Edit or Be Edited: Why Journalists Must Master AI Before It Masters Them

As the journalism industry again faces a major turning point, I traveled to Norway in early April to speak at the SKUP conference hosted by the Norwegian Foundation for Investigative Journalism. Scandinavian media outlets are often seen as trailblazers when it comes to AI. But even among the most forward-thinking newsrooms, there are still uncharted boundaries to navigate. I was at SKUP to deliver a talk on the role of AI, and then lead a scenario-planning workshop with a Norwegian news organization exploring its impact on revenue, product and relationship with the audience.

In the workshop I facilitated, I asked a simple question: 

• Would you be comfortable letting an AI agent decide what appears on your homepage? 

Participants paused. Then came the tougher follow-up: 

• If a human editor overrides the AI's decision, how do we explain that choice? 

Right now, I’m not convinced most audiences could tell the difference between a homepage curated by a person and one shaped by a “robot”. And if our audience can’t, what is the value of human editorial judgment?

AI is yet one more transformative moment for journalism

This AI moment feels familiar because journalism has been down this road for more than three decades. When the web first emerged, many newsrooms dismissed it as a passing fad with unclear value. Social media was later seen as unserious and potentially undermining credibility. Mobile technology required entirely new approaches that many organizations resisted implementing. These hesitations had consequences: significant revenue losses, declining audience engagement, and market share surrendered to faster-moving competitors. Most critically, they resulted in fewer employed journalists.

We can't afford to repeat those mistakes with AI.

Today's AI capabilities diverge significantly from popular perception. At this moment, the technology excels at generating drafts, finding patterns in large datasets and translating languages. It's effective at enhancing multimedia content and powering workflows. However, AI still struggles with understanding context and nuance, and falters when reasoning through ambiguity or maintaining consistency in long-form content. Without human oversight, it's prone to factual errors – those "hallucinations" we hear so much about. The technology shines with structured, repetitive tasks but fails when facing situations requiring context, empathy or original insight. However, all of this can change as generative AI evolves … and it is evolving fast!

AI shows its greatest promise in enhancing the work of journalists

Nevertheless, I believe AI shows the greatest promise in enhancing journalists’ work, rather than replacing journalists. It can challenge assumptions and reveal blind spots that human reporters might miss. It rapidly spots trends across massive datasets that would take weeks to analyze manually. When used as a brainstorming assistant, it generates angles and approaches that might never have emerged in traditional editorial meetings. For outreach and distribution, it can draft variations of headlines and social posts optimized for different platforms. And perhaps most importantly for global journalism, it can translate and adapt content for new audiences, expanding reach without proportionally increasing costs.

Media organizations need to recognize that high-quality journalism is increasingly valuable in an AI-driven ecosystem. Well-reported stories improve factual grounding in AI systems. Structured data like election results and timelines serves as premium training material. Journalism archives help develop future AI models with stronger ties to reality. Forward-thinking news organizations are already exploring licensing opportunities that could create new revenue streams from their existing content libraries.

For successful AI integration, newsrooms need a shared language about the technology across departments – from the reporter in the field to the business team securing funding. They need to run internal experiments and provide training rather than waiting for perfect solutions or top-down mandates. Strong ethical boundaries must be established by journalism professionals, not dictated by AI vendors or platforms. Teams should simultaneously explore creative uses while critically evaluating potential harms.

Looking ahead, several transformations seem likely. 

• Journalists will evolve from primarily being storytellers to becoming sensemakers, interpreting patterns, anomalies and data through social, ethical and lived lenses. 
• Local and community news can scale more efficiently, with AI handling repetitive work and freeing capacity for reporting on underserved communities. 
• Journalism will shape AI, not just use it, through participation in governance and system evaluation. 
• Audience engagement will evolve with more dynamic formats tailored to individual preferences. 

Perhaps most significantly,

• Transparency about AI use will become a competitive advantage, distinguishing trusted outlets from those using the technology irresponsibly.

Newsrooms that thoughtfully engage with AI will likely thrive

The journalism industry cannot afford to repeat its historical pattern of hesitation during technological transitions. The opportunity to shape AI's role in journalism is here, but the clock is ticking. Will we repeat past mistakes and wait until the disruption is irreversible? Or will we step up—shaping AI to reflect our values, preserving what's essential in human judgment, and reimagining our role in a fast-changing world?

Newsrooms that thoughtfully engage with AI—building literacy, preserving ethics and innovating new formats—will likely thrive. Those that either dismiss AI entirely or embrace it uncritically risk obsolescence as the media landscape continues to evolve. The fundamental question isn't whether AI will destroy or save journalism—it's how journalists will adapt to harness its potential while upholding the core values that make their work essential to society.

Hacks/Hackers will host our first AI x Journalism Summit in Baltimore, May 7-8, 2025. Journalists, technologists and innovators will spend two days exploring how AI can enhance journalism and information. The Summit will include practical workshops, real-world case studies and collaborative sessions, all aimed at showing participants how to use AI to strengthen reporting, streamline workflows, create more impactful stories and build innovative news products.