You know, there are times in fact that I think is a great evil or has potential to be, but I am also really energized by the possibility when paired with the perspective that I come at it with, which is sort of from a responsible use point of view.
TVSPY: So you developed an interest in it, started using it, became seen as the person who was the AI person. How did Scripps go from, “Yeah, that’s kind of a cool little tool that we’re using” to, we need to build a department around it.
Hartman: Yeah. I mean, so there’s no way around the fact that macroeconomic conditions have to be a driving consideration for almost any company trying to engage in developing an AI strategy and trying to understand what AI means for their businesses.
I would say any business that isn’t thinking about that in a really intentional way is making a big mistake. That having been said, you know, Scripps formed the transformation office, which is, overall, looking at the company through the lens of people, process and and technology.
We’re at a place as an organization where through the course of acquisitions we have a number of different systems in use across the organization. And it puts a drag on our operational efficiency.
And so AI as a pillar of the transformation office is how that rolls up. I have a partner, Kerry Oslund. We both report to Laura Tomlin, who is the chief transformation officer. And then reporting to me is Keith St. Peter, our director of Newsroom AI, who is focused very specifically on applications and possibilities in our newsroom.
But Kerry and I are focused on the enterprise.
TVSPY: Got it. It popped in my head while you were talking, that I know Scripps laid off a large chunk of people recently. Is this all kind of part of a reworking of how local news gets done?
Hartman: Scripps implemented the news initiative a couple of years ago to rethink how we produce news.
It came with an investment in more news gathering, manpower, people power. We hired a couple hundred mmjs in all of our markets and streamlined the production piece of our news operations. You know, look, the margins of the television business are changing. The viewing habits are changing and everybody should be thinking about changing the way we do business. Scripps made the choice very intentionally to put more resources into original reporting as sort of the investment choice and then leveraging technology where possible to streamline.
Is that because of AI? No, that was long before anybody except for AI researchers were talking about AI. That was both the economics and the audiences are changing in the business, and so should the business model.
TVSPY: ·Speaking to that, you know, the first thing people think of when they think of AI is, of course, am I gonna lose my job? How do you see AI working in a newsroom?