Caxton Media says AI search favours credible local publishers, benefiting local advertisers

There is a familiar saying, ‘you are what you eat'. What we consume affects how we think, how we feel and how we function. The same is true of media.

Faris Yakob, co-founder of Genius Steals and the thinking behind Intelligent Ink, has long argued that a media diet works exactly the same as a food diet. What people read, watch and listen to shapes the way they think, the way they feel and crucially, what they believe. But just like food, not all content nourishes.

Some media environments are rich in context, credibility and accountability. Others are the complete opposite.

Guidelines for healthy consumption

Much like the food pyramid designed to guide healthy eating, Yakob created a media pyramid that he uses to make the case for a balanced media diet. At the ‘healthy’ abundant bottom of the pyramid are media like books and theatre, followed by non-fiction books, quality journalism and educational resources.

On the opposite end of the pyramid, the ‘unhealthy’ top, are heavy social media use and rolling (biased) news consumption. Ideology-based media that leads to falsehoods sits at the apex.

These sources tend to rely on fake news and propaganda-like content for attention. They lean on heightened emotions rather than fact, are rarely held to any external standard, and almost always push a single agenda.

Users experience this media through a ‘filter bubble’ – a one-sided view often dictated by their own feelings on a single, or group of similar, platforms. Yakob calls these media echo chambers, as they largely feed users’ own opinions back to them on a never-ending loop. In such a polarised media landscape dominated by algorithms, automation and artificial intelligence, trust has become the rarest and most valuable commodity of all.

Placement influences perception

Brands and services consume media too. That is, the media that they buy into to advertise their products and solutions. These entities face the same choice that every consumer does. They can either nourish their reputation inside trusted, credible media environments, or let it be tarnished by association with untrustworthy platforms.

An advert is judged, in part, by the company it keeps. Placed in a respected context, it is seen, remembered and acted on. Placed badly, it inherits the doubt of the content that surrounds it.

Machines have an appetite too

Now there is a new diner at the table, and it’s hungry. One of the strongest findings emerging from AI search research is that AI-generated answers disproportionately cite established, authoritative publishers.

Tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews continuously crawl and synthesise verified, high-authority news and public relations content to answer the questions people ask. The result? Traditional media has quietly become the backbone of AI search engines.

In 2025, a large-scale study of more than 75,000 Google AI overview responses found that AI systems heavily favoured recognised news publishers and authoritative media brands when selecting sources to cite. The implication of this for marketers is significant. When a brand’s story lives inside a trusted editorial environment, it earns credibility:

• Credibility with consumers, who trust what they read there
  
• Credibility with search engines, which rank authoritative sources higher
  
• Credibility with AI models, which increasingly decide what gets put in front of consumers, and what gets forgotten.

AI prioritises local content

In a marketing world where digital noise arrives from every angle, one truth holds firm – localisation is key. In South Africa especially, a country of diverse cultures, languages and regional nuances, brands that fail to speak to their audience on a local level risk missing the mark entirely.

AI is making local authority more valuable than ever. People are no longer merely searching; they are asking. ‘Which retailer has the best specials in my area?’ ‘What are my entertainment options in Fourways this weekend?’ ‘Which are the best schools near me?’ ‘What are the property trends in Joburg North?’ These questions are local by nature, and the answers are assembled from whatever local, credible content AI can find.

When a brand’s story appears in trusted editorial and local content ecosystems, it immediately increases its chances of being part of the information layer that informs AI-generated answers.

A trusted advertising ecosystem

This is the role that Caxton Media fulfils, not as a newspaper group but as an advertising ecosystem spanning news, print and digital media, delivering targeted local audience access at scale. In addition to interactive campaigns, competitions, gamification and loyalty programmes that turn consumer attention into meaningful engagement.

Rob Fedder, group executive at Caxton Media, describes this ecosystem as ‘meeting marketers’ evolving advertising and engagement needs, constantly moving consumers from awareness, through trust, targeting and conversion, to interaction and data collection.

Caxton Media is authentic, integrated and trustworthy. Its strength lies in tailoring advertising campaigns to where people live, shop and engage, and providing a genuine link between South African brands and real audiences in real communities. In 2026 that link delivers a second advantage – visibility within the content environments most likely informing AI-generated answers to pressing local questions.

If you as a brand are what you consume, choose the media that feeds you well.

Originally published here: https://www.caxtonmedia.co.za/an-appetite-for-local-authority-news.