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What critics are saying: The AI podcast immediately made headlines — and drew criticisms from people questioning its accuracy, and the motives behind it.
What the Post is saying: Bailey Kattleman, head of product and design at the Post, calls it “an AI-powered audio briefing experience” — and one that will soon let listeners talk back to it.
Read on … for more details and answers to the biggest questions about this new experiment.
It’s not your mother’s podcast — or your father’s, or anyone else’s. The Washington Post’s new offering, “Your Personal Podcast,” uses artificial intelligence to customize podcasts for its users, blending the algorithm you might find in a news feed with the convenience of portable audio.
The podcast is “personalized automatically based on your reading history” of Post articles, the newspaper says on its help page. Listeners also have some control: At the click of a button, they can alter their podcast’s topic mix — or even swap its computer-generated “hosts.”
The AI podcast immediately made headlines — and drew criticisms from people questioning its accuracy, and the motives behind it.
Nicholas Quah, a critic and staff writer for Vulture and New York magazine who writes a newsletter about podcasts, says the AI podcast is an example of the Post’s wide-ranging digital experiments — but one that didn’t go quite right.
“This is one of many technologically, digitally oriented experiments that they’re doing” that is aimed at “getting more audience, breaking into new demographics,” he says. Those broader efforts range from a generative AI tool for readers to a digital publishing platform. But in this case, Quah adds, “It feels like it’s compromising the core idea of what the news product is.”
On that help page, the newspaper stresses that the podcast is in its early beta phase and “is not a traditional editorial podcast.”
Bailey Kattleman, head of product and design at the Post, calls it “an AI-powered audio briefing experience” — and one that will soon let listeners talk back to it.
“In an upcoming release, they’ll be able to actually interact and ask follow up questions to dig in deeper to what they’ve just heard,” Kattleman says in an interview with NPR.
As technically sophisticated as that sounds, there are many questions about the new podcast’s accuracy — even its ability to correctly pronounce the names of Post journalists it cites. Semafor reported that errors, cited by staffers at the Post, included “misattributing or inventing quotes and inserting commentary, such as interpreting a source’s quotes” as the paper’s own stance.
In the newspaper’s app, a note advises listeners to “verify information” by checking the podcast against its source material.
In a statement, the Washington Post Guild — which represents newsroom employees and other staff — tells NPR, “We are concerned about this new product and its rollout,” alleging that it undermines the Post’s mission and its journalists’ work.
Citing the paper’s standing practice of issuing a correction if a story contains an error, the guild added, “why would we support any technology that is held to a different, lower standard?”
So, why is the Post rolling out an AI podcast? And will other news and audio outlets follow its lead?
Here are some questions, and answers:
“The Post has certainly gone out on a ledge here among U.S. legacy publishers,” Andrew Deck tells NPR. But he adds that the newspaper isn’t the first to experiment with AI-generated podcasts in the wider news industry.
Deck, who writes about journalism and AI for Harvard University’s Nieman Lab, points to examples such as the BBC’s My Club Daily, an AI-generated soccer podcast that lets users hear content related to their favorite club. In 2023, he adds, “a Swiss public broadcaster used voice clones of real radio hosts on the air.”
News outlets have also long offered an automated feature that converts text articles into computer-generated voices.
Even outside of the news industry, AI tools for creating podcasts and other audio are more accessible than ever. Some promise to streamline the editing process, while others can synthesize documents or websites into what sounds like a podcast conversation.
“It’s cost-effective,” says Gabriel Soto, senior director of research at Edison Research, which tracks the podcast industry. “You cut out many of the resources and people needed to produce a podcast (studios, writers, editors, and the host themselves).”
And if a brand can create a successful AI virtual podcast in today’s highly competitive podcasting market, Soto adds, it could become a valuable intellectual property in the future.
Deck says that if the Post’s experiment works, the newspaper “may be able to significantly scale up and expand its audio journalism offerings, without investing in the labor that would normally be required to expand.”
