Media in Minutes

From Capitol Hill to Main Street: How Andy Medici Turns Policy into Practical Guidance for American City Business Journals

• Angela Tuell • Season 5 • Episode 21

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Headlines are loud; useful reporting is quiet and sharp. We sit with senior reporter Andy Medici (American City Business Journals) to unpack how he turns federal policy, workplace shifts and emerging tech into stories that help entrepreneurs, executives and local leaders make better decisions. From remote work battles and labor rulings to AI’s promises and pitfalls, Andy shares how he filters national news into practical insights across 45 markets—and why integrity is still the most valuable asset in business journalism.

We dig into the anatomy of a solid pitch and the value of true exclusives, especially for Business Journal audiences hungry for data and actionable context. Andy explains what transforms a company announcement into a reader-first story, why inbox blasts fail, and how PR pros can become indispensable sources by bringing credible datasets, trend analysis and timely access. He also opens up about navigating public skepticism of media, the line between journalism and commentary and the simple rule that earns trust: ask tough questions fairly, document outreach and update with new facts.

The conversation takes a thoughtful turn on AI in the newsroom. Andy is frank about what current tools can and cannot do, why hallucinations are a legal and ethical nonstarter and where he sees real opportunities—small automations, cleaner data and better workflows. He’s watching the second-order effects of massive data-center investment: power, permits, water, land use and local economies. And beyond the beat, we talk creative fuel—he’s written 11 novels—as a way to keep your voice strong and your curiosity fresh.

Want smarter business news you can actually use? Press play, then tell us your biggest takeaway. If you enjoyed the conversation, follow, rate, and review the show, and share it with a colleague who cares about trustworthy reporting.

You can connect with Andy via Linked here or his email: amedici@bizjournals.com 

Please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe to the Media in Minutes podcast here or anywhere you get your podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/media-in-minutes/id1555710662 


Angela Tuell:

Welcome to Media in Minutes. This is your host, Angela Tuell. This podcast features in-depth interviews with those who report on the world around us. They share everything from their favorite stories to what happened behind the lens and give us a glimpse into their world. From our studio here at Communications Redefined, this is Media in Minutes. Today we're talking with Andy Medici, a senior reporter for American City Business Journals, where he covers small business trends, federal policy, workplace culture, and economic development on a national scale. With bylines across American City Business Journals and its 45 papers, Andy has become a go-to for reporting that bridges Capitol Hill policy with Main Street impact. Over the years, Andy has covered everything from pandemic era small business relief to non-compete bans, hybrid work shifts, healthcare policy, and grant opportunities for entrepreneurs. His reporting helps business owners, decision makers, and local leaders navigate a fast-changing economic landscape with clarity and context. A self-described aspiring novelist by night, Andy combines journalistic precision with a storyteller's curiosity, making complex issues accessible to readers across the country. Welcome, Andrew.

Andy Medici:

Hey, it's great to be here.

Angela Tuell:

I am very excited to talk with you. There's a lot to discuss, but I guess I wanted to start first with was your career goal always to be a journalist?

Andy Medici:

You know, I'm kind of lucky because it I got there early on. But what happened was in high school, this goes all the way back to high school, they had just started computer programming classes. And I took one, and uh, it was terrible, just the worst experience for me. Looking back, it was probably a combination of all sorts of stuff. But that year I said, I don't think I can do this. And they only had one other class open that year for like a half semester, and it was journalism. And I took it and I was like, I don't hate this at all. And and that sort of set me. That was I realized that I kind of liked doing that, and here I am.

Angela Tuell:

Awesome. So briefly walk us through your career from that time in high school to now.

Andy Medici:

Yeah, very briefly. I I went I went to the University of Pittsburgh, uh, which had a uh journalism degree in the English department. I worked for the student newspaper there. I covered local news up in Pittsburgh for just a little bit, and then I went to American University for graduate school for what they called journalism. And uh if I remember correctly, it was a public policy journalism and public policy masters. And I worked for uh BA, which now I think is Bloomberg BNA or just Bloomberg. They were bought by Bloomberg. And I worked for Gannett, like most journalists have at some point in their lives. I worked for Gannett, uh covering the federal government and sort of federal policy. I switched over to American City Business Journals covering local stuff. And then during the pandemic, they kind of switched me over and I do a lot of national sort of business reporting and national workplace culture kind of stuff. Just a lot of what whatever we kind of strikes our fancy, I suppose.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, I think a lot of people, unless they work very closely with the business journals, don't realize how it works that there is this umbrella company, I guess. Can you explain that to us a little bit?

