Is A.I. A Threat or an Opportunity for Canadian Newsrooms?
7/10/202632 min
Canadian newsrooms are hesitant to embrace A.I. but new tools offer the potential to revolutionize workflows and expand the capacity of individual journalists. Rather than a threat to journalism, Kevin Newman joins Julian Abraham to explain why A.I. should be viewed as an opportunity for newsrooms to create new business models and do more in-depth reporting.
Host: Julian Abraham
Credits: James Nicholson (Producer), Kallan Lyons (Associate Producer and Fact Checking), Caleb Thompson (Mixing and Mastering), Tristan Capacchione (Senior Production Supervisor), Jesse Brown (Editor)
Guest: Kevin Newman
Photo: igovar igovar
Additional music by Audio Network
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If you’re a journalism student or audio storyteller looking to gain some invaluable experience, this is a really unique opportunity. Find out more:
https://www.labs.canadaland.com/
Further reading:
- Journalists pushing AI into newsrooms are practicing terrible journalism - Halifax Examiner
- The way I briefed myself six months ago is now laughably obsolete - Alex Panetta [Substack]
- AskLaura.ai - AI Fact Checking
- ABC will trial using AI for journalism. What are the risks and benefits? - The Conversation
- AI in Canadian newsrooms: media engaging cautiously - J-Source
- Empowering newsrooms with AI and advanced technologies - Reuters
- Opinion | The Star tried something with AI it had never done before. Then, we pumped the brakes. Here's why - Toronto Star
- The New York Times Got Caught Using AI Hallucinations in Its Reporting | The Walrus
- Iran Is Trolling Us and We’re Not Doing Anything About It - The New York Times
- ‘Horrendous’ Toronto police scandal allegations linked to Ryan Wedding cocaine case in new Project South documents - Toronto Star
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 1· Soundbite0:00
[whistles] Canadaland, funded by you.
Julian Abraham· Host0:03
[upbeat music] I'm Julian Abraham, and today we're talking shit about the news. We'll talk about Lego Mark Carney. We'll talk about the Project South Ryan Wedding crossover story we've all been waiting for. But mostly we'll talk AI fear and loathing, not in Las Vegas, but Canadian newsrooms.
Kevin Newman· Guest0:27
The big traditional legacy media businesses, they do not know how to innovate. They are cautious, they're afraid, and they don't know that a lifeline is being thrown to them right now in, in the form of AI.
Julian Abraham· Host0:38
Wait for that. [upbeat music] Quick note before the show. If you're listening to this on Friday, this is the last call to apply for the 2026 Canadaland Audio Journalism Fellowship. Check the show notes for more details, but this is a really special kind of opening. It's not an internship. It's a paid opportunity to pitch, develop, and produce your own original piece of audio journalism and have a chance to have it heard by our nationwide audience. One of our recent fellows, Callan Lyons, now actually works on the show. She put out not too long ago an amazing piece of audio journalism. It's one of my favorite things we've aired in the last year. It's called The Fantasia Cold Case. It's just as spooky and full of mystique as it sounds. Got some amazing sound design.