Final Essay — Journalism in the Digital Age and The Invisible Competitor

Journalism is a shrinking industry. Now more than ever students coming out of college intending to pursue a career in journalism are facing as uncertain an aspiration as it’s ever been. Technology and the emergence of the internet has had an effect on many professional fields, especially those related to information. Journalism is no exception.

Journalism as an industry is a central component to maintaining the republic as a branch of government, which is why it is called the fourth estate. If an emergence of AI journalism hinders the effectiveness of the journalism industry in America, then it is just as much of a hindrance to the function of a free republic as much as if any other major branch of government was impeded.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is sparking several changes in the journalism industry. It has been for years. This technology is a threat and potential assistance to modern journalists. AI has proven to be an effective means of streamlining workflow in many newsrooms, while also eliminating certain roles previously occupied by humans. It is the invisible competitor to human journalists and it is developing at a threatening rate.

Newer AI technology is capable of gathering data and producing written content automatically, which is essentially the core function of journalists (Schmelzer, 2019). While this is limited to the landscape of the web, a large portion of modern journalism is relegated to web-specific tasks and research, which ultimately eliminates a large portion of labor in the industry.

It is a tool that both accelerates the journalism industry forward, while also potentially eliminating many jobs. The journalism industry is one that is frequently shrinking in the labor force. While the need for on-the-ground journalists still exists in some niche capacities of the industry, more and more tasks will soon be rendered irrelevant by digital automation, causing further and further shrinkage as time goes on.

But now AI also poses a new danger to journalists, that being, a weapon to be employed to directly undermine their credibility.

AI As a Weapon Against Journalists

In an instance highlighted by The Guardian, major American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto used AI software and a financial deal with Google to have articles promoted that directly undermined articles that exposed links in one of their articles to cancer (Levin, 2019). This practice is both unethical and dangerous to the public while also attacking those who are already working in a struggling industry.

Monsanto’s strategy was to specifically target journalists who focused on spreading awareness on the dangers of glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide. They did so by making a deal with Google that would alter the sites’ search engine algorithms to promote works that discredited the work of those exposing the dangers of the chemical. This shows the power of AI can give those with superior financial resources can literally control the spread of information through unethical deals with companies like Google, and antagonize the truthful reports of journalists.

In the case of Monsanto’s deal with Google and the technology involved in it, the outcome for society is deliberately unethical and un-empathetic. It is not necessarily a task that is meant to replace the role of a journalist, but it is still threatening their careers by undermining the types of journalistic work that can only be carried out by humans. Moreover it illustrates a dynamic in which corporate interest in the digital age has the ability to control the spread of information in a dishonest and unethical way, which both misinforms the public and undermines those looking to inform the public. This dynamic threatens the core mission of journalism and all those who seek to carry it out.

According to the article, Monsanto even had a spreadsheet with more than 20 actions dedicated to opposing a book by Carey Gillam before its publication, including working to “Engage Pro-Science Third Parties” in criticisms, and partnering with “SEO experts” (search engine optimization), to spread its attacks. The algorithmic decision making in this scenario is directly antagonistic to those trying to warn the public of danger, all in the name of corporate politics, reputations and ultimately, profit. These are all the negative of the algorithmic decision making being used.

The concept of pushing specific web pages to the top of search results to carry out an intentional agenda could stimulate good change as well, if employed for the right purposes. However, this potential is not exemplified in the example of Monsanto’s deal with Google.

The Monsanto incident alone illustrates circumstances unique to the digital age that could have a major effect on journalism and the potential consequences for that effect. In the case of that incident, information related to possible causes for cancer was obstructed. That could ultimately end up costing certain people their lives depending on what they are led to believe through top search engine results.

Beyond that single incident, that same flow of misinformation has the potential to be imposed in relation to every major sociological issue. Algorithmic decision making in the field of journalism not only has an affect on the professionals that work in the field, but it has an affect on all those who may be affected by the spread and availability of critical information.

The Ceiling of Automated Journalism In The Digital Age

Monsanto’s deal with Google is a blatant example of how algorithmic decision making can be used to cloud transparency. The interference of pushing misleading content to the top of search results dilutes the accuracy of science and health in the eyes of the public. Transparency is very easy to construe through the internet due to the vast, endless and often unregulated amount of content and sources, and those who use search engine results for critical information depend upon the accuracy of top search results to provide transparency. When those search results are tampered with, then transparency is essentially lost to those users.