Andy Medici:

Yeah, so there is a company that exists that owns 45 of the business journals. You could tell which ones are owned by the same people because they look similar online. There are a few we don't own, though, and I don't know if I should name them, but you'll see because if you ever go to a website and it doesn't look like one of ours, then it is not one of ours because I do not think anyone really owns a blank business journal. So uh, but you know, if you're in Houston or, you know, in Washington, DC or in Seattle, you know, yeah, you will be you will be familiar with at least some of our papers, and and that's the company that I work for.

Angela Tuell:

Okay, so previously to to working for, to writing for all a lot of them or all of them, you were writing for the Washington Business Journal specifically.

Andy Medici:

Yes. Uh I got in there and you know, it's a lot local news is interesting. The business journals are great because they really try to get to like some really good issues, some of the meat of news gathering. And it was really great place. I trained under some great people. And, you know, that plus my earlier fellows sort of set me up for the job I have now. And I, you know, I didn't look back.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, I really appreciate that. You know, I love I work with the Indianapolis Business Journal a lot. And I really appreciate how much journalistic integrity I feel are at the business journals.

Andy Medici:

I mean, I I I I do feel lucky, at least at some level, that there's a recognition too that the integrity has not to be very capitalist about, but the integrity has value because once people realize you don't have it, it's hard to get that back. And it's not worth a lot when you cash it in. You know, the trade-off isn't great because you have a lot of outlets that I think I don't want to name on air, but we've all read when we were younger, perhaps, and they were great, and now they're not. And it's just it's sad, but also like I don't think they're able to charge much for advertising, right? So that's the cynic, the cynic in me is talking about the business angle, but I do feel like integrity, you know, it pays off in both ways.

Angela Tuell:

Absolutely. So what is a I'm sure there's no typical day, but what does your role look like as a senior reporter for the Yeah.

Andy Medici:

Well, right now I cover national stuff, and I say stuff because there's a whole universe, but a lot of it is small business programs or things like the workplace. We talk about the battle between remote work and return to office. We talk about AI. A lot of that stuff falls into like the generalized bucket of like what would our readers be interested in. And so a lot of my day is both doing those stories for today and planning for the next one. So a lot of that looks like uh combing through documents. You know, I do look at SEC filings, I do look at other government filings, I look at working papers and studies for upcoming trends. I talk to people, and you know, this sounds like a lot, but we could get into strategy later. And then basically the expectation is a story or two a day. It depends. Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's more because there's it's not hard and fast, but I'm at the point in my career where my bosses who are very great, they understand that I am working and I'm on it. And if I am not, it becomes obvious because there are no stories. And then they say, Where are the stories, Andy? So uh the accountability is sort of built into the job at this point.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah. What's that like looking at that national audience, you know, rather than just one area? Because you have to look at a story that's going to appeal to essentially everyone, right?

Andy Medici:

Well, it's interesting. You're right. It's sort of the flip side of local news, right? Local news has always been there's an issue that's happening locally, it matters to us locally. National stuff doesn't really matter unless you can, as we call it, like localizing it, right? But this is the flip side, which is we don't we avoid local stuff. The local papers will report local stuff. But what is of national importance? Well, it's like what are other people doing? What does remote work policy look like? What about labor relations, the National Labor Relations Board, right? We can talk a lot about President Trump writ large, but there's a lot of little policy chunks that define how a lot of businesses operate, and that's a national thing, even if it uh can get obscure. So there's a lot of that floating around. But my job more than anything else is to create a filter uh to bring to our readers stuff that they would probably be interested in, maybe even if they didn't know it yet. So it does it have to appeal to every one of our readers? No, but it should appeal to at least some of them, right?

Angela Tuell:

Okay. So do just some of the papers pick of the journals pick them, pick it up and write a story or all of them?

