A Newsperson’s Life Before AI Was Different, But There’s No Looking Back

Then came the internet, followed by search engines such as Google. Suddenly, even the most modest weekly newspaper could access information that once required a dedicated library and a patient research assistant. Digital archives made old articles and photographs retrievable in seconds. A keyword replaced an afternoon in the filing room, and background research that once consumed hours could be completed in minutes.

AI is taking the next step. It can summarize documents and compare competing accounts. The technology can also identify patterns, suggest questions, or produce a first draft before a journalist finishes making coffee. Long reports and large data sets are easier to analyze, helping reporters make sense of material that once took days to process.

Journalists of yesteryear will remember early-morning newsrooms in which reporters energetically rifled through newspapers, searching for stories they might have missed. Today’s journalist can ask an AI assistant to identify the day’s most significant developments and suggest five possible angles for a story. We are not just living in different times; we are operating in different realities.

We could explain to our predecessors that today’s tools are essential if we are to publish breaking news seconds before our competitors. But they would rightly point out that they, too, fought daily battles to get stories onto newswires, into radio and television broadcasts, and onto newspaper front pages. The technology has changed; the race to be first has not.

Journalists who began their careers before the digital revolution occupy an unusual position. We remember the old methods while working in an environment that would have seemed like science fiction to our younger selves. Before “cut and paste” became a keyboard shortcut, it was a physical task. A typesetting employee cut out photographic paper with text and pictures. Then the pieces were pasted onto a grid of the newspaper page.

The production process has become astonishingly efficient. Articles can be drafted, edited, illustrated, and published in a fraction of the time once required. Page-design software has replaced much of the manual work, while automated systems have taken over tasks that once demanded entire departments. AI promises to accelerate the process further, potentially changing not only how journalists work but also how many people news organizations employ.