Friday Reading S14E13

A weekly round-up of what I’ve read and enjoyed from around the web.

I’m interested in journalism, media, technology, and nerdy things found down the back of the world wide web’s sofa. Most weeks I publish a handful of things that caught my eye – regardless of what the algorithms were pushing at me. You can subscribe to get it by email here. And if you read something odd and wonderful you think I’d enjoy, feel free to send it my way.

“The transformation of search engines into AI-driven answer engines has emerged as the biggest issue facing the industry in our annual publisher survey” – that is according to Nic Newman, writing for InPublishing about publishers placing a focus on distinctiveness and trust in 2026.

“The 42-year-old, who has penned more than 600 stories since rejoining Fortune in July, may be a bellwether for where much of the media business is headed.”

Hmmmmmmmm … are you sure?

“While many journalists hit the phones and cultivate source relationships, when news breaks Nick Lichtenberg often uploads press releases or analyst notes into AI tools and prompts them to spit out articles that he can edit and publish quickly. His work involves what some view as the third rail of journalism: AI playing a leading role not just in researching, but in writing stories. AI-assisted stories accounted for nearly 20% of Fortune’s web traffic in the second half of 2025. Most were written by Lichtenberg. Lichtenberg isn’t pounding the pavement to find and unveil secrets about institutions and power brokers. That’s OK with him.”

Read more here: An AI upheaval is coming for media. This journalist is already all in [£].

Peter Lewis is heading very much in the opposite direction …

“As a loud and proud AI sceptic, I have been resistant to using the technology in my work. But recognising that I need to know thy enemy, I’ve spent the last month trying Anthropic’s Claude to understand how it might ‘support’ my writing process. To guide me on this journey, I’ve been taking advice from former Australian chief scientist Alan Finkel, who has launched a global certification process for creators to ‘verify’ their work is human-authored. Indeed, I’m delighted to become their first ‘Proudly Human’ columnist, joining a growing list of authors, musicians and publishers who have gone through the same formal accreditation process.”

Read more here: Peter Lewis, The Guardian – Could AI write this column? In a world of slop-inion, I’m certifying myself human

Findings from the Tech Transparency Project claim that Google and Apple’s app stores not only host harmful apps that can undress images of women, but encourage users to find them.

This week’s Guardian Thursday news quiz: Trump is unwise, an emperor dies and a €1m raffle prize. Guest animal: Tanji.

Featured video: I Had A Baby Not A Lobotomy by the Anchoress ft Gwenno.

Enjoying Friday Reading by email? Feel free to forward it to a friend – they can sign up here. And if you’ve recently read something you think I would enjoy, do send it my way.

Long and detailed from Jonn Elledge here on “How do you build a new high speed railway, anyway?” after he visited a couple of construction sites along the route of HS2, a project whose ever ballooning costs are in part because of locals being fussy about every damn decision along the route. For example, Jonn visits Wendover Green tunnel, where he explains, “The word ‘green’ here doesn’t mean ‘environmentally friendly’, except in so far as rail generally is: it means it’s being built on the surface and then buried with grass and other plants, so that it disappears into the landscape” – at huge additional expense.

Samira Shackle talks to Tareena Shakil, who is trying to rebuild her life in the UK as an influencer, having fled to live inside the Islamic State as a teenager. Rather like when I saw the movie Brides last October, it is interesting to see a different perspective on the narrative around why young Muslim girls and teenagers would flee the UK to go and live with the proscribed terrorist group.

Elena Saavedra Buckley relays her experience of taking part in a mission to live on Mars with the caveat that it is taking place at a purpose-built camp in Utah.

“The MDRS is the longest-running Martian habitat in the world; more than three hundred crews have traveled there to live together, eat freeze-dried food, drive “rovers” through the desert in helmeted space suits, and work on research projects. [But] it wasn’t initially clear to me what, exactly, the organization’s simulation had done to nudge humanity toward the red planet. It seemed more like an elaborate team-building exercise, a logistically complicated and expensive ropes course for space-travel diehards.”

Read more here: Elena Saavedra Buckley, Harpers – Redshift – rehearsing for humanity’s future on Mars

Sam Wollaston is visiting a series of abandoned buildings in the UK, starting with the grand department store in Newport, Wales, that became an illicit cannabis farm.

Sydney Lobe writes for Huck about an upcoming exhibition of Dona Ann McAdams’s defiant photos of New York’s 80s & 90s queer activists.

Emily Dinsdale speaks to five photographers – including Anton Corbijn whose work with Depeche Mode has been a constant companion of mine since the 90s – who are exhibiting at Japan’s epic photography festival: Kyotographie 2026

The Green party think they can break Labour’s majority in Waltham Forest, a council that has been solidly Labour for most of my adult life.

My friend Beth Axford writing on how the David Tennant and Billie Piper TARDIS team dynamic – twenty years old this month – has impacted a whole generation of fans.

“One was a normal girl from a normal world; the other, and an ancient adventurer who could go anywhere in the universe. They may have been worlds apart – and worlds away from ours – yet they worked, because they were so real. The intricate and accessible writing throughout the series made this love story stand the test of time (and space). Rose was young, tenacious and brave, but she also had her flaws. The Doctor was clever, kind and powerful, but he wasn’t always perfect. They grew together despite their imperfections, which has resonated with many fans over the years.”

Read more here: Beth Axford, Doctor Who TV – Celebrating an iconic duo: 20 years of the Tenth Doctor and Rose

ZOMG Character Options are releasing a set with Mr Ring-a-Ding and Dugga Doo figures. TAKE. MY. MONEY.

Well, this is one way of looking at it…

“The clients who are cheap, or just have a tight budget will most likely use AI for the music in their project (videogames, some commercials, etc.). And this is actually great IMO. If you’ve ever worked with a client who thinks music should be cheap to create, you’ll know how horrible it is to work with them.”

Taken from this Reddit thread: Follow-up to “AI will replace sound designers and composers” post.

Pamela Hutchinson is always fascinating about ancient film and pre-code silent nonsense, and here she is on top form talking about Letty Lynton, Joan Crawford’s wildest film, which has not been screened legally since January 1936.

“If you’re a man going to a match, it is automatically assumed you know everything about football,” Prof Stacey Pope, a leading women’s football sociologist, says. “Women are undermined while the status of male fans is enhanced.”

The recently-opened pop-up exhibition, The Beacon of Light, next to Sunderland’s Stadium of Light, portrays the experiences of women on the terraces of the north-east since the 1950s. Juliet Nottingham speaks to Pope, who has put the exhibition together.

My contributions to the Guardian’s First Edition newsletter this week were:
·  Monday briefing: Hungary chooses Péter Magyar over Viktor Orbán
·  Friday briefing: Is theatre in a Misérables state, or is the industry just adapting to tough times?

Friday Reading is a (usually) weekly series of recommended reads from Martin Belam, covering journalism, media and technology, and other interesting nerdy things found on the internet. It is now in its fourteenth season. Sign up here to receive it by email.