Andy Medici:

Or that's a great question because nowadays it's like uh we have either print and online and there's emails, right? I uh most of my stories run in the email editions of all of our papers.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Andy Medici:

Um then when it comes to the website, we have like a channel where my stories exist and those are sort of they populate like across the various websites. Um consider me like a little miniature like newswire, right? Just an internal to the company. And then in print, it's whatever they want. They can use my stuff, they they cannot. I mean, part of my goal that's sort of built into this is it's often hard, and you're you know a former journalist, so it's also hard to sometimes you need to fill space, you need to fill time, you don't know what to do, but my stories can. You can you can use them for that. You could use part of them to supplement uh a local reporter's stuff. I'm not territorial when it comes to that. I just hope it helps.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, definitely. So, what are some of your, I guess I would say, favorite recent stories?

Andy Medici:

That's really good. I I like stories that that maybe narratively they're not they don't fit because the data doesn't sh support stuff. And uh one example I wrote recently, there's a lot of talk about an accounting shortage, um shortage of accountants. And this comes up a lot in broader conversations about how to reform that particular profession. But if you look at the data, if there's a shortage, you know, the the theory should be that pay should go up, right? If there's a shortage, you need to pay people more. That we saw that in COVID with fast food workers, you know, you see it with like doctors, right? Pay should go up. It wasn't. And so that begs the question, which is if there is a shortage, why isn't pay going up? And there's a lot of answers that go into that, but I enjoyed that story because I think sometimes looking at a story with fresh eyes, you you can get more out of it. And I think the reader gets more out of it, even if they don't agree at the end of the day with a story like that. Um, the service I do for the readers isn't so that they feel good about decisions they've already made. It's so that like in the future they could say, hmm, well, maybe that's not exactly correct, or they could use that information in a in a way that benefits them or their lives. So I I enjoyed that. You know, I do enjoy this following AI stuff. I I'm sort of deeply skeptical of everything new because as a journalist, a lot of the everything new is gone. Like, you know, there was NFTs and there's the metaverse, and we can go on and on about different things that have existed and don't anymore.

Angela Tuell:

Right.

Andy Medici:

Uh, but also not letting that skepticism sort of cloud the stories. And I think there's a balance that, but I enjoy I enjoy those sorts of challenges.

Angela Tuell:

Yes. Do you get a lot of feedback on your stories from readers?

Andy Medici:

Yeah, our readers are actually pretty engaged. I get more feedback when people don't like a story than when they do. But but honestly, uh it's you know, it's better to get feedback and at least I read all the feedback. I usually don't have time to respond to feed to a lot of it, but I do read it. And I think sometimes it can be helpful just to hear or think about what people have to say. But I also think that it's worth knowing what subjects people are getting really riled up about. And sometimes it's surprising uh what people end up sort of getting mad about, whether it's something in housing or whether it's something else. So we get that. We get it, we have an engaged readership, and I'd rather have that than a disengaged readership, I suppose.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, that's true, because you know you're being read at least.

Andy Medici:

Yeah, I mean, it's like the it's like the meme, you know, you're the worst journalist I've ever read. And it's like, well, you've read me though, so Right, right.

Angela Tuell:

So does the negativity towards journalists, um, do you think that affects you equally in the business space more or less?

Andy Medici:

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I I I think I think overall, honestly, it does affect it. It you can't get away from it. I am a journalist, that's what I do. I can't pretend I don't do that. And journalism, like writ large, is not like a monolith. It's deeply sort of fractured across all sorts of stuff. There are certain practices and stuff that I see that I couldn't defend. I don't I don't necessarily begrudge people for not liking that. I just uh hope and ex uh hope that they would judge me for who I am and for what I do. That being said, though, you know, we live in sort of harsh times for stuff like that. I just I think the best I could do is like do the best I can do. And if people want to if people want to talk to me about why they don't specifically like me, you know, maybe I'll engage in that discussion. But ultimately, like I have a job to do, and I also don't usually wander into other people's workplaces and tell them that I I don't like them as well. So I I I think this is one of the things where it's out there and it's not great. And what I can do is do the best job I can and make sure I'm fair, yeah, you know, and make sure uh I let give people a chance to comment if they're depicted negative negatively. But other than that, that's all you can sometimes that's all you really can do.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, I try to tell people, you know, especially I was in the TV side of things as we talked about, but I was always pushed from editors, did you get both sides of the story? You asking everyone, you know, that's just a basic journalism. I agree. Um, how do you do how do you go about doing that? And if you're not hearing from one side, oh yeah.

