On Message

It used to be that every person would fear the words ‘you’re under arrest’ if they were uttered by the police. Now, though, CEOs have a new dread, hearing them spoken by ordinary members of the public on their journey to work.

As long as I can remember, journalism and the media have been in states of flux. It was always thus, in an industry that was dynamic, intensely competitive and latterly, relied upon and was threatened by, rapidly improving technology. Nevertheless, this year’s annual state of the sector report from the Reuters Institute at Oxford Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2026 | Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism provides even more food for thought than usual.

The holidays are upon us and CEOs and their comms teams can relax. Except they can’t, because one of the lessons of 2025 as the year draws to a close, is that theirs is a world that never stops. Not for one second.

Seeing the words ‘hostile bid’ in relation to Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery will have caused many a double take. Once, we saw a lot of aggressive takeovers, prolonged battles, accusations and counter-accusations, and all manner of tactics deployed, some above board but others downright underhand.

Journalists in the US have won a legal ruling against the rollout of AI tools in their industry. The News Not Slop campaign scored a victory against Axel Springer, publisher of Politico, after editorial staff on the website took their employer to arbitration complaining AI was doing their jobs. The dispute centred on the ‘Live Summaries’ feature used during the 2024 Democratic Convention. The arbitrator ruled: ‘Live Summaries were posted in prime “above-the-scroll” homepage placements without human editing, outside the normal content system, and were not corrected despite containing factual errors, missing context, and violations of Politico’s Stylebook.’

Lord Rothermere has agreed to buy the Daily Telegraph. The Daily Mail proprietor is fulfilling a long-held ambition. At a stroke, a large swathe of Middle Britain falls under his purview.

Sky Sports’ new TikTok channel lasted three days – proving that ignoring your audience can be fatal. The backlash was swift and brutal, calling it tone-deaf. Lesson? KYA: Know Your Audience. Always.

The BBC’s failure to swiftly apologise for a misleading edit of Donald Trump’s speech has turned a single broadcast blunder into a full-blown crisis. What began as an avoidable error now threatens the corporation’s credibility, leadership, and legal standing.

Jaguar Land Rover’s five-week shutdown exposed the catastrophic cost of cyber complacency. Beyond IT fixes, reputational damage lingers. Boards must lead, comms must be watertight, and readiness must be relentless—because the next breach is inevitable. 

AI has transformed communications, but overreliance erodes trust. Corporations own their narratives to control reputation and outpace AI-driven misinformation.