Exciting news from the world of journalism. Reach is advertising for an “AI Content Editor” to join the “dynamic team” at MyLondon.
The lucky hack will “have the opportunity to manage content created in partnership with Reach’s approved AI systems, developing teams and ensuring audience targets are met.”
This is almost certainly what Woodward and Bernstein had in mind when they started at the Washington Post in the 1970s.
An explanation from an expert of what this job entails:
“It’s basically a news editor / sub role – but articles will be generated by AI rather than humans. So part of it will be ‘commissioning’ AI to produce articles based on a series of prompts. Eg: What are the 10 Best Indian restaurants in London, a 250-word profile of Sadiq Khan, a 300 word explainer on the Thames Barrier, what is tomorrow’s weather in London etc.
Part of it will be checking what AI has produced and editing it before it is published
And part will be to ‘train’ the AI so it produces better copy in future – that might be telling it to use UK spellings rather than US ones, or use Centigrade rather than Fahrenheit.”
Some good news: the (I am sure tiny) salary shall be in GBP Sterling, which I guess is better than bitcoin. Though you sense it is only a matter of time…
The contract is “Permanent”, which means it lasts until the hack can find a better job doing something else.
Reach is looking for “people from a wide range of backgrounds”, especially including those who are used to going without food.
Rent shall be paid for via a selection of night shifts at various fast-food outlets.
If all of this is depressing for hacks, I can’t see flaks should be too delighted either.
You only have to trick a robot in order to run your press release, but again I’m guessing you had rather grander visions than that when you decided PR was the career for you.
Especially since that press release appears on a series of websites so unusable even a robot wouldn’t read it.
Anyway, that’s my job application… I’ll let you know if I get an interview.