Andy Medici:

Well, it's a good question. This happened a lot more at the local level, which is weird because at the national level, a lot of times you do get people to respond, even if it's like we don't care or like no comment because those operations tend to be larger or whatever. But what I do is I tell people what I'm writing about, you know, and I had I was very lucky enough to get mentored early on in my career by really good editors, and one of them always said, you know, you have bosses, you have people who are paid a lot of money, and supposedly they're to answer tough questions. So you're allowed to ask them tough questions. You don't have to be mean about it, right? You don't have to be sort of a jerk about these questions. But if you're paid, you know, a lot of money to run a business or to lead a business, you should be able to handle tough questions. And my job is to ask them. And it's it's interesting because I honestly, the people I write about, I I bear almost like I bear none of them ill will. I don't really think about them, but but it's very personal to them because it's their business or it's their job or it's their life. But I asked the question, it's my job is to ask the question. If you leave it unasked, then you you can never give them a chance to respond. And sometimes it's surprising, sometimes it's not. You know, I have people have threatened to have me fired. Luckily, I've had a very supportive network of bosses who have not let that happen. But that's sort of part of the job, and unfortunately, it's a very tough part without that support. But so I I ask. I ask them, and then if I can't get in touch with them, I'll send them an email or or a voicemail and say this is what I'm running about. And if you don't respond, I'm just gonna say you cannot be reached for comment or whatever. Sometimes I get a sometimes I get a response only after a story runs.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Andy Medici:

But you know, that's what updates are for. I think nowadays it is a little easier to if someone decides eventually to respond, you can in the story talk about the context of that. You know, they recalled, you know, after the story ran, they responded, and here it is, and just let people sort of decide for themselves on that.

Angela Tuell:

Yes. In our media training, one of the first things I tell everyone about journalists is they are there to do their job, go home at the end of the day to their family, just like all of us, you know, like everyone else in any industry, like they're to do their job, they're not out to harm you. And I get a lot of looks that are like, sure, they're not.

Andy Medici:

You know, I well, I mean, I think it's interesting because people's depiction of journalists in their minds, and and this has happened before, is like there is a certain number, I guess, of journalists who are like maybe based in DC for national outlets. You see them at like White House press briefings, and maybe they're on TV for national networks and they're, you know, they're making nine figures or whatever. And I think people see that and they're like, oh, well, that's what it is. But 99.9% of uh of journalists are not that, and they're totally it's a totally different universe. And I and I tell that to everyone, it's like, you know, if you're if you're a mechanic, I don't think you're the same as like an executive at Ford. Like you both work in the car industry, but that's not that's not your day-to-day. The vast majority of journalists are just out there in the country, you know, doing work for not a lot of money and uh for only some passion, right? So I just I think I I I get it, and I think it's just because of the nature of journalism is often more present at some of these like moments in history, and that makes them more visible. But you know, I think people, it's a it's more of a vibe and a feeling of anger or frustration than it is like based in sort of a rational calculation about our jobs. Right. That's all you that's all we can do, is sort of you roll with it.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, and I think the general, you know, general American public don't know the difference or understand the difference between commentators and journalists.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Angela Tuell:

And they're seen as the same, you know, on all of the the network in their mind, on any of the network media or that sort of thing. Like this is a journalist, but no, they they might just be an opinion commentator, you know.

Andy Medici:

Yeah, and I and I think nowadays that line is like, you know, social media and who does what and for what reasons is very blurred. And I think it's blurred to the point where I it's hard to it's hard to really even draw a line through any specific instance. And so you get people just get sort of that feeling, no matter what, that they're like being played or that they don't like this person, which is unfortunate because my second advice to people on this is like fine, then find the person that is right, like after the fact, who is right about something happening, find them and then just follow them. Like if that is if you are, you know, just figure that out. And more often than not, you'll probably be right about these things.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, that's good advice. I have to ask some more advice. Much of our uh listenership are PR pros. So um, you know, hi PR hi PR pros. So, what advice do you have for those of us trying to pitch you story ideas? I know, like you said, with how busy you are, I'm sure many of them go to kind of the the you know the universe in your email, but what advice do you have?

