Dwayne Desaulniers
Founder, NewsStand.ai
Reinventing old story formats through new tech
Dwayne Desaulniers has worked in journalism for more than four decades.
He began his career in Canada before becoming a foreign correspondent for the Standard Broadcasting Corporation during the first Gulf War in the mid-1990s. Most recently, he focused on using technology to produce new types of journalism using Web3, blockchain, and data at the Associated Press.
He is now the founder of NewsStand.ai, an innovation studio that researches revenue-generating applications from emerging technologies.
By Robert Davis
All of the changes in journalism that we’ve seen over the last decade or more can be summed up in one word: Google. When you can get the world’s knowledge in a quarter of a second, that resets the expectation for news and journalism.
I grew up working in newsrooms like CJD Radio in Montreal, Canada, when I was 18 years old. I eventually became the bureau chief at Standard Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto and Ottawa. I wanted to become a journalist because of the social impact and community service the job promised, and it gave me the ability to do something new every day. That’s what was so appealing about it to me.
I moved over to the office side of the newsroom in the mid-1990s. That’s where I fell in love with technology.
I’d say my interest in blockchain now is primarily professional. I did not enter the space or begin learning about blockchain for personal reasons; I didn’t buy crypto or non-fungible tokens in the 2010s. I was very skeptical that a parallel economy and currency could be created at scale. So, there was actually personal disinterest!
In my role at the Associated Press, my job was to develop business. In 2020, through conversations, reading and research, I thought it would be a good investment of time to understand and consider blockchain technology and its culture drivers as a potential economic opportunity for the AP. I do have a deep, underlying appreciation of the transformative impact of tech, so I’m always open to new things, but certainly in this case, my motivation was professional and not personal.
Blockchain’s Impact on Journalism
As a company, the AP had generally jumped all over new technology that could improve either news gathering or distribution, and then they’ve tried to understand how the technology can help further the company’s mission.
Blockchain is built on an immutable ledger, meaning that no one can change anything that is published on it. The AP published election results on the blockchain before. We also considered publishing some of our Ukraine war-crime research on the blockchain to preserve it. That is really intriguing, but I think it is too dangerous to publish the regular wire on the blockchain. There’s just too many mistakes, corrections, and stuff like that. I don’t think we’re ready for full news reports yet.
Blockchain also gives us a new way of connecting with news consumers. Consumers can actually own a piece of the news if it is sold as a non-fungible token (NFT). We sold a few photos using the same process, and the AP would theoretically receive a cut of the sale and all future transactions as well. The revenue implications are certainly interesting.
Blockchain technology can also help us build “communities” with readers. Before the AP launched its NFT photo series, the company held a Twitter Spaces call with potential buyers. It was fascinating to see the interaction and how a bond formed between the newsroom and the audience. The people who participated were primarily young, mission-oriented, and wanted to change the world. That’s a great audience to reach.
A New Kind of Journalism Community
We’ve also learned that if you’re going to invite a community, you need to be prepared to work with the community as a whole. You need to be present and respond quickly. So, there are scaling challenges there. Right now, it seems like a fancy word for great customer service, and it requires twice as many resources.
Any journalist coming out of J-school should have a sense of data science or statistical management. These are skills that just weren’t necessary when I was in newsrooms.
For all the good that blockchain can provide to journalism, it also presents a lot of challenges. One example is financial management. We collect cryptocurrencies when we sell our photos as NFTs, but what do we do with that? When do we convert it into fiat currency?
That’s a really practical concern. Most digital wallets that store cryptocurrency are designed for individual users, not companies. It also costs money every time something is minted on the blockchain, so there are issues there as well.
Blockchain isn’t some shiny object that is going to save the industry, but companies need to at least become familiar with it. It’s already influenced the technical aptitude of journalists, and any journalist coming out of J-school should have a sense of data science or statistical management. These are skills that just weren’t necessary when I was in newsrooms, but they’re becoming increasingly important now.
I also think this technology will unlock new ways to tell news stories. Devices like Meta’s Oculus are already giving people new ways of experiencing and getting emotions out of events. It’s going to be really interesting to develop a technology that gives people a much more immersive experience into an actual event.