Artificial Intelligence (AI) is slowly becoming a game-changer in the field of journalism in the Philippines, especially with its ability to process multiple data all at once, automate routine tasks, and enhance content writing.
However, despite AI revolutionizing how news is produced, it also faces challenges, such as a rapidly shifting media landscape and the spread of misinformation.
‘Robo-reporting’ in the field of journalism
GMA Network was the first in the Philippines to introduce Artificial intelligence (AI) sportscasters, Maia and Marco, to give updates on the National Collegiate Athletic Association Season 99, which received mixed reviews from the audiences regarding the use of AI in journalism.
Meanwhile, in 2023, Rappler also launched an AI chatbot, ‘Rai,’ to gather inputs from users, synthesize discussions, and ask questions, where it made its debut at the Social Good Summit 2024.
The Washington Post were criticized when they used Heliograf, an AI technology, to broadcast and cover the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and congressional elections.
However, according to The Post’s Chief Technology Officer, Scot Gillespie, Heliograf was used to have ‘time-convenient coverage’ that allows journalists to focus on in-depth reporting.
Will AI ever replace journalists?
One of the advantages of using AI in journalism is fast-producing articles due to automation, where AP News went from producing 300 articles on company reports every quarter to generating 40,000 stories a year.
“It frees our journalists from routine tasks, to do higher-level work that uses their creativity; allows us to create more content that serves new audiences more efficiently; and improves our ability to discover news,” says Lisa Gibbs, Director of News Partnerships of AP News.
Aside from automatically generating stories, Ai can also help media rooms by sorting information into predefined categories and classifying the journalistic data gathered, but journalists still have to manual check and do ‘quality control’ before publishing.
“We do have manual quality control, but it's becoming less necessary as the machine gets better with our regular feedback. It now has an accuracy rate of well over 90%...But we still check, because we don't have complete confidence in the technology yet,” data journalist Jan Georg Plavec emphasized.
AI bringing digital power and responsibility
According to the findings of JournalismAI, a study conducted by Charlie Beckett, journalists already consider AI a significant part of journalism, yet it remains unevenly distributed.
AI gives journalists more power, allowing them to work on in-depth journalism, fighting public trust and relevance, and it can cope with news overload and misinformation detection.
However, aside from its benefits, the study stressed that AI also comes with responsibilities, which may involve ethical or editorial challenges due to the potential consequences of adopting the advancement of new technologies, particularly the overreliance on AI.
Due to living in the digital era, online news sites are more prevalent than traditional media, where it is currently easier to maximize AI assistance with fact-checking, content creation, and real-time reporting through technology.
“In the meantime, we can do what AI still cannot: listen to the communities we serve, learn from them, and amplify their stories,” National Union of Journalist of the Philippines (NUJP)
Benefits and demerits of integrating AI in journalism
According to a study by Peter Amponsah and Atianashie Atianashie (2024), there are several reasons why newsroom now use AI in journalistic reporting, such as automating routine tasks, allowing journalists to devote more time and energy to in-depth storytelling, for convenience, providing instant data analysis and content suggestions, processing in fast-pace, and personalization of news content.
On the other hand, a study by Georgiana Camelia (2023) uncovered some harmful effects and disadvantages of the dependency and overuse of AI, which includes rapid of rise of misformation, disinformation, and malinformation, lack of the human factor, lack of Journalistic ethics, manipulation of audio-visual content, increased propagation of Deepfakes, fabrication of real and factual information for profit or other agendas, and spreading fake profiles.
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