In the field of journalism, this can be used to essentially generate news content that could either perpetuate or cloud transparency alike. The ironic part about that potential, is that it depends on the judgment of its human controllers to determine whether the content it creates perpetuates or clouds that transparency, and to which extent (Peiser, 2019).

Meanwhile the automatic gathering of consumer data and the automated generating of content that utilizes that data has the potential to perpetuate unbiased transparency, however it has just as much potential to cloud transparency to the public if interfered with by human interests.

With journalists learning to utilize AI more and more as a means to assist in their profession (Kobie, 2018), the judgment of journalists and the ethics that their organization prioritizes will go a long way in determining the transparency in the digital age of journalism and beyond.

However there is potential for the technology to also be used in ways that transcend the tension of human journalists toward AI, to true landmark moments in the history of both journalism and technology.

The 2016 congressional elections saw a remarkable example of an AI that was capable of producing a story on the 2016 congressional election for Iowa’s 4th congressional district seat in 2016 for the Washington Post (Keahone, 2017). The AI was named Heliograf, which made its debut a year earlier as the most technologically advanced journalism AI technology to date. The article was able to produce an article that both covered the outcome of the race while relating it to the broader trends of the changing political climate.

This was a true milestone for AI in journalism as it was the first article of its kind. Never before had an AI produced an article so elaborate. The article goes on to explore the greater number of application projects being developed by the Washington Post since its change in ownership to Jeff Bezos. Further development to Heliograf is being done and it could mean a drastic shift in news content for the 2020 election.

There are also examples where AI and the transcendent technology of the digital age can assist journalists in their task, rather than replacing them, to create more efficient methods of automated journalism that can help humans increase content output and filter information.

A new software technology called Lynx Insight being developed and released by Reuters (Kobie 2018). This technology is meant to not replace reporters but equip them with new digital tools that allow them to track data from a user interface and equip journalists with the tools to utilize AI to carry out the tasks that assist journalists, rather than replace them.

These tools include the news-room abilities typically employed by AI like gathering data and producing simple sentences, but in a way that allows a single journalist to manipulate to his assistance for greater projects, rather than the simple and shallow briefs that an AI puts out on its own. While these tasks would technically eliminate labor from the newsroom, it wouldn’t necessarily eliminate jobs as the tasks it is meant to address are of mere convenience to the user and not to perform massive tasks for its own right.

But does AI have the potential to transcend the employment of human to reach the apex of journalistic achievement?

What would it would take for an AI to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize? Well in some ways AI and automated content already has some advantages that would make it more suited to fit Pulitzer-level criteria over humans (Holmes, 2016)

One advantage that AI has in the field of journalism over humans is in the area of breaking news. An AI’s speed and ability to process information and produce text can be nearly instantaneous. In journalism, especially modern journalism, speed to get a story plays a huge competitive role within the industry whether it be on the local, national, or global levels. Another advantage AI has over humans is multi-lingual abilities. Whereas a human journalist would be limited in its ability to understand and process foreign or computer-based languages, an AI could be programmed to understand a broader range of languages both ethnic and software-based.

Robot Reporters?

What AI amplifies in speed in journalism, it loses in empathy and ethics. If content becomes mass-produced via the use of algorithmic data processing and content output, which is controlled by a few in management versus a vast collective that specializes in the craft of journalism, then that content is, by journalist ethics, less credible, and thus less valuable to society.

China, a country that is globally notorious for a lack of journalistic freedom, maybe one example of what the consequences of AI-dominated media might look like. A video by Fox Business shows an AI fulfilling the role of a news anchor in China. Not only does this deprive a human of a role that is seemingly dependent on human qualities and presence, but it also normalizes AI as the central figure in the field of media, reinforcing a dependence on AI for information in the eyes of the public.

While AI news anchors have not yet become a mainstream staple of Chinese media yet, the fact that the concept has come to fruition there, combined with the lack of journalistic freedom with China to begin, make China a possible denominator for the problems that could arise of algorithmic decision making.

China’s socioeconomic, public health, labor, nutritional and overall quality of life problems go heavily underreported due to the country’s harsh treatment of journalists, leaving the public uninformed of their best interests and leaving those in power with no means of being checked. In a world where AI continues to do away with journalists, and make the industry more automated, then many of the same corruption that plagues China could become more widespread globally.

How Do Journalists Survive?

