0:00
Why is Steven Bartlett launching his own
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So, it's interesting. We've seen quite a
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retreat from uh tech news journalism in
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Europe and in the UK this year. Um the
0:12
big US news outlet TechCrunch shut their
0:15
UK and Europe newsroom. Uh there was a a
0:19
a tech news startup called Digital
0:22
Frontier which closed down this year. We
0:25
also saw cutbacks at Business Insider,
0:28
including some tech reporters. So Steven
0:30
Bartlett, he's sort of one of the best
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known entrepreneurs in the UK. And
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perhaps he's spotted an opportunity.
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He's seen there are fewer tech
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journalists in the market compared to a
0:39
year ago. And he thinks maybe this is a
0:41
hole that I can fill. And it seems as
0:43
though he's planning to hire 10
0:45
journalists, half of them in the UK, the
0:47
other half in the US. And he's going to
0:49
try and fill that space and create a new
0:51
tech news brand. and maybe that news
0:53
brand will sort of build his own brand
0:56
alongside sort of promoting some of his
0:58
own investments and ventures.
0:59
I didn't know he could build his brand
1:01
any further than he already has done.
1:02
Why have we seen like this massive spate
1:05
of closures in uh especially sort of
1:08
London tech coverage all those places
1:12
closing down when tech is sort of the
1:14
biggest thing going at the moment.
1:17
I think AI has definitely played a role
1:19
in that in two respects. uh one
1:22
obviously some firms particularly sort
1:24
of more tech orientated ones seeing ways
1:27
they can use AI to sort of streamline
1:29
their workflows and maybe that means
1:30
they don't need as many staff but I
1:32
think the other thing has been much of
1:34
the AI story at least in the western
1:36
world has been led by the US much of the
1:38
reader interest has been in the US and
1:40
there is a kind of reader obsession with
1:43
mag seven companies that is the the big
1:45
seven tech companies in the US and I
1:48
suspect a lot of sort of big um US tech
1:52
editors are looking at their traffic.
1:54
They've seen that this year so much of
1:56
it has come from the coverage of just a
1:58
handful of US tech firms. And maybe
2:00
they've they've spotted an opportunity
2:02
to cut costs and just think, well, is it
2:04
worth covering these European tech firms
2:06
when everyone's just reading about the