Welcome to the 3nd edition of AI Side Chats — a companion to my newsletter, AI Side Notes. These are short (20-ish minutes), informal conversations with fellow Substackers, journalists, and independent voices in the AI space. They’re not polished interviews or breaking news, just candid back-and-forths that pull back the curtain on how we think about AI, the stories we chase, and the messy realities of covering (and living with) this technology.
This time I reached out to Pete Pachal, who I’ve known for decades through mutual friends and the general digital media scene of the 2010s.
In October 2023, nearly a year after ChatGPT debuted, Pachal launched a Substack (which soon birthed a podcast and education/training progam) called The Media Copilot to help help creative teams and storytellers from journalism, PR and beyond harness the power of AI to “work smarter, move faster, and amplify impact.”
In our conversation, Pete emphasized that while journalists and storytellers are obviously using AI regularly now, chatbots still lack the contextual awareness, nuance and responsibility that real reporting demands.
Pete sees Copilot not simply as a content machine, but as a workflow tool—something that helps reduce cognitive load in early-stage research rather than replacing what journalists bring to the table. In his view, the problem isn’t whether AI can write sentences; it’s whether it can fit into the accountability-driven process newsrooms rely on.
One thing that is clear, and that I 100% agree with, is that this is about trust. Newsrooms need evidence that AI actually speeds up their work without introducing error or reputational risk.
But, of course, we inevitably landed on what everyone in the media (and everyone else) talks about: AI slop. Pete pointed out that AI slop is not necessarily incoherent or wrong. Instead, he described it as content that feels surface-level, uncontextualized, and disconnected from reality. It’s technically correct, but doesn’t reveal anything meaningful. Good journalism, on the other hand, adds depth, sourcing, relevance and a point of view. And AI can really help there, he said, by researching relevant material, organizing threads of information, and reducing cognitive load before the writing even begins.
Agree of disagree? Let me know. And I’m always open to ideas on who to invite to another AI Side Chat!
