This story is written by a human
Grace jolts awake to the sound of her alarm. Before her eyes even fully adjust to the morning light, she’s already reaching for her phone.
Notifications fill her screen, and without another thought, the 22-year-old dives straight into social media.
“Oh my God!” she exclaims, as an Instagram headline flashes before her eyes.
It’s about the escalating conflict in Gaza.
But instead of digging deeper, she skims the headline, taking it at face value.
Satisfied, she flips over to TikTok, where a self-proclaimed citizen journalist is already spinning their version of the story.
Reluctantly, the University student listens and consumes all the information fed to her but isn’t 100 per cent sure if she trusts it. The whole thing doesn’t look quite right.
After having her social media morning fix, she rolls out of bed, ready to start her day.
She begins eating her breakfast, but why now even bother turning on the TV or reaching for a newspaper?
With all the information she could possibly ever need on her phone, it seems pretty pointless right?
This is future of news consumers.
This is what journalists must now consider.
It’s no secret that the digital space is evolving.
People’s occupations are constantly changing in order to keep up with the development of technology and the drama that comes along with it.
Jobs that were originally done solely by humans are being taken over by digital advancements that can now do the job quicker, more efficiently and even cheaper.
In the space of the media world – the evolution of technology and AI has left many questions unanswered.
A 2022 report by Europol forecasts most of the internet will be synthetically produced by 2026; so now, “journalists and news organisations will need to rethink their role.”
Chartbeat data identifies that 47 per cent of journalists have expressed concerns in the upcoming year and a sense of uneasiness in their role.
But HOW did we get here?
Let’s go back in time to a Newsroom before technology…
You would see a bustling space filled with animated discussion, ringing phones, and stacks of paper.
Reporters gathering around long tables, writing stories by hand or even on typewriters, while editors reviewed a physical copy each story.
Research involved searching through manual archives, and communication was either done face-to-face or via telephone.
Not a mobile phone in sight.
No one scrolling through their socials.
And certainly no one is using AI to write their stories.
Business News editor Sean Cowan, with over two-and-a-half decades of experience in the media industry, is observing changes to the newsroom and is adjusting to a transformed role.
“Journalism was a bespoke industry, it was really all about people, and talk, talking to people, and making them feel comfortable with you, building trust…that was the at the core of journalistic practice when I started as a journalist,” Mr Cowan says.
He noted that technology has now caused people to be more rigid in their behaviour, making it harder to get people to share things with journalists that they once may have.
“There’s also the ever-present threat of Big Brother,” he says.
Journalists must adapt to this new digital world that Mr Cowan believes there is no point in avoiding.
Now, let’s enter a newsroom of today…
You see journalists’ working behind computers or laptops.
You hear the sound of keyboards instead of typewriters and pens.
Collaboration is done in real-time through messaging platforms.
Farewell face-to-face.
Editors track stories with digital dashboards, and social media feeds constantly stream them live updates.
Mr Cowan describes a modern newsroom being almost have the size, or even worse off.
“Which means that journalists are generally trying to do more with less,” he says.
A University of Oxford survey revealed that among the 315 media leaders who responded, more than half regarded back-end news automation, such as publishing, editing, data management, as the most important use of technology.
More than a third of respondents used technology to improve their ability to be more effective at recommending articles to their audiences.
However, the same survey found that news publishers are still hesitant about using AI for content creation, as more than half consider it the biggest reputational risk.
Data from the Australian Digital News Report 2024 shows nearly two-thirds of Gen Z rely on social media as their main source of news, which is a significant increase since last year.
The Australian Communication and Media Authority also confirmed that only 7 per cent of 18–to-25-year-olds purchased a newspaper in the previous week.
“I don’t think I have ever purchased a newspaper myself before, I’ve just seen them in cafes,” hospitality worker Grace says.
“They seem pretty prehistoric.”
Grace has now grown concerned about how technology shapes the news she receives, leading her to question whether the media reflects the complete truth or is simply tailored to her.
This uncertainty has caused distrust between her and the media.
These concerns are playing out around the world as people and courts navigate the ethical and legal ramifications of using AI professionally.
The news report found that due to the proliferation of social media, “concern about misinformation skyrocketed to 75 per cent, up 11 percentage points since 2022”.
Another risk involved with this rapid incline of news being shared online, poses the danger of misinformation being spread.
While often unintentional, misinformation poses significant risks to public health, weakens trust in the media, and can manipulate public opinion, which raises serious concerns for our media organisations.
The consequences can lead to a misinformed public and increased scepticism, resulting in a societal divide.
Not only are consumers at risk of being fed inaccurate information, but information that doesn’t show all sides to a story.
“Your entire meta feed becomes an echo chamber, you get more and more of one thing the more you look at it, you’ll see more and more of it and less and less of the other stuff,” Mr Cowan says.
“That makes for an ill-informed populace, although they’ll become experts on those few subjects.”
Grace believes that her age group are being fed more information than ever, which is actually causing more issues than solutions.
Have you been caught in a filter bubble? Listen to the podcast below featuring Grace Muir.
Fake News detection sites, allow consumers to identify whether they are at risk on consuming misinformation from the media.
Give some a try below.
“Full fact” even uses AI to check whether or not a story is telling the whole truth or whether facts within the story is accurate.
bUT What does AI have to say all about this? Watch below to find out.
“ [AI] can’t do the core business of journalism such as finding a story, getting someone to tell you about it, or finding where it is and what it is,” Mr Cowan says.
“[AI] doesn’t intrinsically know what a story is, that’s still got to be done by humans.”
There is always opportunity is crisis, journalists just need to reassert themselves.
“We don’t really know how much more AI can do. We know it’ll be able to do more in the future, but we don’t know how much,” Mr Cowan says.
So, what will a future newsroom look like? One can only guess.
Imagine…
Big open workspaces.
Smart technology on every wall.
Content creator spaces.
Collaboration hubs.
And
Yes. AI will probably be there; but journalists are working alongside it.
Not against it.
Can you tell the difference between AI and human content?
Give it a go below.
