Shanghai: ENEX’s first conference in Asia took place against the spectacular backdrop of China’s most populous mega-city.  Two days of intensive discussions and debates about the future of media and the challenges and opportunities of reporting in China were enjoyed by the more than 70 delegates.  You can’t have a journalism conference without talking about AI and the 31^st ENEX General Assembly was dominated by the topic.   Behind the talk of regulation and whether newsrooms should adopt Generative AI, many newsrooms are pushing ahead.  Mark Egan, from Purple Bridge Media, a top AI coach, trainer and consultant gave the ENEX assembly an overview of which organisations have already put in place AI assisted workflows and the opportunities it has opened for increasing the diversity of output across multiple platforms.  A great example was found in the newsroom of ENEX’s co-hosts, Shanghai Media Group (SMG) which makes parts of its output available in multiple languages translated and voiced by AI technology.

Jamie Angus, COO of Al Arabiya hosted a further panel on whether there is threat or a commercial opportunity for broadcasters and publishers protecting or selling rights to their IP to Large Language Model (LLMs) companies looking to train their AI?  Some English language entities like the New York Times have threatened to sue AI companies from ‘crawling’ their websites.  Alternatively, other companies such as Axel Springer in Germany and the Associated Press have sought to reach commercial deals with LLMs.  How will non-English speaking publishers be affected? 

Madhav Chinnappa former Google executive and now Vice President for Human Native AI argued for the media industry to quickly develop a strategy. Graham Lovelace a writer and expert on the subject contributed via zoom, drawing on the news from his own highly successful substack blog on the issue https://grahamlovelace.substack.com/  Aleksandra Subotic, CEO of United Media Group, which owns news entities across South East Europe including the successful N1 news channels in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina, said her organisation was nervous about which media outlets would be crawled in Serbia where most media is aligned with the government. 

Lastly, on the theme of AI, Simon Hof, RTL Germany, Aslaug Henriksen, TV2 Norway and Tristan Noblia, Telefe Argentina, compared notes on how their organisations are rising to meet the challenge of AI. Panel moderator, Mark Egan referred to the EBU’s excellent recent report about trusted media in the age of AI.

https://www.ebu.ch/guides/open/report/news-report-2024-trusted-journalism-in-the-age-of-generative-ai

Last year’s ENEX General Assembly held in Luxembourg was disrupted by the October 7^th massacre of Israeli residents in Kibutzim near Gaza. Arad Nir, International Editor of Channel 12 News Israel spoke via zoom into the 2023 conference as the full horror of the attacks became clear.  Since then, some 60,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed as Israeli forces have moved into Gaza and destroyed much of it.   A new front has opened in Lebanon as Israeli forces look to disable Hezbollah.  Somewhat forgotten has been the plight of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. Niva Verkert, whose son is one of the captives, joined Arad and moderator ENEX Head of News, Mark Evans to discuss the situation.

Every year the ENEX GA discusses topics relevant to the location of the event. China is one of the most challenging stories for news organisations to cover with most news providers unable to support their own reporters and cameramen in Beijing.  ENEX supplies Chinese video to its members from those few companies who do support bureaux in the country. ENEX has also been fortunate to receive footage from Shanghai Media Group’s journalists who upload material to the ENEX video distribution platforms daily. 

Just a few days before the conference, Shanghai fell victim to a violent tropical Typhoon which saw widespread floods and disruption.  ENEX also takes special video material from CCTV+ to support its coverage of China especially focusing on business and technology.

Visa permissions are not always available for journalists who want to report in China.  Steven Jiang, CNN China Bureau Chief told the conference that far fewer foreign journalists are now based in China than 5 years ago. The panel covered many of the frequent themes of reporting the world’s second superpower and was completed by John Ruwitch, International Correspondent for NPR and Leonard ‘Bud’ Pratt a long-time China journalist and business expert who has collaborated on projects with SMG. 

Continuing with China, a special session looked at the emerging dominance of Chinese manufactured electric vehicles.  More than 200 manufacturers are involved in EV production in China. The new variants have huge range are quick charging and incorporate many advanced smart technologies.  So successful has the sector been that both the European Union and the United States are considering imposing large tariffs on the sector as the price point for comparable EU or US built cars is much higher. 

Kevin Chen, Global PR Director of Geely Holding Group (owner of Volvo, Polestar etc) hoped their manufacturing bases within the European Union would help offset the effect of tariffs if they were imposed.  Weisi Xie, Director of the Economist Intelligence Group Shanghai, explained the supply chain advantages open to Chinese EV car makers. The panel was expertly chaired by Yin Fan, a leading business presenter for SMG.

On the final day of the meeting, delegates had the chance to experience the thrills of driving some of the latest Chinese made EVs when they visited the design and research headquarters of SAIC owner of the MG brand.  ENEX attendees were allowed to test drive several new models including the new MG Cyberster sports car:
https://www.shanghaieye.cn/detail?postId=123993

Tim Singleton, Head of International News, Sky News UK, interviewed Fin Gomez, Political Director of CBS News.  Gomez dialled in via zoom in the late evening from Washington DC where he spoke about the forthcoming Vice-Presidential debate and which way momentum was turning in the race.

Last, but certainly not least, Jo Schmaltz, Advisor to ENEX outlined an exciting new initiative called the Media Innovation Exchange which looks to pair the very best and latest technologies with ENEX’s own technical experts. So much of news production and innovation is today led by technology and the sector changes rapidly.

This new programme will allow technology mangers and newsroom directors to make sense of which trends and technologies are taking hold and how they can help them improve their output and achieve more effective workflows. Two ‘taster sessions’ were included with Jeff Kofman, CEO and Founder of Trint and Mansoor Ahmed, CEO of Open Origins.

An ENEX meeting could not wrap up without ENEX itself bringing its membership up to date with ENEX’s own company news and future plans.