The rise of AI is definitely going to disrupt the news business, but possibly not in the way most people will think. Publicising that you are AI assisted might just become another way of saying you can’t be bothered to do it properly. The reason I say this is because stories like Watergate simply wouldn’t have happened in an age of AI – to break meaningful news you have to be constantly building contacts and speaking to sources, and you need the ability to grow a network of people who can tell you things nobody else knows. This form of journalism is the cornerstone of the world’s most successful publications and it’s not cheap but it’s the only way you can produce reliable and timely news.
AI is good at producing content very quickly, but it can’t pick up the phone and cross check facts or meet contacts who will provide valuable insight on a situation or event, and it’s not entirely reliable. Also, because AI’s only point of reference is the internet, it can only re-produce what someone else has already reported, or an unverified rumour on social media.
There have always been publications that use public sources like press releases or aggregated news to fill their pages, but they generally have limited scope for growth because there is a ceiling on what you can charge for information that’s already in the public domain.
So, if you are a journalist and you want to future proof your career, you need to focus on contact driven reporting, and work on a publication where you can focus on producing exclusive’s. If you have this skill set, then you will always be in demand, but I warn you it’s not easy and you will probably spend more time on the phone than writing. However, after a while it will become second nature and you will start to enjoy it, plus your career will flourish, and who doesn’t love to spend all day chatting to people.