Once again, local radio has inspired me to launch another personal exploration of the future of journalism. At least some areas of the tradecraft. This time, we’re looking at AI.
Boston’s WBZ aired a story (actually, it was a cutdown TV package) about two area men who had started a non-profit website that uses, “the most advanced technology to automate news gathering, production and distribution.” That’s verbiage taken directly from the website of Nano Media.
In short, what they do is they use artificial technology to take local news items like a town council meeting, a school committee, or a public hearing broadcast and recorded on YouTube and they then convert the information into summaries and bullet points in article form on a local website.
I understand to a point. Those local meetings can be long — seriously long — and chock full of internal references and heavy on the local speak. A little help to sort it all out would be nice, right?
Funny that they are focusing on the extreme local news sites because I happen to work for one. I cover those very same types of local government events. I write about what a select board did, how the school committee voted, or what building the planning board approved. This week I covered the dedication of a town’s new ambulance. Even took pictures with my iPhone 12 Pro.
It’s nice. It’s human. Some may call it warm and fuzzy, but it’s real and I enjoy it. I won’t do it forever but it’s a nice weekly local paper and it’s soothing at times. Also, there are about a dozen of these nice, weekly local papers covering the cities and towns in my region, with the stories all written by nice people, sincere journalists. (Okay, maybe one of them is kind of a jerk but I’m not saying it who.)
Now look, AI and I have squared off before when it comes to news coverage but this time, they’re going at what I currently enjoy doing.
Not so, according to the guys who run the site.
“At the end of the day it’s about revitalizing local news as a way to strengthen our democracy,” Winston Chen told CBS Boston.
He and his neighbor David Trilling founded Nano Media.
I sort of get what Chen is saying there although I think “revitalizing local news” or “a way to strengthen our democracy” are a bit of a stretch.
The pair told CBS the intent is to help journalists, not replace them.
“We have a human read and review every text before it is published,” Trilling said.
That’s great, thanks so much. So, the reporter is no longer necessary but gives the editor a couple of hours of work.
I’m not completely anti-AI. Is it better to have a bit of news coverage of these happenings as opposed to none at all?
The short answer is yes. Sit through town council meetings that last 4, 5, or 6 hours and you’ll probably warm up to the idea.
In any case, I read an AI-created synopsis of a town meeting. It had facts, it had movement, but it had no pulse. At this stage of the game, only flesh and blood can take thrilling adventures like consent agenda items, zoning variances, and budget appropriations and prevent them from reading like the instruction manual for a 1973 Amana radar range.
I’m not a panicky type of guy, but I don’t necessarily think something like this, with AI being used in the tiny arena of hyper-hyper local news, is going to suddenly lead to the floodgates opening wide with artificially engineered reports about Israel-Hamas, a House without a Speaker and a former president bouncing back and forth between the court house and the county fair taking over the dailies and the websites.
I only mention it because I fear that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
Bill Zito has devoted most of his work efforts to broadcast news since 1999. He made the career switch after serving a dozen years as a police officer on both coasts. Splitting the time between Radio and TV, he’s worked for ABC News and Fox News, News 12 New York , The Weather Channel and KIRO and KOMO in Seattle. He writes, edits and anchors for Audacy’s WTIC-AM in Hartford and lives in New England. You can find him on Twitter @BillZitoNEWS.