Andy Medici:

It's a great, it's a great question. Uh and like to be upfront, a lot of journalists like just don't like PR people. Yes, and I know that and and I think yes, uh sorry, yeah, you know.

Angela Tuell:

I know that from being a journalist, not as much, luckily for being PR.

Andy Medici:

It's it's true. It and there's like a gruffness about it, and uh part of that is just like being you know, being stretched for time and all those things. And and sometimes the relationship between PR people and journalists is not can can be not great. And that's and that happens because both of us, we don't have the same job, right? We have jobs that are often complementary, but sometimes they're opposing, and I think it's hard to navigate that. What I what I will say about sort of the advice is if you could most journalists don't like most PR people, or at least conceptually, but if you can figure out what the journalists that you want to like reach, what they cover and what they do and what they want, like then they will like you, right? Like then they it's just a matter, like there are some PR people that I work with all the time because they have access to data or they have sort of figured out what I cover. And so the our relationship becomes more symbiotic, where you know, if you're a company, if you represent a company and they have, let's just throw this out there, like a lot of data from payroll. They do payroll or whatever. And it's like, hey, we found that we found out that you know, people who you know switch jobs, they make more or whatever. Like, that's interesting to me. It's interesting to our readers, you know, you have figured out that I like that. And then the my always my follow-up was always like, what else do you have? What other, you know? So I think it's the problem is breaking in, you know. I get three or four hundred emails a day. Um, you know, a lot of them are I sift through fully quickly. I'm not responding to all of them.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Andy Medici:

But and I get calls from people and I will talk to you. I'm not gonna hang up on people, but it's tough. You just have to, I think people want to like blast out a lot of emails and sort of see who responds. But honestly, there aren't enough journalists left where I feel like you couldn't like go out and see who might want like start with a smaller group and see who might actually. I know everyone's everyone's stressed for time. And I know people who work at boutique agencies probably even more so, um, or you know, who have a number of clients. But honestly, like the legwork at the beginning might save you a if you could tell your client, oh, you guys do X and you're doing X, I know a reporter who would be interested, and you actually genuinely do, that is actually probably far more helpful than I'm gonna send out another set of emails, right? And that's it's the same thing for journalists, though, right? You know, you develop sources at the beginning, you figure out what to do, and that saves you time down the road. So, like you people figure out what I want to write and I keep them close, right? You know, and I would say that if you have like a journalist who's local or a niche journalist and you like can't crack through, like take a look at what they write about, like read some of their articles, and then and re and and maybe not so much the specific subject, but see what they write about. Like at the business journals at the local level, they like to write about real estate deals, they like to write about mergers, they like to write about acquisitions. Honestly, they like to write about that stuff before um, you know, before they hit the news wires.

Angela Tuell:

Yes.

Andy Medici:

Developing relationships with reporters like that could be helpful down the line.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah. You know, one of the places that we actually give reach out with exclusives for are business journals because they do love that.

Andy Medici:

So, yes, point of point of order from my bosses, just for the listeners out there is that business journals love exclusives.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Andy Medici:

Bring us exclusives. Yes, like the moment it goes out in a press release, it bec it becomes a harder sell to the editors. Yes. And you know, and and there's trade-offs. I know PR people make trade-offs, but just make sure that you're considering these sorts of things when making these trade-offs. As I said, you know, the universe of outlets isn't very big anymore. And so it's probably worth at least getting to know a handful and seeing if you can form longer-term relations with them. And if not, at least you tried, right? But but sometimes there are journalists out there who are like if if you know, this is what I want. And they'll say it, but maybe the person's not hearing, or maybe they never even get to that conversation. But I think if you can at least at some point uh get a little bit of that and then try to become more of like an asset, then I think that's where a lot of journalists will sort of turn and start asking, you know.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, it definitely has to be mutually beneficial. You know, I know a lot of journalists and being one, it can't just be like the peer professional who is trying to get you to do stuff for that, and that's it. You know, it really has to be beneficial both ways.

