AI has already made a stir in the news landscape. It ensures that it has a transformative effect on journalism. Studies have suggested that it may disrupt the media landscape while allowing for new types of experimentation in the newsroom. It is significant that journalists proactively identify the way they can harness emerging technology to improve their reporting and the media industry as a whole.

As per a report published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, around 70% of senior editors and CEOs of media firms believe that AI and generative AI will limit the public’s overall trust in news. The annual report titled “Journalism, Media and Technology Trends and Predictions 2024” surveyed around 314 CEOs, editors-in-chief and heads of digital or innovation at print, broadcasting and digital news organisations from 56 countries, including India.

Additionally, the report revealed that almost 48% of news executives think there would be very little money for news publishers in any licensing deal with AI platforms. Furthermore, 35% believe that most money would go to big publishers. News publishers’ distrust of the AI industry increased after The New York Times (NYT) filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI.

How is AI used inside the newsrooms?

As per the report, one of the most significant and common uses of AI tools in newsrooms is back-end automation tasks like tagging, copy-editing, and transcription. Almost 56% of news executives opined that AI was a high priority for this back-end automation task. Two years ago, only 29% of news executives considered this use case a high priority. 

Given below are the critical use cases of AI for news publishers in 2024, according to the report:

How the news media have been experimenting so far:

• Summarisation
• Headline testing
• Copy-editing, note-taking and transcription
• Translation
• Image generation
• Article generation
• AI presenters and news readers
• TV channel generation

The risks associated with using AI in newsrooms

The report read, “Publishers are ambivalent about using AI for content creation. More than half of our respondents consider it the biggest reputational risk”. Furthermore, over 33% of respondents pointed out that using AI for news-gathering was risky. “By contrast, back-end automation (9%), distribution, and coding are considered lower risk,” the report added.

For instance, The Guardian accused Microsoft AI of damaging its reputation after the latter placed a “distasteful” AI-generated poll next to a news report about a woman’s murder. The poll reportedly asked readers to speculate on the reason behind the woman’s death.

The report read, “Journalists worry about the implications of this kind of automation for jobs and trust in the news media”.

5 Key Predictions for 2024

1. Fall in search traffic: “Reaching audiences online is getting tougher as Facebook pulls back from news and X becomes less welcoming for publishers. The big fear is that search traffic may be next, as AI-powered results provide answers directly in the interface, rather than offering so many links to news sites,” Nic Newman, the author of the Reuters Institute report, said.
2. Focusing on WhatsApp: The report revealed, “Publishers say they will be putting more effort into WhatsApp this year following the launch of functionality that allows a range of personalities and brands to create broadcast channels”.
3. Increase of news-reading apps: The Reuters Institute predicted that AI-based apps “that change the language of news to improve relevance and understanding for particular audiences will be an increasing feature of the news landscape in 2024.”
4. Bundling of digital news/non-news content: “Expect to see a significant shift towards bundling of digital news and non-news content as large publishers look to lock in existing customers. All-access subscriptions will include games, podcasts, magazines, books, and even content from other publishers,” the report revealed.
5. Copyright battles, AI arrangements: The report explains that AI industry players may face considerable pressure from publishers to compensate for any loss in traffic, train their systems on historical data, or deliver real-time news.

• Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash