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NEWSCASTSTUDIO.COM
By DAK DILLON
Editor in Chief, NewscastStudio
The narrative surrounding artificial in-
telligence in journalism has oscillated
between doomsday predictions and uto-
pian promises. Headlines warn of “robot
reporters,” while some tech evangelists
paint pictures of newsrooms liberated
from all mundane tasks. At a recent U.S.
Senate hearing, media executives de-
scribed generative AI as an “existential
threat” to journalism’s future.
This alarmist storyline resonates in an
industry battered by budget cuts and de-
clining trust.
Yet the reality is far less dystopian and
far more nuanced.
“You do not automate people out of
their jobs. You actually automate tasks
that they hate doing,” noted Claudia Qui-
nonez, Bloomberg’s managing editor for
news automation. CNN’s VP
of data science similarly main-
tains that AI exists “to enable
journalists to do what they do
best,” though the claim that
“creativity will never be re-
placed by machines” deserves
scrutiny rather than blind ac-
ceptance.
In practice, AI currently
serves as a productivity tool
with specific applications rath-
er than a wholesale replace-
ment for journalistic judg-
ment.
The bottlenecks
in modern newsrooms
Many newsrooms operate with legacy
systems and workflows that create genu-
ine bottlenecks. Journalists often function
as “human middleware,” man-
ually transferring content be-
tween disconnected systems.
Breaking news alerts can be
delayed by multiple approv-
al layers designed initially for
deadlines.
Reporters
spend valuable time refor-
matting stories for different
platforms instead of reporting.
Analytics
frequently
arrive
too late to inform timely edi-
torial decisions. These ineffi-
ciencies drain resources and
contribute to journalists’ high-
er-than-normal burnout rate.
The industry’s “doing more with less”
approach has created unsustainable work-
loads that technology could alleviate.
AI isn’t killing journalism
but it could kill inefficiency
DAK’S TAKE
Continued on next page
DILLON
VOICES