Andy Medici:

Well, and I think like one of the big sort of mistakes is the pitch of like, I see you wrote about X. Why don't you write a story about this business? But but that's not really a story. And I encourage everyone who is listening, who's also they also read. You're all everyone's also a reader. Like, is that a story you'd read? Would you be interested in that story? And like, why? And if the answer is like probably not, then like, you know, but is that person who owns a business, did they have thoughts about other things? You know, do they have thoughts about, you know, permits, right? So, like local news, right? Do they have thoughts about how hard it is to get a permit? They opened their seventh restaurant, you know, and maybe you can't get that story in, but like it was really hard to open the seventh restaurant because of this permitting reform, and it took a year or whatever. That could be a story. And like, if they're willing to speak about those sorts of things, that you know, we you sort of expand the universe, but in a way that still stays true to the person. There are stories that I think people would would and could be interested in, but that pitch never actually happens because we're kind of stuck on right about this business or you know, right about this this concept, and it never really gets further than that.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, absolutely. So I have to ask, what are you the proudest of in your career so far?

Andy Medici:

Oh hi, that's a great question. I actually I think about this sometimes um because there's a joke in journalism like that the longer you work, the more likely you are just to accumulate like awards, which I have, and I went back to some of these, and I was like, I don't know. I think I think I a lot of the stuff I wrote during the pandemic about small business aid, I think I I would throw that in collectively because it was more of a frantic dash than like one story. But I do feel like I helped a lot of people stay afloat, and that makes me feel good. And I got I actually we talk about emails with feedback, you know, good or bad, and I got a lot of good feedback that I have like hung on to about my coverage that I think people really felt that they needed at the time, and that felt good. And you know, before that, you know, I've written about you know, I wrote once about federal employee health plans and they were gonna drop like autism sort of treatment from coverage. That was a good one. I think I think what journalists really want is to know that their stories make like a real impact. Like I could write about certain things all day, and people will read them, and that's good, but it's nice knowing that the stories that you put out into the world like had a meaningful impact, and that's kind of what I look for, and and that's what I enjoy doing when I can.

Angela Tuell:

If you weren't covering business journalism, what beat would you cover?

Andy Medici:

So there's so much, right? I mean, if I think there's a lot of journalism that I would love to do if there were still industries built around it, but I, you know, I love I love board games and tabletop role-playing games. I would love to write more about those. You know, I love internet subcultures. I think there's a lot of neat areas that like we would call sort of like indie or niche areas that I think deserve more people sort of writing about them, especially because I think most people would find it fascinating. But I, you know, a lot of this doesn't have that support that it used to. There's still people doing great stuff. So I think honestly, if if I could, it would honestly be like write whatever I want to, but that doesn't exist as a job at the moment.

Angela Tuell:

Right where you can make money from, right? You can have your own website. And yeah, that's the thing.

Andy Medici:

We do live in an age where people can write about anything. And I encourage people who are interested in writing about stuff to write about that stuff. But when it comes to like the I need money to pay for goods and services, you know, those options are a little more limited.

Angela Tuell:

Yes. So in preparing, though, for this interview, I saw that you are an aspiring novelist by name. Tell us more.

Andy Medici:

Yeah, well, I mean, I the joke is that like eventually every journalist has to write like a really big nonfiction book that nobody reads. Uh I skipped that into writing fiction that nobody reads. You know, I don't actually I I during the pandemic, as we all did, we all adopt various hobbies. I had like tried writing books before. Pandemic, we had a lot of time, we were at home. I like started doing it again. I have not been published, but I have found that it's nice to exercise a different part of your brain. Yeah. I have friends who they feel drained, you know. I think everyone can can sort of think about this, you know, you you cut you come home from work or you're done, you feel drained, yeah, and you just kind of want to sit there. But I have found that like having something that engages a different part of you just makes it feels really good. It it feels like it's almost like going to the gym where like you kind of don't want to do it, but you never feel bad for having done it. And so I have written a number of novels, they sit on a shelf, but if there are agents out there, call me. Uh other than that, other than that though, you know, part of it is you have to write because you want to, right? You can't, you can't, and so I do, and I will continue to do so whether or not those books see the light of day. Some of them probably won't. I will take them with me in my coffin when I go, but others, sure, you know. But I I I always encourage people to have more than one thing, and then it feels it feels better. And that's my pitch for having hobbies, I suppose.

Angela Tuell:

So, how many have you written?

Andy Medici:

Uh 11.

