How a media "anti-conference" revealed that publishing's doom merchants have it all wrong

Media leaders from a wide background gathered behind closed doors in London to talk about fightbacks against the worst of tech and AI. Contrary to what you may think, the mood wasn't doom and gloom.

by Rich Fairbairn

Published: 15:26, 18 June 2026

A bit of reportage this week. Content Aware was at the first Glide Live event yesterday in London, cunningly titled Glide Live: London, where a wildly eclectic mix of news, advocacy, science, sports and numerous other forms of media people bundled into a closed room to hatch, what seemed to me, a pretty good plan to conker the doom and gloom of those who say publishing is on the way out.

Billed as an anti-conference, it turned on its head the usual woe-is-me predictions which come of out of many events, that creating any sort of media business or channel these days is a waste of time because AI is going to steal it all, or Google is going to make its own version, or “but… social media!”.

All those things are somewhat true - if you let them. But in a room of A-list talent - and me - everyone there has known for years that playing the publishing game according to the rules of the most avaricious of the tech firms is a path to nowhere.

Wide horizons
The range of attendees I met was wide, from the BMJ, Which?, the Daily Mail, PokerOrg, CNN, Channel 4, Formula 1, The FA, Arsenal, Watford FC, Better Collective, The Spectator, DJB Strategies, Atlas Advisory, DC Thompson, SportsBeat, and many more, with cricket, rugby, football, F1 and the Olympics rounding out the very wide retinue of viewpoints.

It was a closed-door event so I won’t de-Schrödinger the cat about what was said, but you had people as apparently unconnected as one of the world’s leading medical and science publishers, and those who head up how the England football team talks to the world (off the pitch, that is) agreeing that when you know who your audience is, and talk to them relevantly about things they want to know more about, you are in a good spot.

Being a trusted source and knowing your audience is even more critical than it has ever been. It's not going away, whatever the rise of AI implies, and as much as Google and Meta know your audience they are falling further off a cliff for the other part, trust.

The mood was buoyed by a number of other things discussed, including the publisher SPUR initiative we have mentioned before, effective and aggressive strategies to block bots, initiatives to take legal action against misappropriated content, and the growing mass of legal and regulatory action pointed at the AI robber barons and search monopolies.

Keep your eyes peeled for an authorised summary of the day next week, which will include some revealing stats prepared for the event by SEO doyen, Barry Adams, and some questions for you, dear reader, on how to make Content Aware more useful each week. Perhaps we should do our own Content Aware gathering to see what rights we can wrong together. 

Have a good week and see you next.