Credible content in an age of AI

01 · Thinking

Shifting challenges

My work in the 2000s, both as a columnist at the Wall Street Journal and as a consultant, was about overcoming our phobia of tech.Now we’re in a place where we need to think about how much tech we want to allow into our lives — our workplace, our company, our messaging, our products, our processes.AI complicates that in ways we are just beginning to take note of. How much space should we allow
AI to work on our behalf, and what should we keep control of?Journalists and journalism, although an industry in steep decline, offer a roadmap and a template: to distinguish AI thinking from human thinking, and to be able critically assess what AI presents to us.Hence the cleft stick: it’s both the earliest form of messaging and the dilemma: whether to reap AI's benefits without regard for the consequences, or slow down until we've assessed the danger. Or something in between.I don't pretend to have the answers, but understanding the questions helps us frame our own futures, as individuals, institutions, companies, governments, communities, professions.Cleft Stick is just me: half journalist, half counsellor, understanding the very human issues we are facing a quarter of the way into the 21st century.

Training and mentoringI've worked with PR teams helping them understand how best to work with journalists, how to write press releases and opeds, and in more recent years how to avoid the pitfalls of AI-generated research and content.

Managing outward-facing contentI've helped internal teams from blue chip companies devise and create compelling and useful content that matches the real needs of clients and potential customers.

Make the complex simpleI help clients find new and more interesting ways of telling their story and explaining what they do.
In recent years this has expanded to include crafting messaging to avoid the appearance of AI-generated content.

Cleft StickCleft Stick refers to a device used by runners in the pre-telegraph days to carry messages, letters and news. Among journalists it’s best known as one item of equipment carried by Evelyn Waugh’s William Boot on his reporting trip to Africa in Scoop. (He was advised to “take plenty”. He didn’t use any.)

Loose WireThe Loose Wire blog is one of tech journalism’s first, running since 2001. It collects Jeremy's writings for the Journal, The Far Eastern Economic Review, BBC and Reuters, as well as pieces he writes for his own network. The name is taken from Jeremy’s WSJ column.

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