#38 - Andrii Degeler, Head of News at Dealroom, Founder of Unzip Media: On the Future of Journalism, The Impact of AI and Why News Are Becoming Data

If news is becoming data, what's left for journalists to do? How is AI changing media and journalism? We sat down with Andrii Degeler, one of the journalists in startup and VC media looking at this most closely. Andrii has been covering the European tech ecosystem for 19 years. He started in Ukraine reviewing smartphones, hustled his way into The Next Web, spent years at Tech.eu, and now serves as Head of News at Dealroom, where he's building a journalistic operation on top of one of Europe's most important startup data platforms. He also founded Unzip Media, a project dedicated to understanding what's happening inside the media industry. JJ and Mauro sat down with Andrii at TechChill 2026 in Riga, in collaboration with Unzip Media (thanks for the cameras! Look for a video version on YouTube), for a frank conversation about the forces reshaping journalism and European tech media. We discuss: 📰 Why a growing share of "news" is actually structured data, and how that changes the newsroom 🪦 The European tech media brands that have disappeared and what's filling the gap (are they like for like replacements?) 🤖 The most dystopian scenario for journalism in the AI era... *suspense* 📉 Lessons from the Facebook pivot-to-video era and why media risks repeating the same mistake with AI 💸 Why the Substack model has a hard ceiling... with subscription fatigue is already biting 🏢 Building editorial independence inside a brand: how Dealroom News approaches integrity... is this model the future? 🔧 Andrii's real AI workflow as a journalist and editor (including why he's a Claude user) 📊 Making daily data reels and why Andrii is "in love" with Dealroom's dataset Give it a listen. Follow Andrii on LinkedIn and check out Dealroom News for his latest reporting. His personal site is shlema.me. More links below. 🔗 EPISODE LINKS: Episode on video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40kiFwmp7Io Andrii Degeler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shlema/ Andrii's website: https://shlema.me Dealroom News: https://app.dealroom.co/news Unzip Media: https://unzip.media/ ================================================================= Thanks for listening! For more, follow us on LinkedIn. Runway is a podcast started by Black Unicorn PR co-founders Julija Jegorova and Mauro Battellini to help startup founders, company builders and business leaders with insights, tools and advice from specialists in sales, marketing, PR and more. Black Unicorn PR is a London-based tech PR agency focused on startups, scaleups and VC. For more information visit: https://www.blackunicornpr.com/ For even more advice, especially on PR, visit the Black Unicorn PR blog