Local news is no laughing matter, but a new sitcom could be just what it needs
A mockumentary from the writers of The Office? Colour me interested, especially if it points out the real laugh-or-cry aspects of modern publishing.
Commissioning a spin-off show from the comedy masterpiece that is The Office might seem a risky thing to do, not least given the time passed since the original UK version in 2001 and the Netflix-popping 2005-onward US version.
When I heard, I was lukewarm.
Then I heard it's to be set in a newspaper office, and I and countless other newsroom veterans were straight into search mode to learn more. My immediate question was, is this great news for publishers, or terrible?
The planned spin-off, as announced this week, is to be set in the office of a Midwestern newspaper in the United States, forced by financial circumstance to use volunteer reporters to fill its ranks.
The conceit is that the documentary team who captured all those moments at Dunder Mifflin have now found new material at a struggling historic news publication.
Reading that, I feel there is more than a grain of truth in the premise, which is being played out in media organisations around the world.
For the totem of the struggling local newspaper, one could presently locate it pretty much anywhere. Personally I have a lot of love for the Midwest, due to a partner who hails from there and my subsequent travels around America's heartland. There's a straightforwardness about the people there which I think will translate well to good comedy in the sense that all the best humour imitates real life, and they are as real as it gets.
While volunteer reporters aren't yet a common staffing solution out in the wild, they are becoming moreso. After all, nowadays anyone with a smartphone can be a reporter and any major news event typically begins its blossom across consciousness on the back of smartphone footage.
It's quite possible that the volunteer reporter aspect of the new show will cause people to think about what participation in local media can mean. I hope they are not used as cheap laugh fodder, and in fact show that the best stories literally do sometimes just walk in the door.
Where The Office had its greatest moments was where the truth shone through, and characters showed their most human sides. Local news stories are more human than any other.
Speaking as a reporter who has variously been through the trash of an illicit arms dealer, and sat in a field watching a crooked politician's house through binoculars, there's plenty that proper reporters do which verges on hilarity. I am confident that by merely telling it as it is, humour will spring.
What might prove harder to lampoon with a positive spin – but equally, can be told without embellishment and still prompt audience reaction – are some of the other absurd realities of modern news reporting, viz many of the links below beneath the fold: the obligation to jump to Google’s tune, the likelihood someone else will take your work and profit from it more than you, and the diminished control over their own fate many titles have.
Just this week, this tale from Barry Adams seems to me to be peak ironic comedy: a site penalised by Google for being too good at SEO. If that isn’t a plotline, I don’t know what is.
It's a challenge to think of those kinds of plotlines without being annoyed or going to the absurd. Anyway, what would absurdity look like in a world where Google's recent Helpful Content Update has proven to be one of the most unhelpful things to see the light of day since someone proposed asbestos as a building material.
I think that in choosing such a setting, the writers of The Office (US version) Greg Daniels and Michael Koman could be doing publishers a favour, albeit one which might be at times awkward to watch.
Anything that brings some focus to the difficulties local news publications find themselves in is to be welcomed.
Maybe people will reflect, even momentarily, on what they're losing as many of the local sources that bring coherence to communities wither on the vine. And, how they can be part of the solution more effectively than ever before.
What better asset for a publication to have than a motivated readership?
One final thought. The Office depicts a world in which the humour is generated by diverse personalities being all under one roof. Ideas are generated like that too, and in an age of WFH, this new spin-off might remind us of the benefits of being around our co-workers. Especially if you like your staplers in jello.
Anyway, on with the edition…
Open AI: "Even we can't really detect AI images very well..."
It's likely you have trained yourself to spot AI-generated images, and also that you've been fooled many a time. Don't worry - it's not just you, even OpenAI struggles to tell what's real and what's not any more. The stats came out while it was announcing a new AI detection toolset for public use, with the caveat that, err... it works some of the time.
https://www.engadget.com/openai-says-it-can-detect-images-made-by-its-own-software-mostly-170012976.html
Publish and be scanned?
