Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used in day-to-day life. The autocorrect feature when typing something on your smartphone or while composing an email, and the recommendations you get when visiting shopping portals, is nothing but the use of AI-powered algorithms to eliminate manual tasks and save valuable time. AI for journalism is a reality. Just like other key aspects in our life, AI has entered the world of journalism as well. Many news organizations have adopted AI in journalism to perform various tasks in the newsrooms.
In today’s digital world, several technologies are powering journalism. One such technology that is transforming the journalism field is artificial intelligence. Research points out that the use of AI in journalism can help automate an editor’s job by 9%, and a reporter’s job by 15%.
Automated writing through AI programs
- Previously, for many years, the media was heavily dependent on expert and experienced journalists and writers to write news articles on a daily basis.
- There is still a reliance on journalists and writers to come up with unique content and stories.
- However, with the introduction of AI in journalism, novel strategies for content creation and communication have come up.
- Journalism is such a field that many times involves writing mundane news articles and reports, which may be repetitive in nature.
- With the power of AI for journalism, many news articles can be written using AI programs.
- Thus, professional journalists can specifically focus on writing in-depth articles and content that require more expertise and concentration.
- AI for journalism has been a blessing for journalists.
- By using various AI programs and software, news articles can be created within minutes.
- All that AI programs require is data in the form of text, audio, video, or digits.
- Using the data, an AI software will be able to generate relevant news articles.
Identify and reduce biases
- AI in journalism helps control bias in news media.
- Artificial intelligence assists in reducing bias while interpreting data.
- Manually inspecting data and tracking down bias is quite difficult and tiring.
- AI programs and machine learning algorithms that are trained can help easily detect and put a break on biases in the world of journalism.
Transcribing interviews
- The use of AI for journalism saves journalists valuable time by transcribing audio and video files of interviews.
- Journalists can then focus on the key insights from the interview rather than spending time on transcribing the files.
Spotting trends in journalism
- With the power of AI in journalism, compiling and organizing large data becomes easy and seamless.
- Manual categorization of data is tedious, cumbersome, and time-consuming as well.
- Artificial Intelligence can codify data in no time.
- Journalists across the globe are using AI to spot the latest trends, which helps them interpret the changes needed to be done to their content in the future.
Improving the journalistic processes
- The implementation of AI in journalism helps improve key processes and organize workflows better.
- AI programs can help organizations streamline various essential journalistic processes.
Flagging misinformation
- AI can conduct a meticulous examination of a large database to identify any misinformation or false information.
- The flags help to alert journalists about information falsehoods and fake news.
- Flagging misinformation by AI programs helps to reduce the negative impact on readership.
Augmented reporting
- Augmented reporting, also known as automated reporting, is the future of journalism.
- It makes use of robust technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, data visualization and many others for news content creation, analysis, and reporting.
- In augmented reporting, AI programs can analyze large documents, and detect the latest breaking news events happening in the world.
Lower variable cost
- Another important application of AI in journalism is lowering variable costs.
- The use of various AI programs help to automate several functions of journalism.
- Automation of various journalistic processes helps organizations reduce variable costs.
AI projects are happening in large news organizations
- Compared to small local news organizations, AI projects are taking place at large national and global news organizations.
- Large news organizations have got more resources, i.e., capital, manpower, and time to invest in innovation and use of AI in journalism.
- AI projects require professionals having specialized skills.
- Smaller news organizations do not have the capacity and bandwidth to experiment with AI for journalism.
- Hiring experts and professionals with the right skills is difficult and a major challenge for a newsroom.
- However, it is time for the small (local) newsrooms to also step up and adopt AI for journalism.
The use of AI in journalism is increasing significantly. AI for journalism is a great tool offering many benefits. However, it is also true that AI in journalism is yet to realize its true potential. Artificial intelligence and the future of journalism go hand-in-hand. The extent to which AI for journalism can be used still remains to be unexplored.