One of the most important traits a human journalist now needs to maintain their necessity is their own personal voice, one an AI can’t replicate (Forras, 2019)

An advantage that human journalists will always have over AI in that an AI isn’t (yet) capable of judgment and ethics. This will always keep a need for editorial journalism alive as a necessity among humans. Newsrooms will always need humans to ultimately deem what topics and angles are news-worthy.

The decisions about what news is relevant and informative to the public will always come down to human opinions and while AI has the power to track audience data, it can’t comprehend the human mind’s capacity to understand and process ethics. Computers can only make numerical-based decisions. Associate Professor Matt Carlson of Saint Louis University makes the argument that judgment is both a central and fraught function of journalism and while AI is capable of making algorithmic judgment, this is inapplicable to professional judgment which is a heightened requirement to every individual that works in the field of journalism.

Journalists that want to survive the digital age might also be best off adopting and embrace AI rather than try to resist it.

Journalists and editors must change in order to adapt to and maintain a necessary part of an evolving field. A poll showed that the majority of newsrooms only use AI for information-gathering, production and distribution, three jobs that would previously be occupied by personnel (Tameez, 2019).

However only a minority of newsrooms actually have an active AI strategy. Tameez argues that the nation’s most forward-thinking newsrooms should employ AI to transform from linear production lines into networked information and engagement hubs that give journalists the structures to take the news industry forward into the data-driven age. It states that the need for journalism will always exist, and finding ways to channel that through the parameters of future technologies will determine who succeeds in tapping into the need for journalism and who won’t.

Conclusion

This is all not to say that the digital age of journalism doesn’t have the potential to result in good outcomes in the industry. The ceiling of how AI can be utilized by journalists is very high, and presents potential tools that accelerate and amplify a journalists’ abilities to carry out their mission as well (Tameez, 2019). However, as many opportunities it presents, the emergence of AI ultimately presents a lot for journalists to overcome. The combination of a shrinking labor force in the industry, tools that can be utilized against them, and a saturation of automated content that lacks the human touch required to provide substantial empathy, ethics, and general personality into news content.

Human journalists’ possession of ethics will become increasingly its most important trait as AI becomes more prominent in the industry. As AI becomes more and more advanced, natural human subjectivity will become the primary trait among those looking to work in the industry (Forras, 2019).

Ethics have always been a unique factor to journalism over other industries. Now, as technology and corporate communications take up more and more of the media space, journalists’ ethics are becoming their downfall, as companies like Monsanto seek to use technology to undermine all those who would paint them in a bad light, even if they are doing so ethically.

As much a duty falls on journalists to adapt and endure the challenges that come with the emergence of AI, so to does responsibility fall on the public to continue to seek out, support and trust the ethical journalism done by humans to ensure them as a necessity and ensure that their work is not lost in the saturation of misplacement of the AI journalism obstacles.

Notes

Schmelzer, R. (2019, August 23). AI Making Waves In News And Journalism. Forbes. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/08/23/ai-making-waves-in-news-and-journalism/#1b96ff407748

Levin, S. (2019, August 8). Revealed: how Monsanto’s ‘intelligence center’ targeted journalists and activists. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/07/monsanto-fusion-center- journalists-roundup-neil-young

Gilliam, C. (2019, December 17). Carey Gillam: Poisonous Pesticides and Companies’ Covert Tactics to Hide the Dangers. CrossFit. Retrieved From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J2bKdYbooM&t=1s

Perseir, J. (2019, Feb 5) The Rise of the Robot Reporter. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/business/media/artificial-intelligence- journalism-robots.html

Kobie, N. (2018, March 10) Reuters is taking a big gamble on AI-supported journalism Wired. Retrieved From: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/reuters-artificial-intelligence-journalism-newsroom-ai- lynx-insight

Holmes, J. (2016, April 3) AI is already making inroads into journalism but could it win a Pulitzer? The Guardian. Retrieved From: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/apr/03/artificla-intelligence-robot-reporter-pulitzer-prize

(2019, November 9). China’s AI news anchor. Fox Business. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmqd9nYH5Fw

Tameez, H. Artificial intelligence won’t kill journalism or save it, but the sooner newsrooms buy in, the better. Nieman Labs. Retrieved from: https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/11/artificial- intelligence-wont-kill-journalism-or-save-it-but-the-sooner-newsrooms-buy-in-the-better/

Forras, D. The power of subjectivity in the age of robot journalism. Towards Data Science. Retrieved From: https://towardsdatascience.com/the-power-of-subjectivity-in-the-age-of-robot-journalism-337d2379907