to understanding. And you've got human beings like in all parts of that equation. And I certainly think that technology, including AI, will help make parts of that. To your point about what's going to help you write your book, it will help make parts of that. you know, go better, maybe be more efficient. But I don't think it replaces the sort of thing at the core that we're doing. That is certainly true for high-quality independent journalism. I think it is also true when you think about sports journalism.