In an interview, Kattleman stresses the new product isn’t meant to replace traditional podcasts: “We think they have a unique and enduring role, and that’s not going away at the Post.”
For Deck, the level of customization it promises is an innovation. Being able to tailor a podcast specific to one person, he says, “is arguably beyond what any podcast team in journalism right now can produce manually.”
In an example the Post published, listeners can choose from voice options with names like “Charlie and Lucy” and “Bert and Ernie.”
Kattleman says her team was working from the idea that for an audience, there isn’t a “one size fits all” when it comes to AI and journalism.
“Some people want that really straight briefing style; some people prefer something more conversational and more voicey,” she says.
Quah says that adding an AI podcast is a bid to make stories accessible to a broader audience.
He says that with the podcast, the Post seems to be trying to reach young people who “don’t want to read anymore, they just want to listen to the news.”
A key goal, Kattleman says, is to make podcasts more flexible, to appeal to younger listeners who are on the go.
Outlining the process behind the Post’s AI podcast, Kattleman says, “Everything is based on Washington Post journalism.”
An LLM, or large language model, converts a story into a short audio script, she says. A second LLM then vets the script for accuracy. After the final script is stitched together, Kattleman adds, the voice narrates the episode.
Soto, of Edison Research, says that 1 in 5 podcast consumers say they’ve listened to an AI-narrated podcast.
But, he adds that for podcast listeners, “many prefer the human connection, accepting AI tools to assist in creating the content, but not in executing or hosting the podcast.”
The new AI podcast reminds Deck a bit of the hyper-personalized choices for users offered by TikTok and other social media.
“There is a level of familiarity
and, arguably, comfort with algorithmic curation among younger audiences,” he says.
But while younger audiences tend to be tech savvy, many of them are also thoughtful about authenticity and connection.
“Community is at the core of why people listen to podcasts,” Soto says.
Then there’s the idea of a host or creator’s personality, which drives engagement on TikTok and other platforms.
“These creators have built a relationship with their audience — and maybe even trust — even if they haven’t spoken to sources themselves,” Deck says. “This type of news content is a far cry from the disembodied banter of AI podcast hosts.”
One big potential consequence is the loss of jobs — and for companies, the loss of talent.
“The automation of it kind of erases the entire sort of voice performance industry,” Quah says. “There are people who do this for a living,” he adds, who could “produce higher quality versions of these recordings.”
There are also concerns that, if AI chooses a story and controls how it’s presented, it might create an echo chamber, omitting context or skepticism that a journalist would likely provide.
“AI-based news personalization tends to land firmly in the camp of delivering audiences what they want to know,” Deck says.
Deck says he’s willing to give the Post’s AI podcast a bit of time to see how it plays out. But Deck does have a chief concern: “I can say point blank, generative AI models hallucinate.”
And when AI models are wrong, he says, they’re often confidently so.
Blurring boundaries between human and AI voices could also raise questions of trust — a critical factor for a news organization.
As Soto puts it, “What happens when your audience expects content from the real you and ends up finding AI instead?”
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The backstory: State leaders announced the multi-million dollar investment into the park in 2024, planning to prep the park for an Olympic close-up by replacing the warren of asphalt lots on Expo Park’s southern edge with an underground lot and green park land.
What’s next: But park officials now say the 6-acre project now won’t break ground until 2028, after the Olympic torch is extinguished.
The $360 million effort to turn Exposition Park’s largest parking lots into green space won’t be completed in time for the 2028 Olympics.
State leaders announced the multi-million dollar investment into the park in 2024, planning to prep the park for an Olympic close-up by replacing the warren of asphalt lots on Expo Park’s southern edge with an underground lot and green park land.
Now park officials say the 6-acre project now won’t break ground until 2028, after the Olympic torch is extinguished.
Expo Park and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will be a centerpiece of L.A.’s Olympic image in the summer of 2028. But for residents of the surrounding South L.A. neighborhoods, the park and its facilities help fill a serious need for recreation and green space.
