AI’s Potential Threat to Journalism and Local News

The widespread adoption of AI technology has resulted in increased automation across varying industries, supposedly improving employee efficiency and remedying flaws. With machines and algorithms taking over routine and repetitive tasks, there is looming concern surrounding the potential rise in unemployment. Technological progress has posed a challenge to the journalism industry for years, with digitalization altering the distribution and consumption of news significantly. While the digital age has made journalism more accessible, allowing more independent and young journalists to emerge, digitalization has also severely impacted local print journalism, leading to its decline. 

ChatGPT, which stands for Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, is often recognized as the catalyst for the AI boom, sparking significant investment and public interest in the field of artificial intelligence. Since the release of ChatGPT to the public on November 30, 2022, generative artificial intelligence has made a significant and rapid influence on journalism and wider cultural aspects​​. ChatGPT, created by OpenAI, is a chatbot that uses large language models and allows users to guide and shape conversations according to their preferred length, format, style, level of detail, and language. According to The Guardian, by January 2023, it became the fastest-growing consumer software application ever, garnering over 100 million users and contributing to OpenAI's valuation of $80 billion.

AI is not capable of completely taking over the unique human skills of critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and masterful storytelling. It also can't duplicate the diligent, in-depth journalism that newspaper reporters and magazine writers, with their extensive training, patience, and commitment, have traditionally provided. This type of journalism is characterized by hands-on investigation, a strong reliance on primary research, and direct sources. Some journalists argue that AI can aid journalists in fact-checking through its nearly unlimited access to information and resources. Given ChatGPT’s ability to verify claims, check for accuracy and biases, cross-reference sources, and ensure the writer’s credibility, it can prove useful in revolutionizing the ways in which news is gathered, analyzed, and reported. 

While AI tools have been around for years and have evident benefits, there is a deeper issue at hand with the development and use of more advanced, content-generative types of AI. According to Writer’s Digest, “The Associated Press have been using AI in their newsrooms since 2014 and have even made a deal with OpenAI to license their archive of news stories dating back to 1985.” On top of that, the Associated Press curated a list of guidelines for AI use in newsrooms detailing to what extent AI can be utilized for journalistic practices. AP has a licensing agreement with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. While AP staff may cautiously explore ChatGPT, it is prohibited from generating content that is suitable for publication.

The Associated Press raises the valid argument that rather than attempting to restrict the use of AI in journalism and allowing AI to overcome bounds challenging journalists, overshadowing their efforts, we should be allowing journalists and local news platforms to utilize artificial intelligence technologies and their counterparts to keep up with the fast-paced advancements being made within the ever-changing realm of digital media and journalism. Local newspapers, print journalism, and magazines especially are at a struggle to stay afloat with the many advancements being made in digital media and artificial intelligence. Luckily, generative AI can’t meet the demand for thorough analysis or a more developed take on a subject, something readers look for when they go to news outlets.

New content-generative forms of artificial intelligence, which are sometimes indistinguishable from accurate content, pose dangers to authentic journalism and traditional structures of reporting news. Content generative AI has made it significantly easier for people to purposefully or unintentionally spread misinformation through altered images, words, audio, and videos, which typically appear as though they’re authentic and show no signs of alteration. In February of this year, AI-generated videos featuring Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and a well-known broadcaster uttering things they never said went viral, sparking debates about AI technology and its deep implications for the media industry. The technology behind these synthetic videos is advancing rapidly to the point where it's becoming impossible to tell the difference between real and fake content. 

While experts are working on ways to distinguish these fakes, their efforts are struggling to keep up with the fast-improving quality of the videos. There may come a time when it's technically impossible to determine the authenticity of a video by sight alone. Journalists can avoid utilizing AI-generated content by holding the same skepticism and caution towards these sources as they would typical sources, tracing content back to original sources, conducting a reverse image search to identify the contents' origins, and looking for reports that include similar content from trusted sources. Ensuring accuracy is a much more difficult and expensive task than generating content with AI. This challenge calls for the creation of bigger, new organizations with experts dedicated to rigorously checking facts, consulting a wide array of sources, including direct contacts, and performing physical verifications if needed. While the government could step in to fulfill this role, it would be better to have a competitive market of such companies. If a company were to endorse false information, it would damage its reputation and trustworthiness.

With rising skepticism surrounding the accuracy of news and journalism already, brought on by mistrust of the media and the risk of misinformation, content-generative AI is likely to only further harm local media outlets and journalists. To combat the spread of fake news, newspapers should shift their focus to verifying the authenticity of content and ensuring its quality.