Pakistani journalists explore AI, podcasting
(KARACHI, PAKISTAN)—I always love being in South Asia. It may be the food, but more likely, it’s the people, who are among the most energetic, intellectually curious folks I’ve encountered in my many travels.

That intellectual curiosity is on display here in Karachi at a two-day training on radio capacity building run by the Global Neighborhood for Media Innovation (GNMI) with support from the East-West Center, who has lent me to GMNI for two weeks as one of the project’s trainers. The initiative is funded by the U.S. Consulate-Karachi. 

Ayaz Khan and journalists work on a video podcast

The program for 23 radio journalists got underway Monday with local trainers GMNI’s Mushtaq Ahmed and AI expert Ayaz Khan discussing trends in radio content production, U.S.-Pakistani cooperation for sustainable development, and AI and radio programming. This hands-on training included recording and editing podcast segments. Interestingly, the trainers fed the workshop’s agenda into an AI generator and asked it to produce an audio podcast. The result was a sometimes amusing and often trite back-and-forth discussion by a fake man and a fake woman about the training. The AI podcast could pass as a real one—but not a very good real one, since the hosts continually spouted vacuous, faux conversational commentary (wow, cool, super cool, seriously, “like,” etc.)

I was so intrigued by this that I made my own AI podcast about the just-completed East-West Center Jefferson Fellowships. (See posts from December). I'm still not too impressed, though I must admit it does a pretty good job of summarizing the content.

The journalists were understandably engaged during the AI demonstrations, as they were during a discussion about the problems plaguing radio in Pakistan. The comments mostly focused on the financial crisis in the business that has led to small production budgets, smaller salaries, and heavier reliance on part time workers. “How do we monetize this” was a frequently asked question.

My sessions were on day two of the training. I discussed effective writing for broadcasting and podcasting, something I’ve taught for years as a professor. We went over some basics, things like using active voice and keeping sentences short and language conversational. They did some exercises which led up to my discussion of podcast scripting. The journalists were then tasked with creating their own podcast script.

The workshop attendees were engaged from the outset, which always seems to be the case when I work with journalists from Pakistan. They were very curious about peace journalism, which we discussed briefly as part of a question and answer exercise. At the end of the seminar, I was asked whether Trump would erode media freedoms in the US. I said a slight erosion is possible, though I believe (I hope) our legal and constitutional guard rails are up to the challenge.

Karachi is the first stop on a four-city tour that will eventually swing back to Karachi for our last workshop. I’m looking forward to seeing more of Pakistan, meeting more of its welcoming citizens, and eating many more flavorful dishes. Stay tuned for updates.

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