The ping pong years

I’ve debated whether to publish this or not. The truth is that, after an initial two-week period of elation, I’ve been feeling the emptiness of an empty nest this past month. What is my role? Who do I mother? Who do I cook for?

Of course, these are the ping pong years so in fact I’ve seen my daughters since they left for university – the older one came home for a Saturday night then I saw her in Bath after I ran the Bath Half. (Oh yes, I ran the Bath Half marathon in mid-October for the third time on a beautiful autumn Sunday, in a slow but steady time that allowed for a reasonable finish and no injuries.) Then both girls returned for a weekend last month, with washing and… wanting food.

I spent some time last month whittling 30 entries in the Broadcast awards children’s programme category down to a long list of 15 for the TV industry judges. Despite the fact I now have precisely NO children’s programming on in the house, it was fun to watch the entries and there are some very good programmes out there from pre-school to mid-teen offerings.

This month I’ll be back working for ITN, covering internal communications for someone who has got a new role in the team.

In other news

I picked up on this story of Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell falling out with the paper he’d worked for for 40 years and effectively being given the sack.

This is sad news and I’m persuaded by the arguments that Bell, whose cartoons over the years have been fantastic, made Prime Ministers rightly squirm. I’m also unconvinced by Bell’s own arguments that he doesn’t promote harmful anti-Semitic stereotypes – there are a few examples including the most recent Netanyahu cartoon where he has, however inadvertently, appeared to do just that.

The times have changed in the past 40 years, in the past 10 years even, and the times are ever-changing. The Guardian is dealing with huge sensitivities around race and faith, as we all are. It’s just a shame the relationship with such a fantastic, long-term contributor as Steve Bell has broken down.

I know how cartoonists work from my time at Broadcast. You’ll have an email or phone discussion of news stories and cartoon ideas, then the cartoonist submits a draft and you’ll agree the final drawing and idea. By their nature, cartoonists work from a studio or from home and have very little day to day to do with the journalists and editors working from an office on the paper. Lunches and socials are crucial for establishing knowledge, trust and respect on both sides. Perhaps that was lacking here.

This story is appalling, where Microsoft mistakenly allowed a generative AI tool to create a poll about how a woman died next to a Guardian story about that woman’s death. Readers assumed the Guardian had created the poll, which it didn’t, and Guardian Media Group has accused Microsoft of damaging the paper’s reputation. The poll has since been taken down, Microsoft has apologised and says it is taking steps to prevent anything similar happening in future.

Not great, when we’re all worrying about the checks and balances needed on AI before the technology gets completely out of hand.

Of course, many of us are in a collective panic about artificial intelligence. Just yesterday, the Guardian’s business bulletin email had economics editor Larry Elliott writing that the big tech titans may say “trust us” with AI but that’s what the banks said before the banking crisis of 2008. Then, in the same email, Meta executive Nick Clegg (who has little credibility with me personally, following the let down on student tuition fees during his UK political career) compared the AI clamour to the moral panic in the 1980s over video games.

I take both arguments – and plenty of us are already using AI whether we know it or not, but we surely do need to keep a handle on the technology as the story about the rogue web poll shows. That’s it from me this month. See you next month.