Conference highlights smart tools’ importance to newsrooms

Doha, Qatar: Experts assured that the widespread application of artificial intelligence in newsrooms will complement and enhance rather than supplant a journalist’s work.

This was highlighted during the third session of Al Jazeera’s AI in Media conference titled “AI in Newsrooms: Pioneering Experiences,” with many examples given of the application of machine-learning in global media outlets such as the Associated Press, Reuters, The Washington Post, and NoBorder.

Troy Thibodeaux, Product and AI Services Manager at the Associated Press, said that AI’s main job was to streamline the production process in an ever-demanding industry that requires its professionals to develop in tandem with the ever-evolving media landscape.

“Reporters were coming to us and saying, here are things that take our time that don’t feel like journalism to us, can AI help us with that?” he said before pointing to the extensive work done closely with journalists to help answer those questions.

For a journalist, a question only begets another question, and the more questions asked, the more prominent AI integration into the newsroom becomes. 

Executive Director of Reuters IMAGN David Wilkinson said that the human component was indispensible when it came to AI’s integration into news media.

“AI is not seen as something that will replace humans, but rather something that allows us to be more effective,” he said, explaining that a human journalist’s inquisitiveness is integral for an accurate interpretation of data acquired through a machine’s help.

Summarisation, translation, help with analytic data, and even headline suggestions are but some of the many tasks that have been facilitated for journalists through artificial intelligence.

Like Troy, David also stressed on the importance of the feedback given to the machine, which also stands as the deciding factor for whether a function gets to be embedded into news platforms for use.

He also assured news readers everywhere that AI was not writing their articles, but a professional, trained, journalist. These AI assistance tools one may believe may be produced by people who may not recognise greater implications in terms of journalistic credibility, but news people have already a foot firmly planted in that arena.

Joey Marburger, Vice-President of AI for Content at Arc XP (The Washington Post), who enjoys the benefits of his ability to understand the media landscape through a tech-wiz and a newsman’s lens, said when working on AI programs, it is not only the journalist – their main customer – who they keep in mind, but also the “customer’s customer”— the reader.

Japanese journalist and CEO of NoBorder Takashi Uesugi, displaying a collection of AI news presenters his company has used, said that the speaking digital avatars have allowed journalists to be free from obligations that may have obstructed their field work once.

Takashi also believes that AI, one day, could reach a level of proficiency which would allow it to churn out content at satisfactory level, but, reiterating the same sentiment all speakers before him have, the human element must be present throughout.