Per and I often hear, “You guys are everywhere” while out and about at various events. And truly, we try to be. We eat, breath and live this business. Yet, we still can’t be at everything. Sometimes we have submitted photos by people who take the photo for us, even when we want to be there. We greatly appreciate it. Usually, if we’re not at an event, it’s because we’re already at something else. Or, heaven forbid, with our family.
I’ve written before about the chaos of May. This year, I feel like it’s hitting me harder. I’m not sure if it’s still trying to adjust to the new schedule or the fact that Ben has been busy with his own business and putting in fewer hours here. Perhaps it’s the fantastic local support we get that keeps us hopping on the commercial end. No matter the reason, I have constantly had the feeling of drowning this May. And we are not able to turn jobs around as quickly as we have in the past, mainly because we are just that busy; you have to wait your turn.
However, learning to do the same or more with fewer people is nothing new in the industry. We are constantly looking for ways to make it easier or more efficient. It’s not a problem isolated only to the newspaper industry. We are all in the same boat. With our ever-changing world, there is constant talk of AI and how it can be used to make things more efficient.
The biggest problem with AI is you lose the human aspect. When you’re not there reporting and covering the event, you don’t know what is truly happening. Several large papers and smaller ones, too, have been bitten by the problems with AI copy.
Recently, the Chicago Sun-Times published a summer reading list in a special section. The problem is the list contained fake books. These books were attributed to real authors had a brief synopsis of the book and reasons why the reader might enjoy them. However, the book doesn’t exist.
The Philadelphia Inquirer, along with the Chicago Sun-Times published a Heat Index guide that has many errors. Both papers said their copy came from a third-party company. This points to another problem with AI.
When newspapers outsource to freelancers or third-party companies, it makes it that much harder to fact check.
AI is also being used for local sports stories. Many teams use Game Changer to keep book. This, along with other apps, either have their own summary option or can have their data inputed to an AI app that writes a summary for you. Too many games to cover? No problem. Let AI write them for you. Except there is one big problem: they aren’t correct.
Gannett Newspapers was experimenting with AI-generated stories for local high school sports but paused the project after many errors were found in the AI writing. Most experienced sports writers could give you a well-written game story quicker than having to try to read and find all the errors in an AI generated story.
On a larger scale, in 2023 Sports Illustrated published online stories that were “written” by authors that could not be verified. Again, these stories came from a third-party company.
The fact of the matter is journalism is based on ethics. If you aren’t doing the work, how can you ethically claim it as your own? If AI continues to be part of the industry, we need to keep human control of it. Nothing should be passed off as written by someone that is written by a machine. We need eyes checking every fact. It’s simple journalism.
I’ve attended several meetings in which AI has come up. I think we will be continuing to look into it as a way to be more efficient as an industry. For me, if I can master the AI tools so it can transcribe meetings for me instead of me typing out school board meetings, etc., I would love it. But I still would never use a quote without going back to my recorder to make sure that is exactly what the person said.
Technology is changing faster than we can keep up with. And after this month, I feel myself slowing down in energy levels. However, you won’t be finding any AI generated stories in our paper. Instead, we’ll just up the intake of coffee and Diet Coke. We care too much about the coverage of our community to allow a computer to write for us.
Now if I could find one to clean my house and fold my laundry while I’m at work, that’s a machine I would use!
• This weekend, we celebrate another Tracy Area High School class of graduates. We want to take this time to congratulate all of this year’s seniors. It is a joy to watch and cover the kids as they grow through the school years. We celebrate all that you have accomplished and the bright futures you have before you.
We also published our annual graduation edition in this week’s paper. We want to thank all the businesses that sponsor students each year. This commemorative edition is a labor of love, and it wouldn’t be possible without the amazing support of our local business. We know how unbelievably lucky we are to have businesses that continue to support the newspaper.
