Joshua Rothman, New Yorker - The more closely you look at the profession of journalism, the stranger it seems. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fewer than fifty thousand people were employed as journalists in 2023, which is less than the number of people who deliver for DoorDash in New York City—and this small group is charged with the impossible job of generating, on a daily basis, an authoritative and interesting account of a bewildering world. Journalists serve the public good by uncovering disturbing truths, and this work contributes to the improvement of society, but the more these disturbing truths are uncovered, the worse things seem. Readers bridle at the negativity of news stories, yet they click on scary or upsetting headlines in greater numbers—and so news organizations, even the ones that strive for accuracy and objectivity, have an incentive to alarm their own audiences. (Readers also complain about the politicization of news, but they click on headlines that seem to agree with their political views.) It’s no wonder that people trust journalists less and less. Gone are the days when cable was newfangled, and you could feel informed if you read the front page and watched a half-hour newscast while waiting for “The Tonight Show” to start...
Certainly, change is coming. Artificial
intelligence is already disrupting the ways we create, disseminate, and
experience the news, on both the demand and the supply sides. A.I.
summarizes news so that you can read less of it; it can also be used to
produce news content. Today, for instance, Google decides when it will
show you an “A.I. overview” that pulls information from news stories,
along with links to the source material. On the science-and-tech podcast
“Discovery Daily,” a stand-alone news product published by the A.I.-search firm Perplexity, A.I. voices read a computer-generated script.
Certainly, change is coming. Artificial intelligence is already disrupting the ways we create, disseminate, and experience the news, on both the demand and the supply sides. A.I. summarizes news so that you can read less of it; it can also be used to produce news content. Today, for instance, Google decides when it will show you an “A.I. overview” that pulls information from news stories, along with links to the source material. On the science-and-tech podcast “Discovery Daily,” a stand-alone news product published by the A.I.-search firm Perplexity, A.I. voices read a computer-generated script.
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