Andrea Ambriz, general manager of the state-run park, said the park hasn’t had an investment of this kind since the 1984 Olympic Games, but that the inspiration and funding for the park project go beyond the 2028 games.
“Whatever we do now is intended in full to support the community. It’s not just for these games,” Ambriz said.
Ambriz said park officials hit pause on project planning after realizing it would not be completed before the Olympics.
State leaders are still angling to get at least some of the park freshened up in time for the Olympics, with officials announcing in January that Gov. Gavin Newsom planned to earmark $96.5 million in proposed funds for renovations in the park.
The funding, according to the governor’s proposed budget, will be used for “critical deferred maintenance” to meet code compliance and accessibility requirements.
Ambriz said the lion’s share of the money will go to rehabbing roadways, sidewalks and ramps throughout the park to ensure safe pedestrian and vehicle access.
“This is a part of what we know we need,” Ambriz said. “It is a really significant downpayment from the state.”
John Noyola is a 42-year resident of the Exposition Park neighborhood who sits on the North Area Neighborhood Development Council. For him, any major overhaul of the park still feels like an abstract concept.
He’s seen news reports about the proposed changes, but heard little more.
“It hasn’t really affected us or the community,” Noyola said.
The 150-year-old Expo Park has one of the densest collections of cultural institutions in Los Angeles, said Esther Margulies, a professor of landscape architecture just across the street from the park at USC.
Four museums, including the under-construction Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, will soon share the park with the BMO Stadium and the Coliseum.
Margulies said Grand Park, in downtown Los Angeles, has begun to fill a role as a “living room for the city” in recent years, but that Expo Park is falling short of its potential.
“People should see Expo Park as a place to begin their journey of visiting Southern California and Los Angeles,” Margulies said. “This is where you should come and there should be this energy of, like, ‘Wow!’”
Changing Expo Park, Margulies said, starts with building a space that serves its community.
In its current design, the park’s best-kept green spaces sit behind the fences of its museums, Margulies said, and large asphalt expanses act as heat sinks. Major events often come at the community’s expense.
“There’s tailgating, day drinking in the park,” Margulies said. “People don’t come to the park on those days.”
Noyola, the Expo Park resident, said his family and others in the community frequent the park recreation center, pools and fields near the intersection of Vermont Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. He worries that construction could block parking or other access to the park spaces that are available.
He remains wary of the unintended consequences of a park remodel, especially after watching traffic spike in Inglewood when SoFi Stadium and the Intuit Dome were built.
“It would be nice,” Noyola said of the remodel. “Looking at the greater vision of LA 28, it’s needed. But at what cost?”
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Evacuation warnings: Ahead of the heavy rain, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has issued an evacuation warning for the Palisades, Sunset and Hurst burn scar areas due to the potential for mud and debris flows. The warning is in effect at 9 p.m. on Sunday until 9 a.m. on Tuesday.
Read on … for details on potential impact and to find out what you need to know ahead of the what’s expected from the rainy week.
Southern California is in for a wet week, with the potential for what the weather service is calling “widespread” impacts.
Ahead of the heavy rain, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has issued an evacuation warning for the Palisades, Sunset and Hurst burn scar areas due to the potential for mud and debris flows.
The warning is in effect from 9 p.m. on Sunday until 9 a.m. on Tuesday.
Rain is expected to arrive in Ventura and Los Angeles counties Sunday night, according to the National Weather Service.
Moderate to heavy rain is expected early Monday, with significant snow and damaging winds starting at about 3 a.m. Heaviest impacts, including the possibility of widespread flooding and thunderstorms, are expected to last until around 9 p.m.
Light rain is expected to continue Tuesday through Friday.
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Who was he? Perry moved here from the East Coast in 1911 to become L.A.’s top librarian. During a time of rapid growth, the city’s library services were struggling — and its main branch was inside a department store.
Revamping the system: Perry wanted to change that and more. He had progressive ideas about how books should be stored and used by the public. So when he took over, Perry pushed for a Central Library to be built that fit his idea of how these institutions should work. That Art Deco building still exists today. Some of his ideas spread nationwide, including a decision to form subject departments.
