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Over the years, this nocturnal briefing note has tried to give you reasons to believe in the Free Press, to trust in journalism, to offer hope that truth still matters.
And as much as I have looked to give you that faith, that trust and that hope, I’ve also had to look for reasons to reaffirm my own faith, trust and hope.
That ongoing personal quest led me to a crystal ball from the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford. In its latest report, Journalism and Technology Trends and Predictions 2026, I worried I might not make it past the executive summary.
“Existential challenges abound. Declining engagement for traditional media combined with low trust is leading many politicians, businessmen, and celebrities to conclude that they can bypass the media entirely, giving interviews instead to sympathetic podcasters or YouTubers,’’ warned the report released Monday.
“This Trump 2.0 playbook — now widely copied around the world — often comes bundled with a barrage of intimidating legal threats against publishers and continuing attempts to undermine trust by branding independent media and individual journalists as ‘fake news’. These narratives are finding fertile ground with audiences — especially younger ones — that prefer the convenience of accessing news from platforms, and have weaker connections with traditional news brands.
“Meanwhile search engines are turning into AI-driven answer engines, where content is surfaced in chat windows, raising fears that referral traffic for publishers could dry up, undermining existing and future business models.”
All this and I was only at page 3!
But I read on, bracing myself as the report detailed the ways technology titans and shifts are upending the news industry by “offering more efficient ways of accessing and distilling information at scale.”
In short order, I started to find the inspiration I needed.
“When social media platforms are flooded with fake news and toxic content, it’s the right time for journalism to prove its value,” was the quote offered by Le Quoc Minh, editor-in-chief at the Nhan Dan Newspaper in Vietnam.
That was followed up by this one from Edward Roussel, head of digital at The Times: “As AI sweeps the world, there will be growing demand for human-checked, high-quality journalism.”
By the time I got to the conclusion, there was a way forward for me, the Free Press and you.
“Big tech platforms remain in the driving seat, armed with new tools that can aggregate and remix content in ways that often look like magic. But the platforms do not hold all the cards — at least when it comes to news and information.
“Not all content can be easily summarized. Reliable news, human stories, and points of view remain important both to individuals and to society. Trust matters, as does the experience of consuming news, including connection with others.”
The cards the Free Press hold include content that cannot be easily summarized by AI, the human stories we deliver daily and the points of view not limited by any echo chamber.
The cards we will continue to play are ones that build on a legacy of trust and the connection we have made with readers via this newsletter — written not by some avatar or chatbot but by me, a real person who cares about our city and province, just like you.
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