The future version of the "story based on real events" attestation may well be the stamp that it is not created by AI. Author RR Haywood has come up with a marketing gimmick and valid reaction against artificially generated dross. His latest novel in the Zombie Apocalypse genre carries a guarantee that "This book was authored by Richard Haywood and not generated by any machine or artificial intelligence." Will it be a badge newspapers and sites start to wear with pride?
https://the-european.eu/story-34736/worlds-first-book-with-no-ai-warranty-set-to-transform-global-publishing-industry.html
Core update continues to shred publishers
Updates to Google Search have little good news for publishers. The latest Core Update is surmised in Press Gazette: "Of 70 leading news publishers tracked by Press Gazette ... all but 15 saw falls in their visibility score. Of those, almost half saw declines in the double-digits.”
https://pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/first-google-core-update-of-2024-brings-bad-news-for-most-news-publishers/
Impact analysis
Search Engine Land are also on the case, using Semrush data to suggest the unhelpful Helpful Content Update of September 2023 is now partly undone by the latest update. So, what was good content a few months ago is now not good according to the arbiters at Mountain View. Confusion reigns in editorial meetings; sitcom writers rub their hands as this joke writes itself.
https://searchengineland.com/google-march-2024-core-update-key-observations-440148
Yes, you really can be too good at SEO
Aside from the sheer lack of clarity around what Google wants any more, what other risks does its emergent role as Global Editor-in-Chief of Everything present? SEO spotlight Barry Adams is already seeing good sites be penalised for essentially doing exactly what Google says they should do. In Google NuEditor Speak, building a site that adheres to Google's own advice is now a crime of sorts.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/barryadams_since-march-ive-been-monitoring-2500-coupon-focused-activity-7193588119986733056-F5U-/
To dance or not to dance?
US publisher Dotdash Meredith is the latest big name publisher to sign a content use deal with OpenAI. Axios believes the move is incentivised by ad income linked to search queries being extra vulnerable to AI-generated content. With legal action still ongoing against OpenAI by the NYT and others, it's quite the hold 'em or fold 'em moment in publishing.
https://www.axios.com/2024/05/07/openai-dotdash-meredith-licensing-deal
Join us: Vercel Ship ‘24 Watch Party, May 23rd, Copenhagen
Vercel, 10up, Glide Publishing Platform and Fueled have teamed up to host the Ship 2024 Watch Party in Copenhagen. Enjoy food, drinks, and networking as Vercel introduces their latest products and discusses the future of AI-native user experiences and building composable web applications.
Get the details and register: https://vercel.com/go/ship-2024-watch-party-in-copenhagen
Real or fake, you decide
As OpenAI admit even they can't detect artificially generated images with total accuracy, and the push for some global standard of image and video veracity starts to slowly turn its wheels, you can see how finely tuned your own AI detection filter is by taking the BBC's monthly quiz.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zp4qs82
“We respect the choices of creators and content owners on AI.”
OpenAI has published (assumedly using real people) its position on stolen content creator's rights in its version of the brave new world of creative endeavour. Like a mafia enforcer knocking at the door with a bat and a smile, it has created a handy tool for writers to use to mark up their work and assign it (or not) into the LLM training vats. It sustains their apparent view that you're being unfair to try and keep your creations out of their reach. Neil Turkewitz investigates.
https://medium.com/@nturkewitz_56674/openai-releases-our-approach-to-content-and-data-in-the-age-of-ai-lets-look-under-the-hood-49d7fc052432
A reminder of why they want your content
Last week we reported on suggestions that OpenAI will launch a pure search product. Here's more on how it would work. Essentially, the better your site, the more likely it could be to be pillaged for the best info, including illustrations and graphics.
https://www.engadget.com/openai-is-reportedly-working-on-a-search-feature-for-chatgpt-101118170.html
Woops! I deleted the file...
As the Google Anti Trust trial draws to a close, harsh words for the firm after it managed to terribly accidentally delete troves of chatlogs which might be relevant to claims it has monopolistic business practices.
https://www.techspot.com/news/102874-doj-alleges-google-destroyed-hundreds-thousands-chats-antitrust.html