Will AI Replace Journalists?

AI can write formulaic articles like earnings reports, sports recaps, and weather updates. It cannot conduct interviews, build source relationships, investigate wrongdoing, or provide the judgment needed for complex stories.

Aggregation, basic rewrites, routine event coverage, and data-driven reports face highest risk. Investigative journalism, opinion, feature writing, and beat reporting requiring relationships are more protected.

AI helps with transcription, headline testing, SEO optimization, data analysis, and automated reports for earnings and sports. Some outlets use it for first drafts that humans then edit and verify.

Source relationships, ethical judgment, accountability reporting, asking tough questions, understanding context and nuance, and the courage to publish difficult truths. Democracy needs human journalists.