What’s the old adage? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? Well, in 2023, we couldn’t resist, and as a result the digital team at Al Jazeera took a good thing and tried to make it even better, that thing being History Illustrated. In its second year of existence, History Illustrated had the benefit of a design team now well-versed in communicating with a generative AI like Midjourney AI. Throughout the year, we continued to produce weekly explainers of news events, past and present, employing a film-noir, graphic-novel aesthetic that the designers had by now mastered. With that skill set firmly and properly acquired, the team took aim at quicker response times to meet the demands of an incessant news cycle. Whereas past episodes might have taken a week to write, and another to generate the images, the events of 2023 dictated that we respond more quickly. And respond we did. We had no choice. The attack by Hamas on Israel, and Israel’s subsequent attack on the Gaza Strip demanded that we supply our viewers with content that leaned heavily on context. In other words, we had to provide a historical perspective to help them better understand a most profound Middle East crisis. And we needed to do it fast, as fast as three days sometimes. Is it sustainable? No, of course not. Was it necessary? That goes without saying. In the end, by improving our turnaround, we improved the user experience—giving our subscribers what they wanted, when they wanted it.
In news, unlike the restaurant business, there’s no secret sauce. The formula for success is as open-source as these things get: responsiveness and accuracy are king and queen. It’s that simple when it comes to bringing your audience the news. Going into our first full year, the digital team at History Illustrated had completed the sometimes steep learning curve that is required to accurately communicate instructions to any generative AI. While remarkable in the quality and speed with which it can generate an image, Midjourney AI has its ticks. Meaning, you don’t always get what you want. Not if you don’t say it right. But that’s largely behind us. Largely only because we are always learning. Learning to think creatively. For example, there are restrictions on the kinds of images Midjourney AI will generate. It’s balancing the need for creativity with the need for public safety and standards. So if an image can’t be generated because of certain content restrictions, then our designers have to think creatively. That sort of thing takes time, time that, judging by our results, our team has clearly put in.
Not going to lie—it’s always nice to win awards, and History Illustrated has indeed won in the past. But our look at the news, past and present, explored from a historical perspective, while employing a film-noir/graphic novel style, was also embraced by some of the toughest judges we know: our audience. On Instagram, our success was once again unpromoted and organic.
Meanwhile, the war in Gaza has required that we respond with informative content that, judging by the numbers, has been well received. And if ever a story needed historical context, the story unfolding over the Palestine-Israel issue is perhaps the one most in need of a sober and balanced perspective, but without flinching from certain undeniable truths. It’s the sort of thing that we specialise in at History Illustrated.
