The Signal

What can journalism’s biggest collaborative projects teach us about working together today? In Episode 22 of The Signal, Fathm co-founders Tom Trewinnard and Fergus Bell revisit the story behind Pop-Up Newsroom and the collaborative journalism projects that brought reporters, news organisations and technology partners together to tackle challenges no single newsroom could solve as effectively alon...

AI actors are here. Tilly Norwood is already appearing in the conversation around the future of acting, but the more interesting question is what happens when AI starts moving beyond helping with creativity and starts doing the creative work itself. In Episode 21 of The Signal, Tom Trewinnard and Fergus Bell explore synthetic actors, virtual influencers and the explosion of AI-generated content, a...

After years of a relentless race towards bigger models, more capable agents and increasingly autonomous systems, some of the biggest players in the industry are now talking seriously about safety, guardrails and whether frontier AI development needs to slow down. There are already some pretty compelling reasons for that conversation. High-profile incidents involving autonomous AI agents have shown...

Recorded live at the WAN-IFRA Paris AI Forum, Episode 19 of The Signal looks at how AI is being used across news organisations from journalists building their own tools and AI-powered archive discovery to audience-focused products designed to solve very specific local problems. We explore why organisations including The Economist, Polaris and KQED are experimenting with new approaches to AI, codin...

In this episode of The Signal, Tom Trewinnard speaks to Katya Gorchinskaya, creator of  Jindex.ai , a database tracking publicly disclosed examples of AI adoption across the global media industry. Katya reveals that media organisations are adapting to AI at a pace that could be up to 100 times faster than the original digital transformation. But while much of the focus is currently on newsroo...

What happens when the relationship between PR and journalism starts to change? In this episode of The Signal, Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard are joined by music publicist Andy Prevezer to explore the changing world of music PR, journalism, media relationships and the creator economy. Andy shares his perspective on the long-standing relationship between publicists and mainstream media, why trusted...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this episode, Fergus and Tom speak with music PR guru Andy Prevezer. Andy has worked with Liam Gallagher, Simply Red, Sting, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Neil Young and many, many more. From writing press releases and securing column inches in daily newspapers to guiding artists towards an entire reimagining of their public...

We're on a quick holiday. The internet can wait. Can't it? While Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard take a few days away from The Signal, we’ve pulled together some of the best bits from the series so far. From AI and the future of journalism to audience behaviour, the death of traditional virality, newsroom innovation, creators, business models and even the occasional detour into Love Island, like a...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this episode we consider: is going viral dead? Is the only thing we have left to share the World Cup or the Traitors? How do you go viral in 2026? After a flood of AI generated Kurdish apple doctor videos, who does TikTok think Tom even is? The internet used to be predictable, Google was for search, Twitter was great for breaking...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this episode, Fergus speaks with Jessica Davis, Vice President of News Automation and AI Product at USA Today Network. Drawing on her extensive experience leading AI initiatives and capstone research at CUNY, Jessica addresses the critical challenge of scaling AI efficiently while preserving journalistic integrity. She explains wh...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this episode, Fergus talks to journalist Simon Ingram to consider what journalism is doing right and wrong when covering the climate crisis. "Sell hell and you are a party pooper - sell joy and you're tone deaf." This self-contained paradox captures the entire editorial problem that journalists are facing. As Simon says, "Climate...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this episose they consider Frontier AI, the story of Anthropic’s Mythos and the government-worrying levels of its capabilities. The power of Fable 5 and the regulation of frontier AI models. Are we at risk of losing access to US-owned technology? What about Chinese-owned “open-weight” models and the surge in demand they’ve created...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. The second part of this deep dive into Sulzberger's speech considers whether there's a pressure not to dissent from the message of speeches like this one. Why weren't journalists asking more questions of OpenAI's Varun Shetty when they had the chance? Does the news industry hold itself to the same standards it demands of the technolo...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. This week: deconstructing New York Times Chairman and Publisher A.G. Sulzberger's keynote speech, "AI, Journalism, and the Uncertain Future of the Public Square," delivered at the World News Media Congress in Marseille. What are the double-standards at play? Is the news industry treating the sources of its own stories properly, and w...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. Have you ever wondered how journalism makes money? Or how news itself makes money? This episode is about the mechanics of journalism, so Tom and Fergus dig into a big spread of crucial topics: What is Reader Revenue? What about ad-blockers and paywalls? What about "mission driven" orgs and non-profits? They look at the rise and rise...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. Fergus and Tom are in Marseille at the World News Congress and in this episode they talk to Olalla Maria Novoa Ojea, the Head of AI at Prisa Media, the world's largest Spanish and Portuguese-language media and entertainment group. Olalla is a working journalist, not a tech evangelist, who's spent her career inside the machine. She st...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this episode, Fergus and Tom talk to Micah Gelman and Lauren Saks from Local News International, the poster kids of the independent news brand universe. Founded mid-2025 when Dave Jorgenson, Lauren and Micah all left the Washington Post, LNI is a creator-led newsroom built on video, newsletters and direct audience relationships. G...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this episode, Fergus and Tom consider Australia’s Social Media Ban, toxic spaces, resourceful teenagers, the limits of parental guidance and the real impacts of a reduced news diet. Social Media is the pathway to news, so how will these restrictions affect young people’s ability to access verifiable, quality news? How do you build...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this extra episode, Fergus and Tom consider where audiences are heading, the repurposing of content, efficiency vs creativity and future-casting. Sidenote: is it jif or gif? If you want to understand how the news is being created and distributed, how AI is - and can be - used in newsrooms, insights from media leaders and practical...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this fourth episode, Fergus and Tom dig into what they've seen and learned after working with nearly 250 newsrooms in 40 countries since September 2024. Trends, data, anecdotes and breaking open the misleading idea that all newsrooms are focused simply on replacing journalists. If you want to understand how the news is being creat...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this third episode, Fergus and Tom discuss Digital Media Asia, the rise and rise of Winston and William Utomo's IDN Times, new business models for journalism, the oddness of AI-hosted podcasts and more. If you want to understand how the news is being created and distributed, how AI is - and can be - used in newsrooms, insight...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this first episode, Fergus and Tom dig into what "innovation" even means in 2026, the fragility of our shared digital history, the ethical perils of prediction markets, the rise of WhatsApp publishing, their own No Whinging mission statement and more. If you want to understand how the news is being created and distributed, how AI...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this episode, Fergus talks about what he saw and heard at the 2026 International Journalism Festival in Perugia. They chew over "what is a journalist?", whether Perugia was the Creator Festival, the power of the clip, the incredible rise of Live-Streamed news - looking in particular at Chile's first streaming news channel, Turno -...

Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this full-length episode, Fergus and Tom explain who they are, walk us through their backgrounds in journalism and dig into what The Signal is about and who it's for. If you want to understand how the news is being created and distributed, how AI is - and can be - used in newsrooms, insights from media leaders and practical thinki...

On this new podcast from the co-founders of fathm , Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard explore their individual stories as journalists and newsroom innovators and explain what The Signal is for, who it's for and what sort of guest they'll be welcoming in. The focus is simple: cut through the noise and get to what matters, so if you work in journalism, media, content or technology - or you’re trying to...