“When everything is under pressure, the choices you make really matter”
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Image: © Filip Van Roe
After almost 15 years as editor-in-chief, first at Nieuwsblad, and more recently at Gazet van Antwerpen too, I’m going back to my old love: reporting. I’m fully aware that in this industry, everything is under pressure and nothing can be taken for granted. Some reflections on a turning point.
I’m moving to New York this year. The US is now seen as a prime example of just how quickly our certainties can disappear. The free press, the self-proclaimed thorn in the side of those in power, has always been taken for granted. It’s still there, but it’s no longer a given. Amid the collusion between pragmatic media empires and capricious rulers, a strategic silence takes hold, with a fearful averting of the gaze and, at times, opportunistic going with the flow. It has a twofold effect. Many journalists are choosing their words more carefully. Yet at the same time, it has never been more important to seek out and share the facts, le mot juste, the difficult insights.
It’s easy to see the US as an aberration, where the warning lights of democracy are flashing amber. But journalism is under pressure in our part of the world too. Through Pluralis, we support newspapers in Central Europe, where the reality of a free press can vanish as quickly as it appears. And here, too, we’re feeling the pressure, now that economic and political powers have other channels through which to spread their message and we all drown in “content” designed for purposes other than the pursuit of truth.
A time of turning points
But let this not be a lament about the state of our trade. I’m at a turning point personally, but was 2025 a turning point for the world? We’re living in a time of change, so in its own way, every year feels like a crossroads. It’s important to take a step back, to separate ourselves from the moment and view the deeper trends that shape what we do. Explosions leave craters that are easy to fill; erosion gives us the Grand Canyon.
It is, after all, hardly a novelty for the economic model underpinning journalism to be under pressure. Now that digital media has taken our advertising revenue and social media has taken our readers’ time and attention, LLM’’s or Large Language Models are now helping themselves to our raw material: the texts we write. Fortunately, we’re learning from the past. The big tech players are no longer merely the bringers of exciting innovation but competitors we must contend with. We’ve lost a fair bit of naivety, thank goodness. A heightened sense of reality is no guarantee of a healthy ecosystem in which what we do is literally valued, but it is nonetheless necessary.
We journalists must come to terms with AI, and that’s no easy task. Blindly embracing it sees us lose ourselves in that nameless ocean of “content”; mindlessly rejecting it makes us modern Luddites, rarely the victors of history. To find the right balance, we need above all to understand clearly what sets us apart and exactly what it is that we do.
All too often I hear people making overly simplistic distinctions. AI will help us sift through datasets, come up with ideas, write more efficiently. That’s true. But the idea that research yields the perfect prompt from which texts flow seamlessly is a misunderstanding of the journalistic process. What about the thought that only takes shape through the search for words, the insight that only arrives through inquiry, the serendipity of seeking meaning in a complex world? AI will help us edit texts, eliminating spelling mistakes and awkward sentence construction. That’s also true. But what about the craft of immersing oneself in a text and honing it into something better? We can only use AI effectively if we truly understand what we do and recognise its importance.
"In a world where everything is ‘content’, journalism can be something else"
Liesbeth Van Impe
A time of hope through determination
There are plenty of challenges, then. I’m leaving the business side of things behind for now, but after 15 years I’m not just tired, I’m also hopeful. Are we prepared for the next wave of change? We’ve certainly had plenty of practice over the past two decades. We can do this, because we’ve done it before.
I’m viewing this return to full-time writing and podcasting with nervous excitement. Journalism is always a struggle with the world as it is, an exercise in critical engagement, a search for a relationship with the times you’re living in. Now more than ever, our greatest enemy is complacency. Groupthink, misguided political correctness, the temptation to trade critical thinking for access… these are mistakes for which we are held strictly to account. Perhaps not by the algorithms that trap people in bubbles by immediately telling them they’re right, but in the eyes of those who understand that journalism should always be somewhat provocative.
But I am hopeful. In a world where everything is “content”, journalism can be something else. There is value in a space where facts are checked, opinions are challenged, and critical thinking is applied first and foremost to what we ourselves create. Convincing enough people of this will be a challenge for Mediahuis as a whole, not just the newsrooms. But we can succeed if we are determined and principled.
A time of threats is also a time when the choices you make really matter. When you must distinguish between lip service and genuine beliefs – even when those principles demand money, courage and energy.