Read on … to learn more about Perry’s novel ideas.
Today, millions of Angelenos use the Central Library downtown (which turns 100 this year) and over 70 branch locations to access the Los Angeles Public Library’s collection of over 8 million books.
But this juggernaut wasn’t created overnight. What started with just 750 books in 1872 was transformed in part because of city librarian Everett Perry, a visionary who wanted books to be easy to access. Here’s a look at how his influence can still be felt today.
Perry got the job as top librarian in L.A. after working at the New York Public Library, which opened a main building during his tenure. He was accustomed to growth.
But when he arrived in 1911, the Los Angeles Public Library was struggling. With no permanent location, it had moved several times into different rented spaces, the most recent being in the Hamburger’s Department Store, where patrons had to ride an elevator to check out books in between women’s clothes and furniture.
Perry aired his grievances in a 1912 library report.
“The modern library aims to be a vital force in a community,” he wrote. “It can not perform this function, if its usefulness is limited by an inaccessible location.”
This is an early look into his ethos as librarian. Perry was part of a progressive crop of librarians, whose ideas were shifting about how books should be stored and used by the public.
His goal was to create a library system focused on great service and that rivaled the very best on the East Coast. With others, he pushed for a central library to be built, funded by a $2 million bond measure. Voters passed that in the 1920s, which led to the creation of the impressive Art Deco building that still stands downtown.
But what was perhaps even more impressive was how he infused the building with novel ideas about how to make reading more accessible.
One key example was his decision to set up subject departments. For decades prior, libraries stored books on fixed shelves (these couldn’t be adjusted), so they were usually sorted by size or acquisition date. Libraries had only recently moved to the not-very-user-friendly Dewey decimal system.
By grouping books under subjects, Perry made it much easier for people to find what they wanted. His idea was so successful that it eventually spread to other libraries across the country.
Another innovation was where you could read the books. Perry put the circulation and card catalog area in the center of the floor, which was surrounded by book stacks and reading rooms along the edges. That meant they were next to the windows and full of natural light, which according to LAPL, wasn’t customary at the time.
Perry earned a reputation as a fair, iron-fist leader who wanted top-notch library practices.
He issued a rulebook for staff that covered everything from the janitor’s responsibility to make brooms last longer to requiring librarians to go with patrons to find books.
But Perry’s legacy also includes the next generation of librarians. In 1914, he revamped an aging LAPL librarian training program into a full-fledged, accredited library school that was known as the best in California.
He aimed to professionalize librarianship by encouraging men to apply (it had commonly been women), urging all applicants to have at least some college-level education, and creating a formal internship program. The program covered technical librarian skills, as well new coursework that compared how other libraries functioned across the country.
Perry served for over two decades until his death in 1933.
His achievements were numerous. Aside from getting the Central Library built, he grew the staff from 98 to 600, helped the 200,000-book collection balloon to 1.5 million, and added dozens of more branch libraries.
In 2018 he was inducted into the California Library Hall of Fame.
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The backstory: Since last summer, agents have been using the base on Terminal Island as a launch point for operations.
Go deeper: ICE sweeps spur citizen patrols on Terminal Island — and troubling World War II memories
Federal immigration agents have left a U.S. Coast Guard facility that’s been a key staging area for them in the Port of L.A., according to U.S. Rep. Nanette Barragan who represents the area.
Since last summer, agents have been using the base on Terminal Island as a launch point for operations.
In a statement to LAist, Barragan, a Democrat, says she confirmed with the Coast Guard last night that Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol have vacated the base. She says it’s unclear at this time whether the move is permanent or if agents are moving to another location in L.A. County.
Local officials and community groups are celebrating the agents’ departure from Terminal Island. Volunteers with the Harbor Area Peace Patrols have been monitoring agent activity for months, tracking vehicles and sharing information with advocacy networks.
Earlier this week, the group said it received reports of the department.
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