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The Vanderbilt Business Review recently invited four people from various parts of the journalism industry to a speaker event open to the whole campus. One of the questions we asked them was “How do you predict the journalism industry will change in the future?” Each speaker gave their own opinions supported by their experiences:
Davis Winkie
Winkie is a White House reporter for USA TODAY covering nuclear threats and national security. There are two phenomena that he observed while being closely involved in the journalism industry. First, there are fewer people working in the journalism industry compared to 20 years ago. Additionally, with the development of online platforms of news, local news, especially news in rural communities, is declining.
In terms of the change of the industry in the future, Winkie expressed his firm belief in a non-profit model for journalism which would be supported by the readers. He questioned the current business model in the media industry and mentioned the collaborations that he has had with nonprofit organizations, such as ProPublica and Texas Tribute. Winkie thinks that nonprofit journalism is the best hope for preserving investigative reporting and its role in keeping those in power accountable.
Winkie also does not believe that AI can replace human reporting. He suggested that a major difference between humans and AI is that humans have the willingness and ability to take risks, push the rules, and cross lines. “Those of us who will succeed,” Winkie said, “are going to be those of us who know when to roll the dice and often get it right when they do.”
Ty Trippet
In his prior role at Bloomberg News before becoming Bloomberg LP’s spokesman, Trippet’s job was to work with journalists and promote their work. He agreed with Winkie that the non-profit model would be powerful for the industry.
Trippet also discussed that the increase of fake news has been problematic in the journalism industry and there is a rising desire to seek factual information. He mentioned, “people are really dying for facts now more than ever and deciphering facts is harder now more than ever.” He cited the fake X post that said President Trump would potentially pause tariffs for 90 days and the market chaos that followed as an instance of pervasive misinformation. At Bloomberg, Trippet says they’re attempting to fulfill the desire for facts by “trying to bring transparency to markets.”
Eric Snyder
Snyder is the editor in chief of the Nashville Business Journal. He believes that the most influential force in the journalism industry is artificial intelligence. However, Snyder was not confident that AI will have that large of an effect on the industry, sharing, “I have a hard time hypothesizing the extent to which AI is going to transform journalism.” He views this technology as less of a threat than the change from print journalism to online news and predicted that the extent of AI’s influence will not be of the same proportion.
Snyder did mention advantages of AI in journalism, like covering events in news deserts such as a rural area’s city council meeting or high school football game. He expressed that this would not be ideal, but it is better than not having any news in these instances.
Synder also predicted that there will be “an appetite for more human centric journalism” and he meant that in two different directions. Firstly, he referred to the type of journalism where human presence is necessary. Examples of solo journalism like Substack and Joe Rogan-style podcasts proves the demand for storytelling from a person. The other direction of demand he predicted is for the stories that capture the nuances of lived experiences and articulate “inner dialogues” and “social realities.”
Doug MacMillan
MacMillan is a reporter for the Washington Post on the business and tech investigations team. He explained how the techniques of developing sources and searching for information subtly has not yet been acquired by robots. “I don’t think a robot can do all of this.” He continued, “I don’t think that robots, AI is going to figure out how to do investigative journalism, at least not in my lifetime, at least hopefully not in your guys’ lifetime.”
MacMillan advised us to develop skills in journalism that are unique to ourselves and could not be replaced by others or AI: “My advice is try to figure out some way that you can bring your own skills to bear on either investigative journalism or narrative storytelling. Things that are going to be hard to replace because it is going to be important, and definitely a lot of journalists’ jobs are gonna be threatened.”
