AI and the End of Hesitation: Peter Vandermeersch on Journalism’s Narrow Window for Change
Mediahuis’s chief says publishers must adapt to AI within years, not decades, while experimenting and rebuilding trust between editorial and business.
The Long View
Peter Vandermeersch has been in journalism long enough to watch the trade lurch through more upheavals than most industries could bear. He started his career in Belgium almost 40 years ago, moved to Amsterdam to edit NRC Handelsblad, later crossed the Irish Sea to lead the Irish Independent. He now runs Mediahuis, a group whose newspapers stretch from De Standaard to the Belfast Telegraph.
Peter suggested that print was a useful format for its time, but the work itself was always journalism: reporting, investigation, and explanation. Technologies come and go but what troubles him now is the speed of artificial intelligence. This time, it is not the platform that shifts, but the nature of journalism itself.
Peter Vandermeersch, CEO of Mediahuis is interviewed by Nick Petrie, Digital Director of i, and Maria Sakki, Lead Data Insights Analyst, FT at the INMA Media Innovation Week in Dublin, 24/09/25. - Photo by John Rahim
Lessons From the Digital Transition
In 2014 the New York Times published its now-famous innovation report. For many editors it felt like a late alarm bell. Vandermeersch, then running NRC Handelsblad, took it seriously enough to fly in one of its authors. She stood in front of his newsroom in Amsterdam and explained that if they did not put digital first, they would slide into irrelevance. The reaction was mixed: some polite nodding, some open resistance. For veterans trained to treat the print edition as sacred, it sounded like heresy.
Looking back, Vandermeersch thinks the diagnosis was right, but the response across Europe was far too slow. Fifteen years after the first serious signs of digital, many publishers were still clinging to print as the main act. In the meantime Google and Meta had built global advertising systems that dwarfed anything newspapers could match. ‘Too fucking slow,’ he says, three words that sum up two decades of hesitation. With AI, he warns, there will be no such luxury of delay.
AI: From Tool to Competitor
When Robert Redford died, Vandermeersch ran a small experiment. He asked several large language models to generate an obituary. The results were not brilliant, but they were competent. When he compared them to dozens of obituaries written by professional reporters, only one stood out as better. The rest were no stronger than what was produced by the various LLM’s.
That is unsettling. For years, newspapers relied on reporters to turn around routine stories celebrity obituaries, match reports, quarterly earnings. If AI can do the same work in seconds, and at scale, then newsrooms need to decide quickly what work is still worth doing by hand.
Vandermeersch is blunt: anything that can be done by machines will be done by machines. The task for editors is to focus on what cannot be automated: real investigations, analysis that connects dots, interviews that reveal character. The danger is existential. Print-to-digital was essentially a platform shift. AI challenges the very purpose of journalism.
Breaking Silos, Building Trust
Legacy newsrooms often prided themselves on their internal firewalls: editorial kept apart from advertising and marketing. In theory it protected independence. In practice it left many organisations clumsy. Vandermeersch recalls visiting a French paper where even in 2025 the marketing team’s passes would not open the newsroom door. The symbolism was clear protect the journalists but the cost was paralysis. Marketing campaigns missed the mark, product launches stumbled, and readers went elsewhere.
His view is that editors remain at the heart of the enterprise, but hearts need arteries. Marketing, product and commercial teams should work with, not against, editorial. Trust, not isolation, is what secures independence in practice.
Peter Vandermeersch, CEO of Mediahuis is interviewed by Nick Petrie, Digital Director of i, and Maria Sakki, Lead Data Insights Analyst, FT at the INMA Media Innovation Week in Dublin, 24/09/25. - Photo sourced from INMA.
The Tyranny of the Dashboard
In the days before metrics, feedback was anecdotal. A phone call, a letter, or perhaps a colleague’s mother saying she liked an article. By the mid-2010s dashboards were everywhere. Page views became the measure of success, and publishers began chasing them. BuzzFeed and Huffington Post flourished on that model; serious reporting struggled to compete.
Vandermeersch argues for restraint. At Mediahuis the key measure is not raw clicks but attention time the minutes and seconds people spend with an article, a podcast or a video. It is a better proxy for value, both to advertisers and to readers. Dashboards can inform, but editors, not algorithms, should make the final call on what matters.
Print’s Inevitable Decline
The numbers are stark. British newspapers are losing 12 to 18% of circulation each year. Weekend editions limp on, weekday sales fall sharply. A single Sunday paper might still sell for €4 in Europe even more in the UK. A digital bundle offering dozens of editions costs barely €11 a month. The gap is unsustainable.
Vandermeersch insists he never went into journalism to print newspapers, but to do journalism. If readers prefer podcasts or newsletters, that is fine. Yet he admits the cliff edge is near. By 2030, daily print distribution will probably be gone in most markets. To bridge the gap, publishers will need higher digital prices for unique content and more experimentation with new forms audio storytelling, visual explainers, interactive coverage and so on.
Platforms and the Perils of Dependence
The memory of Facebook’s so-called ‘pivot to video’ still irritates. Publishers chased an algorithm, built newsrooms around it, and were abandoned when the rules changed. Vandermeersch is clear: own your audience. Mediahuis focuses on drawing people back to its own platforms, where brand loyalty and subscriptions can grow.
That does not mean ignoring platforms. Younger audiences spend their time on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Publishers need to be there too, but only as a shop window. The balance is delicate: use external platforms to reach, but always point back to the publisher’s own ground.
The Rise of the Journalist as Brand
Readers increasingly want contact with people, not just mastheads. In an era of machine-written text, a known voice or face matters. Bob Woodward at The Washington Post is one classic example. Marina Hyde at the Guardian another. Their personal reputations reinforce their institutions and vice versa.
Vandermeersch sees this trend strengthening. Publishers need to accept it, even manage it. Live events, podcasts, newsletters: all build connections between journalists and readers. Handled well, the personal brand and the paper’s brand reinforce each other. Pretending otherwise is futile.
Public Service and the Question of Value
Not all journalism lends itself to profit. Local democracy reporting, long investigations, foreign correspondence, expensive work with little immediate return. Yet Vandermeersch argues that sustainability still comes from uniqueness. A local paper that people feel they cannot live without will survive. The middle ground routine rewrites, commodity news will not.
The task is to produce less but do it better. Stripping away duplication leaves space for work that earns trust and, ultimately, subscriptions.
The Fight With AI Platforms
Vandermeersch saves his sharpest words for the tech firms scraping journalism to train models. He calls it ‘theft of the century’. Publishers invest heavily in producing unique work; AI platforms ingest it and sell services built on it. Lawsuits, like the New York Times case against OpenAI and Microsoft, are one response. He believes Europe must act too. Without political backing, publishers lack leverage to secure payment for their work.
Experiment, Experiment, Experiment
The word he returns to most is ‘experiment’. Vandermeersch remembers launching a new paper in the 2000s that failed within six weeks. Embarrassing at the time, invaluable in hindsight. It forced the parent title to sharpen its identity and improve. In journalism experiments are public mistakes cannot be hidden but without them, nothing moves. Iteration, not stability, is what sustains newsrooms.
Journalism at a Crossroads
Vandermeersch offers neither comfort nor doom. His message is practical: print will continue to fall, AI will automate, silos will slow, dashboards will mislead. The answer is faster adaptation, constant experimentation, and a return to the core of the trade unique, trustworthy journalism rooted in strong brands and credible voices.
The next five years, not the next fifteen, will decide who survives.
Thanks for reading all the way to the end of the article! This post is public so feel free to share it, and if you have not done so already sign up and become a member.