Everybody, Even AI, Needs an Editor
By Bob Gaydos
Image from Storybench, Northeastern University School of Journalism
That was fast. A while back, I wrote a column about how AI was coming to take my job and the jobs of maybe millions of other people lovingly referred to as “knowledge workers” by the CEOs of the companies who are rushing to make it happen.
Well, it happened, in of all places, Wyoming.
A reporter, new to the trade and no longer with the paper, admitted to using artificial intelligence to create quotes, even whole stories, for the Cody Enterprise, a newspaper founded by Buffalo Bill Cody, who needed no genius computer to create his legendary story.
The phony reporter was busted by a veteran reporter for a competing newspaper, the Powell Tribune, who said he started asking around when he noted some of the phrases in the other guy’s stories seemed to be a bit off, or robotic. Bad writing.
No surprise there. YouTube is replete with documentaries and special reports full of inappropriate or outdated or trite, slightly off phrasing narrated by “people” who mispronounce basic words.
At such times, I can be heard complaining agitatedly, “AI!”
Also, preaching: “Everybody needs an editor.”
It’s my favorite response and basic rule for any writer. But the YouTube videos go on, their producers seemingly unaware or unconcerned with the amateurish product they’re presenting. Artificial mediocrity suffices, probably because it draws an audience and it’s cheaper than employing the real thing. People.
Which brings me back to Wyoming. Things were different in Wyoming. The governor and other people were saying they never said what the newspaper said they said, although they admitted it sounded like something they might have said.
Classic AI. Scan the past and take a plausible shot at recreating it in the present. Chatbots always aim to please.
But unlike YouTube shows, newspapers can get into trouble making stuff up, with or without AI. The publisher of The Enterprise said AI is “the new, advanced form of plagiarism and in the field of media and writing, plagiarism is something every media outlet has had to correct at some point or another.”
She said the paper now has a policy in place to recognize AI-generated stories. That’s good. With no official controls on this new, still-developing technology, all news media should have a policy on the proper and improper use of artificial intelligence and make it known to the public as well as their staff.
The editor of the Enterprise, Chris Bacon, said, “The Enterprise didn’t have an AI policy because it seemed obvious that journalists shouldn’t use it to write stories.”
Yeah, one would think, right? But these are different times. Times of stolen user names, online dating scams, spam emails. Progress. While the recognized practice in journalism always has been not to steal other people’s writing and not to make stuff up, some have tried and some have been caught. Newspapers have been sued. But AI apparently makes it harder to spot, especially for less-experienced eyes.
The AP says Bacon is “a military veteran and former air ambulance pilot who was named editor in May after a few months working as a reporter.” Swift promotion.
He said he “failed to catch” the AI copy and false quotes and apologized that “AI was allowed to put words that were never spoken” into stories in his newspaper. At least seven stories, seven people falsely quoted.
I don’t know. Apparently one AI-generated story about a shooting in Yellowstone National Park included this sentence: “This incident serves as a stark reminder of the unpredictable nature of human behavior, even in the most serene settings.”
In nearly half a century working in newspapers, I can’t recall a more unlikely sentence in a news story to have been allowed to pass unquestioned by a copy editor. No way Moe or Dennis or Linda or Tim lets me get away with that hackneyed life lesson without at least a, “Hey, Bob …”
Maybe my basic rule for writers needs to be modified: Everybody needs a really fussy human editor.
rjgaydos@gmail.com
Tags: AI, Artificial intelligence, Bob Gaydos, Buffalo Bill, Chatbot, Cody Enterprise, journalism, Newspapers, plagiarism, reporter, writing, Wyoming, YouTube
