Interview with Peter Kropsch
In the run-up to the "75 years of dpa" event in the SPACE innovation room, nextMedia.Hamburg spoke to dpa Managing Director Peter Kropsch.
In the run-up to the "75 years of dpa" event in the SPACE innovation room, nextMedia.Hamburg spoke to dpa Managing Director Peter Kropsch.
nextMedia: Hello Mr. Kropsch. After the big celebrations in Berlin last week, we continue this week in Hamburg. What do you associate with the Hanseatic city?
Peter Kropsch: Hamburg is very important - both as a media location and for us as an agency. To this day, Hamburg is our headquarters and that is actually not a matter of course: the founding contract states that the agency's headquarters should be the seat of the federal government. But due to various initiatives, the headquarters moved to Hamburg - and stayed here. The management, technology and administration and some subsidiaries are based in Hamburg. Many of our initiatives are based in Hamburg. To cut a long story short: Hamburg is very important to us.
"We are aware that we need to embrace the major changes in the media industry."
nextMedia: dpa has been around for 75 years now. You have been dpa Managing Director since 2017. When you look back: What do you think has changed at dpa since 2017?
Peter Kropsch : In principle, dpa is no longer the same company it was in 2017. We are aware that we have to embrace the major changes in the media industry. We have therefore realigned our structure so that we can optimally serve all existing and future media genres. Our young target group, for example, has different needs that we want to address even more strongly in the future. However, nothing has changed in our DNA: We remain committed to factual accuracy, independence and balance.
nextMedia: What challenges does a news agency like dpa currently face?
Peter Kropsch: As I mentioned, we are in a state of flux. There are many different challenges: On the one hand, there are the needs in the area of moving images that we want to fulfill. Another challenge is the whole area of AI. We believe we are well prepared for both.
nextMedia: dpa developed and implemented an AI strategy comparatively early on. What concrete changes will AI bring for dpa?
Peter Kropsch: AI will bring about changes in all areas. The question of what will not change is all the more exciting: Because that's the gathering of primary information by so-called primary information sources. This refers to journalists who are on the ground, who know what's going on and report first-hand. AI cannot do that. All downstream processes will increasingly be changed by AI and we are right in the middle of it. AI will help us enormously with design, processing, data evaluation and archiving. What remains - and we defined this at the very beginning of the AI strategy - is the human being as a verifying control instance. To put it simply: Nothing must go out that has not been checked by an intellectual, human control instance. Perhaps the most important element of our products is trust, and this is the only way we can ensure it.
nextMedia: How will dpa ensure in future that no AI-generated fake news is disseminated by it?
Peter Kropsch: The fastest growing editorial department at dpa is the fact-checking department. We see that disinformation is getting better and better and is using more sophisticated methods and techniques. This means that we, who want to recognize these fakes, also need more knowledge and better methods. That's why we made it our domain early on to recognize disinformation. We do this through fact checks in which we investigate false information and place it in the right context. We also run training courses in which we constantly deal with software and methods and train colleagues in other editorial offices.
nextMedia: Part of their AI strategy is also to build new business models with AI. What specific business areas do you see and why is this necessary?
Peter Kropsch: As dpa, we have a huge amount of knowledge and information at our disposal. We believe that we can make this information more accessible through AI - for us and our customers. It would be a huge relief if we no longer had to make complicated database queries, but could simply write natural language queries and receive an AI-supported response from our archives. With our archives, we would then have a complete answer that contains both the latest news and historical background information. So it won't just be a matter of implementing an internal process improvement. We also want our customers to benefit from this.
nextMedia: What are dpa's goals for the next 5 years?
Peter Kropsch: We have just come out of a strategy process. There we looked at the question "What are the big issues for the next 5 years?". For us, user behavior and technological change are the two most relevant determinants. As already explained, the provision of moving image information will become an even greater focus for us, as videos are becoming increasingly attractive and we can provide primary information. In addition, we will continue to invest more in technical expertise. By this I mean the interface between technology and journalism. We need trained people who combine both components. And last but not least, we will continue to diversify. Our core area remains the news agency, but we want to expand the economic strength of the agency in order to further consolidate our independence.
nextMedia: Thank you very much for the interview!