Because the pace of change is increasing and because I’ve been playing with Google Notebook I thought I’d ask the tool to summarise the new Reuters whitepaper.
This document Powering Trust News With AI: Navigating the Present and Trusting the Future looks at how artificial intelligence with affect news rooms, or rather, what’s left of them.
This came via UK Press Gazette. I’ve looked, can’t find the link I’ve added a wetransfer link to the Reuters report here.
So, in the spirit of AI, here is a summary of how AI can be used in news and communications, in 10 bullet points, for an audience of communications and public relations people:
● AI presents both opportunities and risks for the news and media industry. While it can enhance news reporting and delivery, there are concerns about misinformation, the rapid pace of AI development, and potential threats to intellectual property.
● AI can revolutionise newsrooms by improving workflow efficiencies. One example is Avista, an AI-powered tool developed by Reuters that helps clients quickly find specific video segments.
● Maintaining trust and journalistic integrity in the age of AI is crucial. At Reuters, AI tools are evaluated based on their ability to support the company’s mission of delivering unbiased and important news stories.
● Human oversight remains essential. Editors and journalists should retain control and carefully review AI-generated content to ensure accuracy and ethical standards.
● There are three key ways AI can be integrated into workflows: replacing tasks humans don’t need to do, augmenting existing work, and facilitating innovative experiments.
● Combating misinformation is a top priority. AI algorithms can help detect fake news, images, and videos.
● AI literacy is essential for navigating the evolving media landscape. News organisations and consumers need to be aware of the capabilities and limitations of AI.
● Generative AI tools like ChatGPT are changing audience expectations. The media industry must adapt to meet the demand for faster and more personalised content delivery.
● AI can help news organisations stay relevant in a changing media landscape. This includes using AI to optimise content discoverability and deliver information efficiently while maintaining safeguards.
● The future of AI in media will likely involve increased automation to handle tasks such as translation and transcription. This will free up journalists to focus on in-depth, unbiased reporting from trusted sources.
Firstly, a useful summary using Google Notebook which I increasingly love. Its benefit is that it works with what you give it rather than pulling things from across the internet like ChatGPT.
What this means for comms and PR
Firstly, it’s clear that thev relationship between reporters and media relations is evolving. Some things still stay the same. For me, the definition of news remains information that somebody somewhere doesn’t want you to know.
But beyond that definition, the landscape is changing. With misinformation, we can rightly be focused on what bad actors may try and do with content. We are looking to respected news titles to be a major bullwark against misinformation. It’s try they are a bullwark. But I don’t think communications needs to sit back and relax.
So, if news titles, and sorry I’m calling them that rather than news brands, are looking to invest in tools to weed out misinformation and disinformation then that’s something public sector comms needs to look at.
What’s also really interesting is the line that AI tools are changing audience expectation. If they think news titles should be getting better at delivering targeted information that’s something the institutions of state need to look at. That includes the NHS, councils, fire and police, too.