The Rise of AI in Journalism
While generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has gathered much attention over the past year, the influence of AI on journalism is not as new. Another form of AI has long been at the helm of shaping the news industry and the narrative: engagement-ranking algorithms. These algorithms have gradually seized control over how information is disseminated and consumed.
Research by the Credibility Coalition has highlighted that independent voices and local news outlets rarely appear at the top of search rankings on platforms like Google and Facebook.
While there are clear benefits to the change in control of information from central press houses to the people, such as more data and opinion being open source, there has also been a rise in misinformation and preying actors. These issues confound social media companies since engagement ranking does little to validate the accuracy of information or determine its long-term effects on people.
Growing up with social media, I have come to learn that social cohesion relies as much on non-verifiable claims as verifiable ones.
This is because when users are led to believe that other groups of people, from neighbors and classmates to political candidates, believe something they really don’t, there can be negative mental health effects, misconstrued understandings of the world, and decision making outcomes that would not exist if the technology were removed. I believe this is why prolonged exposure to social media creates mood disorders according to the Annals of Surgery and Medicine. We promote controversy when we use engagement for information and opinion which destabilizes our view of what others’ believe.
No medium today is especially focused on protecting those vulnerable to dis/misinformation for non-verifiable claims: things you can’t just look up online. It is my belief that recent advancements in crowd wisdom can help with this.
To promote social cohesion, crowd opinion must be accurately reported and is as important as the verification of real world events.
3 ways journalism has changed forever
1) The Rise of the Tools of Influence
Since the early 2010s, the steady rise of "alternative facts," new online communities, and alternative media sources has also meant a rise in sophistication of tools for growing an online niche and ‘hacking the algorithm’. As David Troy aptly describes it, this period has witnessed the “rise of the tools of influence,” where individuals, businesses, and governments possess unprecedented capabilities to influence public opinion.
2) Information Overload and the End of Objectivity
The years following the pandemic have brought about an overwhelming influx of new data, digital content, and online applications. According to Statista, the amount of data on the internet is projected to triple from 60 to 180 zettabytes between 2020 and 2025. The proliferation of high-quality, cost-effective recording technology, coupled with the rise of audio and video platforms, has democratized content creation, empowering individuals to share their perspectives with a global audience. This shift has rendered the notion of objective journalism, which dominated from 1960 to 2010, increasingly obsolete. The rise of subjective reporting, gonzo journalism, and citizen journalism, have begun to affect the credibility of established outlets and transition into a social era for news.
As algorithms rank millions of subjective takes, audiences gravitate toward more personal and authentic audio-visual experiences offered by platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, according to Pew Research. These experiences often feel more relatable than the polished, impersonal tone of traditional journalism, driving a shift toward content that is engaging but not necessarily factually grounded. In this new media landscape, citizen journalism competes with corporations and is gaining influence, contributing to an ever-growing pool of open-source information.
3) Avoiding Political and Social Issues
The de-promoting of political content on mainstream platforms underscores the challenges facing modern journalism. In an earnings call on January 27th, 2021, Mark Zuckerberg stated that “one common piece of feedback we hear is that people don’t want political content to take over their News Feed,” while also revealing that political content accounted for just 3% of what users saw on Facebook. Since that announcement, Meta has continued to downrank political discussions, and today, the default setting for Facebook users deprioritized “content about governments, elections, and social topics.” This policy shift has diminished opportunities for substantive discourse on critical civic issues and underscores the need for alternative platforms where such discussions can occur openly and equitably.
