A story here to strike fear into the heart of every reporter. Wrongly, I think.
The Press Gazette reports that eight local papers have signed up as paying subscribers to PA’s “robot generated” news service. ‘Bots create localised stories on crime figures, hospital waiting times and the like.
In theory, this is stealing jobs from reporters. But it’s stealing really boring jobs from the lowest level of the reporting ladder. If you’re any good at all, you stop having to do that sort of stuff after a few weeks anyway.
I think journalism should embrace AI rather than bemoan it. (For one thing, it hasn’t got any choice. It’s not going away.)
What the robots ought to do is free up hacks to do proper work. Journalism ought to get better, rather than worse.
Of course, if robots replaced PR people, no one would notice.
(Ba-dum, ching. Thanks, I’m here all week.)