Angela Tuell:

Wow.

Andy Medici:

I I say that tentatively because I would I would assure you and the listeners that they're not all of equal quality, right? But what I will say is that they got they have gotten better, which is great. Yeah, and and you just, you know, and do it, do something because you love it, you know?

Angela Tuell:

I love that. Hopefully we'll see when in print.

Andy Medici:

Yeah, maybe one day, yeah.

Angela Tuell:

So what else is next for you? You know, story ideas you're excited to dig into, or um, you know, anything else professionally?

Andy Medici:

Yeah, you know, I we talked about how my career began with me hating coding, but I feel I've come full circle a bit because my kid is now old enough. He's learning, he wants to, he's learning coding, and I've been learning with him. And so I've been using little bits of it to like make the spreadsheets better and stuff, and that has been really interesting. And I I could see a lot more use for like at the individual level, not at like the global scale, of like these little things being super helpful for me. And that dovetails with like there is a lot of technology stories that I feel like don't get told. I think we focus a lot on like the mergers, the acquisitions, yeah, but I think with AI we have found that like, and those are big, but there's a lot of like weird secondary order stuff that happens when you get like massive amounts of money changing hands. And there's so I think there's a lot of I'm really interested in what happens when you dump $500 billion into data centers, right? Like in one year, there can't, it's gotta be weird, you know. You've I think we've saw the stories about like electricity getting more expensive, you know. But there's there's all sorts of downstream effects, and there's just not enough people thinking or looking at it, you know. I I think we're only I think change is happening much faster than it used to. That like I joke about things like NFTs and the metaverse, but that wasn't long ago. But they're gone, no one talks about them anymore. And I was assured that people would. And and I think that stuff like that has a way of like compounding. So I'm just if you have if there's like workplace stuff or culture stuff or technology stuff, I'm I'm interested. How much of this can become a business channel story? I don't know, but I'm happy to try and find out. And also any exclusives, once again, my bosses uh insist that I think exclusives, exclusives, yes.

Angela Tuell:

Well, so asking about AI a little bit, you know, do you use it in your work at all? Or do you think that's one of those things that's that's a great way?

Andy Medici:

That's a great question. So I don't use it. Um there are a variety of reasons not to use it, and I won't get into all of that for me, but uh the AI, the That I have been showcased for my that would potentially become part of my work doesn't, it's not as it's just not as good as I am. That's not a mean thing. It is probably better than the beginning journalist, which is the issue, right? It's better than like someone on day one, but it but it also doesn't give you anything new. And I think what I've been thinking about and how I've been using AI, at least in my mind, is if AI can tell you this stuff, right? It's probably I need to do better on stories. Like I need to bring something more interesting or unique. That that being said, I mean, I am not a huge fan that uh all of my collective work is part of these systems, you know, most likely. Right. Yes. Uh I mean, I don't own the copyright on my stories. My company, by paying me, owns them. So it's more their fight than mine if they want to pick it up. But a lot of my stuff is in there. I mean, the joke about m-dashes is real because who uses M-dashes? Journalists. That's where journalists and academic researchers, that's where the M-dash for AI came from. Like, regular people aren't using M-dashes in their like emails to their parents or whatever. So, like, that's in there. The ghosts in the machine are like all of us. So I'm not thrilled. It's just, but it's just not it's just for journalism, too. You can't use a system that it hallucinates because we are liable for it. There's literally the word libel that we are like that's there's a whole thing. The lawyers at my company would probably go nuts if they found out that someone was using it to directly do that. Now, that being said, like, you know, who knows where we go. But you know, I've seen people say they use tools for certain things. I think my our company is taking what I what I appreciate as like a very sort of steady approach where we just test a lot of stuff internally in like little groups to see what happens. But I think honestly, you know, there's like, oh, can it suggest a better headline? Maybe. Can it can it uh suggest meta keywords? Sure. Is that is that game changing? No. Right. So then the question becomes well, it's fine when it's free or close to free, yeah. Uh, but when it gets to when it becomes 25 cents a generation, let's just throw something out there. Is it worth it now to have it suggest an okay headline? And I leave people with they have to make that choice, right? But you know, it's like Uber. We all remember Uber was cheap and it was great, and you wrote it around town, and now Uber is a million dollars, right? Like Uber is a very expensive for what it used to be. And that was part of it, right? It became part of our sort of fabric, and now we pay essentially what I paid for cabs back in the day. We pay for Uber. So I just tell people, like, you know, any journalist out there or former journalists remembers things like the pivot to video, if anyone remembers that, or like various social media like crazes, or and each time journalism kind of gets burned by them a little bit, they go they like lean out too far. I appreciate my company is like not doing that, but at the same time, we're I guess we're just seeing, right? So far, there will be if you see stuff uh at my uh, you know, people coming up with policies, if you see stuff like that, it's one of those things where every company is gonna have a different one. And some companies went full in, right? To date though, I don't think that's worked out for anyone.

