Journalism hasn’t quite lost to AI– we lost it to the feed long ago. We’ve collectively built an internet that encourages cheap writing and reporting, that guiltlessly monetizes outrage, and rewards speed over research. Platforms now personalize its users into tiny tunnels of “this is what you should think”. Now we’re surprised that a machine has popped up that can produce paragraphs upon paragraphs within seconds. AI works for the meeting notes that you missed or a summary, but despite its title, it is not intelligence, it’s just pattern recognition.
Reporting is going somewhere, calling people, pulling records, watching a speech and asking follow ups. AI does absolutely none of that, it will produce you some text based on patterns in what already exists so yes it can draft some sort of recap but it can’t report one.
The fix may seem simple, just don’t use it.. Aha! Enter:budgets.
AI makes volume cheap, where many outlets are now built to reward a lot of material getting published. So when you can fill that with acceptable summaries in minutes, the stuff that takes time looks far more expensive in comparison. Early-entry roles that many students may like to break into in the journalism field, like rewriting where they take time to train you to edit, copy, check the data, confirm spellings and so on, have no need when AI drafting and formatting for them, there is far less space to learn this source work and verification. The ladder you wanted to climb has lost its first few steps.
There is a huge saturation problem here, we’re drowning. In alerts, threads, clips, half baked and biased explainers. Going down a TikTok “news” road does not inform you it just numbs you. The more the hose sprays the less we care. And these algorithms, they don’t give you access to the world, they give you access to your world and it is exactly what keeps the thumb moving. Gossip and grievances for days on end, never mind the political information that far too many eligible voters are flat out relying on. You can’t argue from the same facts if we don’t encounter the same facts. Basic, but here we are.
When platforms and big outlets frame (or just skip) certain issues, the people already on the back foot, the poor, the under-educated, the systemically excluded are affected dangerously. Media literacy and education limitations mean misinformation becomes a whole new kind of oppression. People are left with a distorted view of reality and can be manipulated into voting against their own interests.
Plenty of people say they don’t read the paper anymore, but later may say they feel constantly informed, and this may be just the trick. Because maybe we have confused contact with comprehension. Describe and explain the last three encounters you had with the news on your social media platforms… it’s hard isn’t it? If that were three articles you read this morning in a physical broadsheet I reckon you’d have a much easier time, I am very willing to be wrong. It is a great shame that our days are seasoned with these micro-narratives and half headlines.
Maybe we’ve lost our connection with the art of print media. If we had our mornings or lunch breaks with a broadsheet in front of us we’d feel better. Better because it ended, you finished the thing! You fold it, leave it on a chair, hand it to someone else, do the crossword. Instead of your feed that is an endless draft, print is release built, they can’t edit the headline or a dodgy statistic after its been published. That constraint made the people behind it careful, about numbers, names and angles. The limitation of space also mean carefully crafted pieces from beginning to end, because if ten articles land on the editors desk when they have space for seven, they most certainly will pick the best of the best. Online, you get all sorts of fluff.
If we want journalism back, we’ll have to back it. Pay for reporting when you can (memberships, subs, donations) and expect sources and documents. Choose work that took time over content that took a prompt. Libraries and schools could provide free log-ins to essential local and national reporting, meaning you get through a paywall for election coverage. Universities and local outlets can team up so students get paid to cover real things, they can learn edits, sourcing and verification. If anything, just read the full piece, not just the summary. Discuss the same article with someone so you’re arguing from the same facts. Share the independent investigation instead of the viral recap. That might feel boring at times, but it signals what we value.
