Journalism and Artificial Intelligence will continue to coexist. And AI should not be considered more than what it is, a tool that can support efficiency and speed of work, but not replace journalists as beings capable of judging.
Author: Leonora Aliu
To be honest with you, this article is not one of those I have written easily. Not because of the nature of the article but because of the uncertainty that the topic I am trying to address has caused not only in the community of journalists and researchers but also in global policy and decision-makers – Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its relationship with Journalism.
The public discourse on this topic is mainly divided between optimists and skeptics. The first group, I think, mainly includes those who not only see the benefits of Large Language Models (LLM), but also have the ability to use them, and the second group includes those who see these technological searching and processing models as a threat.
If you ask me which group I belong to, I will tell you neither. My opinion, which I am trying to elaborate further in this article, can be found somewhere in the middle of the trajectory that divides optimists and pessimists, for several reasons.
But before I introduce them, let’s review some basic concepts.
Artificial Intelligence is not a new concept
The American computer engineering scientist, John McCarthy is known as one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the concept of “Artificial Intelligence” in 1955. He described AI, as “the science and engineering of creating intelligent machines”. In 1956, during the Dartmouth conference, he introduced the term “artificial intelligence” for the first time to the public as a discipline of scientific research.
So, Artificial Intelligence is not a new concept.
This concept of engineering research and creation, as McCarthy described it, has been researched and developed for many years to ‘solve problems of humanity’, and was present as such a concept for seven decades like in the general engines that developed numerous industries, medicine, the sphere of communication, etc.
Journalism and technological evolution
Journalism is not a static profession. It is a profession historically shaped by technological evolution. And this is the definition that every first-year student of Journalism studies can quote. The function of Journalism from information to overseeing, ensuring transparency through accurate information, accountability and public awareness on matters of public interest, I don’t believe require much of explanation. This role can be easily traced back to the earliest forms of public communication, such as in the democracy of ancient Greece where public debate and information were central to public and political life. As a profession, however, journalism began to take shape only after the invention of the printing machine, which enabled the mass production of information in written form. The political impact of this innovation of that time, we understand especially during the French Revolution. The political essay “What is the Third Estate” by Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1789) was printed and distributed in approximately 80 thousand copies between 1788-1792.
In the mid-90s, otherwise known as the ‘golden years of journalism’, it was precisely the Internet that enabled the so-called process of democratization of information. This meant universal access to information, instant distribution of information, on a global level, and interactive news.
So, as history shows us, journalism and technology have always coexisted, and will continue to coexist.
The question then is this: Is artificial intelligence as a technological product, a friend or a foe of Journalism?
If we were to argue from the perspective of the optimists, I think that some aspects would be important to highlight. For example, AI programs enable journalists as potential users to access faster data analysis, thus reducing work time; access to global information; and faster opportunities for verification of information through verification tools. Pessimists on the other hand would probably argue, rightly, that AI is creating dependency and narrowing the capacities of journalists as potential users to analyze and understand certain data; AI is also enabling the production and distribution of fake or partially fake news; or even creating hallucinations about the truth, and, perhaps most importantly, AI lacks human judgment and ethics in reporting.
From the perspective of someone who does not fully belong to either the optimists or the pessimists, I would ask this question: Since all the above-mentioned aspects, both negative and positive, have existed in journalism before, why are we only now worrying so much about the impact of Artificial Intelligence on Journalism?
I think the answer to this is easily decipherable: the risk to journalists’ jobs.
The pandemic caused by the Covid-19 virus, globally accelerated, according to experts’ assessment for five years, the new evolution of Artificial Intelligence and its incorporation into our daily lives. And Artificial Intelligence today, unlike a few decades ago, also introduces the ability to generate content. A job that has always been exclusive to media workers: journalists, photographers, cameramen, designers, etc.
Media organizations have already integrated AI into their workflows. For example, the Associated Press has launched the use of AI to produce routine reports, financial income reports, and to create sports summaries, to translate information as well as tools to verify certain information and content. All this while increasing production and reducing costs. In the article “Cut the crap: a critical response to ChatGPT is bullshit” (2025), authors David Gunkel and Simon Coghlan, both researchers in the field of ethics in technology, argue that the description of ChatGPT as “bullshit” is inaccurate and oversimplified. The authors emphasize that ChatGPT, as a program that communicates through language, respectively text, cannot be considered a moral or epistemic agent (unlike journalists), since according to them the program has no goals, beliefs or sensitivity to the truth and therefore cannot “lie”. Instead, the authors argue that the main problem will lie in the way people use it.
And this argument leads us precisely to my position, neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but more realistic I would say.
Journalism and Artificial Intelligence will continue to coexist. And AI should not be considered more than what it is, a tool that can support efficiency and speed of work, but not replace journalists as beings capable of judging.
Only fair judgment of information and high professional ethics of reporting will be able to save the trust, influence and longevity of Journalism in societies that are today dominated by fast information. Therefore, instead of investing in excessive optimism and pessimism, the discussion should focus on emergency steps to strengthen journalists and the media in facing the challenges that time is presenting them. This means investing in research that gives us a clear picture of how the profession and its impact through AI is changing, as well as investing in the preservation of media workers and their vital roles in fair and ethical judgment of multimedia information that is distributed through the media through constant education in the understanding and use of new AI tools, investing in verification tools and education for their use. And in addition, educating the audience by incorporating media and technological literacy into public education.
And these priorities should not only be priorities of media organizations and their members, but of every society that has social justice and democracy as its vision. Politics has already absorbed more than it should from the new opportunities, of control, manipulation and appropriation of the public sphere and information. Therefore, our energy must be directed towards responding to this, with urgency.
(The author is a journalist, sociologist, and media and public relations specialist. She was a participant in the Regional Academy for Future Leaders, an activity of the “Our Media” project. The regional program “Our Media: A civil society action to generate media literacy and activism, counter polarisation and promote dialogue” is implemented with the financial support of the European Union by partner organizations SEENPM, Albanian Media Institute, Mediacentar Sarajevo, Press Council of Kosovo, Montenegrin Media Institute, Macedonian Institute for Media, Novi Sad School of Journalism, Peace Institute and Bianet. This article was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Press Council of Kosovo and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union).
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