S8E5 - From Deadlines to Data: A Journalist's Guide to AI Without Losing Your Judgement

My guest is  Harriet Meyer — award-winning journalist (The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph), AI trainer, and author of the AI for Media newsletter on LinkedIn.Harriet Meyer's career began in the early 2000s at the Daily Telegraph, chasing stories by phone and lunching with contacts. Today she trains media and communications professionals to use AI without surrendering the critical instincts that make great journalism great. In this conversation, Andrew and Harriet explore where AI genuinely helps newsrooms, where the red lines are, and what every curious professional can borrow from a journalist's toolkit.Key Topics Covered:How the UK Budget first showed Harriet what AI could do for journalists drowning in government documentsWhy journalistic scepticism is the perfect foundation for working intelligently with AIThe shift from burying heads in the sand to genuine curiosity across newsrooms in 2025/26Investigative AI wins: the New York Times and the manosphere; Swedish journalists cracking a 40-year-old cold case of an assassinated prime ministerWhy writing is still thinking, and how Whisper Flow changed Harriet's drafting processThe fake experts problem, and why journalists are right to be waryHow PR firms are moving from generic AI use to bespoke, client-specific workflowsBeing found by AI: Andrew's FAQ-and-schema strategy for AI-native discoverabilityThe danger of young professionals offloading thinking to AI before they've built the underlying skillsUsing AI as a decision partner that surfaces the emotional impact of your workHarriet's Three Actionable Takeaways:Go deep and narrow, not wide and shallow — pick one specific use case (research, interview prep, analysis) and really master how AI helps thereLearn the boundaries — test where it fails, check sources, push on quotes, find the gapsBuild human review into the process — use AI as a thought partner, but keep your editorial judgement in charge at every stageWhere to Find Harriet:LinkedIn: Harriet MeyerNewsletter: AI for Media on LinkedInThanks for listening to Digitally Curious. You can buy the book that showcases these episodes at curious.click/orderYour Host is Actionable Futurist® Andrew GrillFor more on Andrew - what he speaks about and recent talks, please visit ActionableFuturist.com Andrew's Social ChannelsAndrew on LinkedInAndrew on YouTube @Andrew.Grill on InstagramKeynote speeches hereOrder Digitally Curious