Artificial intelligences and slow journalism
Accelerating with Technology to Free Up Time and Do Good Journalism
Artificial Intelligence as an ally of slow journalism: delegating to do better
Artificial intelligences are often associated with speed and efficiency, but in the context of slow journalism, it can become a valuable ally for managing time and resources more effectively.
If you're here, you probably already know this, but slow journalism is an approach that prioritizes quality and depth of information, focusing on understanding and analysis rather than speed. This is where technology comes into play.
Delegating Boring Tasks to Machines
Artificial intelligence can take on the most repetitive and tedious tasks, such as transcription, analyzing large datasets, creating summaries, paraphrasing, and drafting social media posts. Machines can handle these tasks quickly, freeing journalists to focus on creative work and critical analysis. However, to do this, it's essential to trust the technology and have a deep understanding of it—and always exercise human oversight.
Three Polarized Views on AI
When it comes to artificial intelligence, there are three main perspectives:
Catastrophists: Believe AI will replace or destroy us.
Super-optimists: See AI as our future.
Cynics: Consider AI just a passing trend.
What Journalists Need
As journalists (and as human beings), we need a realistic and critical approach to artificial intelligence. We must recognize that AI intersects with various critical issues such as economic and technological oligopolies, environmental sustainability, colonial perspectives, weapon technologies, control over individuals and emotions, and much more. Getting closer to AI is a multidisciplinary challenge that requires a deep understanding to use these tools effectively and responsibly.
AI and Journalism: A Powerful Combination
AI can be applied in various areas of journalism. Here are some concrete examples of how it can be used:
SEO: Optimizing content for search engines.
Social media: Efficiently planning and managing posts.
Newsletters: Segmenting the audience and personalizing messages.
Writing: Generating article drafts or brainstorming new ideas.
Document analysis: Examining large amounts of documents in a short time.
Transcribing interviews: Converting audio files into text.
Summarizing content: Creating summaries of articles or reports.
Editing and proofreading: Improving the quality of a text with editorial suggestions.
Translation: Adapting content for different language audiences.
Concrete Examples of AI Applied to Journalism
Organizations like The Marshall Project use AI to simplify complex bureaucratic documents and make them more accessible to the public—this project is called Decoding Bureaucracy. Zeit Online and ABC Australia use AI chatbots to answer readers' questions and suggest content. ESPN generates sports reports from data, while Newsquest employs AI for repetitive and tedious tasks such as editing press releases for publication.
At Slow News, we use AI in many ways. We have a public, transparent AI policy that we constantly update, explaining how we use AI and how we don’t. It’s open to suggestions for improvement.
We used AI for part of our work on the 10 e 25 podcast.
Personally, I regularly integrate AI into my workflow. For example, while working on a journalism series titled Smart Housed, I used Pinpoint to transcribe interviews and ChatGPT to identify relevant quotes and incorporate them into working drafts.
Ethics and Risks
The use of artificial intelligence must always be supervised by humans. AI tools are not infallible, and they should never be used just for speed and mass production, but rather to improve the quality of what we do as humans:
Talking to people
Interviewing
Being on the ground
Building relationships
Studying
Connecting the dots
These are all things that concern humanity, not just journalism.
The Future of Journalism is Slow and Human-Centered
The ability to produce a massive amount of content with generative AI should remind us to prioritize all that is human in our work: the future of journalism remains centered on humans. AI is a tool, an enhancement of what we can already do. It frees up time to focus on deep investigations and cultivating relationships. It's not a matter of choosing between technology and quality, but of using technology to strengthen quality journalism.
Free Training with TheFix Media
For those interested in further exploring the use of artificial intelligence in journalism, I’ve created a free course for TheFix Media. The course consists of eight email lessons and can be followed at your own pace, allowing you to catch up on each lesson whenever you prefer. Each lesson is designed to adapt to the time and needs of each participant, entirely at your own pace.