Angela Tuell:

No, yeah. I love how you mentioned the M-dash because I use that as a journalist too, you as a former journalist as well. But then as I'm writing an email, I'm thinking, is someone going to think this is Chad? Because I'm using the M-dash.

Andy Medici:

Someone, someone actually, you're right, and someone brought that up to me. And I said, I will, it's like the joke in office space about being named Michael Bolton. It's like, why should I change my name? He's the one who sucks. You know, why should why should I change my use of the M-dash because the computer decided that it liked the M-dash too? I was here first, and I've been using M-dashes for decades, like even when I shouldn't have been. And um, so I mean, yeah, and on being accused of whether it's AI or not, I just my response and my strategy has been to I don't care at all. I'm just gonna write my stuff. And if people want to claim that it's AI, they could claim that it's AI all they want. And I'm just not gonna care because I can't, I cannot think or change like the way I write because the latest update to Claude Sonnet sounds more like me than the one before it. I don't know. I can't help that. Some of that stuff is probably me, but honestly, like I think ultimately people are gonna have to judge well not whether something is written by A or not, but they're gonna just have to judge it on the quality, unfortunately. Like, I feel bad for saying that like you can't really detect all this stuff, but if the metaphors don't make sense and if it feels and if it sounds bad, then just then just you just call it bad sounding stuff, right? And unless unless we come up with some surefire way, just judge it based on I I feel like my stuff holds up well against that stuff. So we'll see. Maybe not. Maybe maybe we'll talk again and I will have changed my thoughts on this.

Angela Tuell:

I don't know. You know, I try to look use it a lot personally on the personal side for things, you know, looking at when things are open or planning a trip or that sort of stuff. And there's so much that is wrong and doesn't make sense or isn't right that I just it's got a long way to go.

Andy Medici:

I mean, and and I and whether or not it gets there is is gonna be a good question. Because when you train everything, when you it's been trained on all of the internet. I'm not joking, like most of the internet was in this thing from day one. Yeah, and so how much better can it get? I don't know. It's a good question. More money than ever is writing on that question, and uh I'm interested, but not super excited to see the outcome of that.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, yes. We'll be we'll be watching, right?

Andy Medici:

Yes, exactly.

Angela Tuell:

So I could talk to you forever, but I do have to ask how can listeners follow, you know, along with your work and connect with you online?

Andy Medici:

Uh don't. No, I'm just kidding. Um I'm feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. It's Andy Medici. You know, I'm on LinkedIn. Uh I am not as active on social media platforms as I used to be. I'm on X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter, uh, and I'm at Andy Medici. Uh and honestly, I that's mostly it. But what you can do for people, especially for people listening to this particular podcast, feel free to email me. I'm a real human at the end of an email. And now, will I always answer? I don't know if I can. However, say that you heard me on this podcast and I will try to answer. But my the email is my first initial A, and then my last name, Medici at bizjournals.com. And I'm a real person. So feel free.

Angela Tuell:

Wonderful. We will add that into our show notes.

Andy Medici:

I was gonna say, yeah, maybe throw that in the show notes. I've always wanted to say something like that. And then smash smash the like button and then share this podcast with your friends.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, please. Thank you so much, Andy.

Andy Medici:

Of course. It was great to be here, Angela. Thanks for having me on.

Angela Tuell:

That's all for this episode of Media and Minutes, a podcast by Communications Redefined. Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe to our show. We'd love to hear what you think. You can find more at Communications Redefined.comslash podcast. I'm your host, Angela Tuell. Talk to you next time.