AI Skills

AI in Journalism

"जो कलम बिकती नहीं, किसी कीमत पर,वह मशाल बनके, चलती है बेखौफ रास्ते पर।"

The pen that cannot be bought at any price becomes a torch, forging ahead fearlessly upon its path.

My Philosophy

With great power comes great responsibility. When used ethically and responsibly, AI can serve the public good. When used carelessly, though, it can do even greater harm.

I Will Never...

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give AI personal information about my sources. The relationship between a journalist and source is an intimate one and by plugging in sensitive information i.e. name, contact, personal history, values, beliefs; etc, I betray that trust and violate their privacy.

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have AI write an article for me. AI is not a journalist, it is a journalist's tool, an aid. Reputation and trust are the pillars of a successful journalist. I am not interested in losing my writer's voice or letting AI commit grave accuracy errors that erode a reader's trust. If you prefer AI slop, hop on over to celebrity captions!

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fail to check over AI's work. AI is a machine and it operates with numbers and probabilities, not human emotions and connection. It hallucinates the most nonsensical things in the nonsensical places. Anything under my byline or a piece of work I have contributed will always be fact-checked and combed through for errors by me and my two human eyes.

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let AI make the final editorial decision. Only a human can understand what another human may think, feel and experience after reading an article or seeing a headline.

How I Use AI Ethically

Data Analysis

I use AI to write more efficient code in R or Python, parse through large data sets for patterns and assist in data cleaning. Again, if any of this data contains sensitive information, I would remove that from the data before using AI and if not possible, I will not use AI.

Public Records Requests

The Freedom of Information Act is a powerful tool for investigative journalists to uncover information. Often, they are denied for weak citation of laws and statutes. While I would write and submit the request myself, I might ask AI to find specific statutes or laws to strengthen the request.

Research

A good journalist always comes prepared to an interview or engagement. If I am working on a piece that is highly technical or has a lot of background information, I am sure to do thorough research on the topic. AI is good at filling in gaps in understanding, although I always ask it to cite its sources.

Transcription

I always have my journalist's notepad to take notes during interviews and I often record the time at which a source says something noteworthy. AI transcription allows me to find those quotes with ease though I will never copy and paste from the AI transcription without listening to the recording myself.

Workflow

Investigations can be large and intimidating with several to-do lists. Under a time crunch, AI can effectively act as your secretary, letting a journalist know which tasks they should allocate the most time to. This is a limited use but not an uncommon one.

Aiding the Creative Process

I am a strong believer that humans will always have the most original ideas whereas AI can only ever regurgitate what another human has said. Yet, similar to how people use dictionary.com or draw from others' writing, AI can be useful in structuring a piece or finding that perfect adjective you can't put your finger on.

Projects

AI was used in the making of this website