I’m starting the day watching my cat listen to dawn chorus. You might be able to hear the birds in this audio blog.
Right after I made the recording, I ripped out two pages from one of my journals from 2006 and added the ripped content to my Obsidian Vault. I'm trying to see if I can find that ripped content by using Claude Cowork and Google Gemini. When I do these things, I feel like I'm gamifying my life (and my past life). I have more than 300 journals to rip and process. As I do this through the rest of this decade, I believe I will have the guts of a book. And with Brigit Kolen looking on from Eindhoven, I ought to be able to make it an interesting read.
Part of the upcoming book will refer to current research and interesting items about authentic voices. Here is what my Claude Coworker found today.
Authentic Voices & Deep Fakes
2026 is being called the year most people will be fooled by a deepfake. Voice cloning has crossed the "indistinguishable threshold" because a few seconds of audio is now enough. Researcher Siwei Lyu (University at Buffalo) and reporting from Fortune, EarthSky, and Gizmodo document the scale.Deepfakes & Journalism
Columbia Journalism Review and Poynter find that AI detection tools are unreliable and that journalists are over-relying on them. This concerns my son Dylan who has spoken to correspondents from Virgin Media Ireland about this problem.Media Literacy
In American, 25 states now have media literacy laws. NYSUT, NASBE, and Media Literacy Now are leading the policy push, with AI literacy now inseparable from media literacy.Hyperlocal Journalism
CJR profiles Patch reaching nearly a million subscribers with AI newsletters. The Local Media Association argues trust is won by showing up in school boards, zoning hearings, community events, places where no one else does.Active Citizenry
Pew Charitable Trusts (Winter 2026) and NYSUT (March 2026) connect media literacy directly to democratic readiness. The five topics are increasingly understood as a single, convergent challenge.
These aforementioned items are part of a daily deep dive I ask my Claude Coworker to perform for me.
BONUS LINK