Last Thursday felt like a field trip. At 7:30 AM, we were all on the train to Nijmegen with hot coffee, homemade sandwiches and yoghurt and muesli cups. Some had cast their votes in the European elections just before catching the train. Our books and newspapers never made it out of our bags; we were too busy talking, laughing and discussing which party we voted for.
DeepL
We were off to Nijmegen for the annual conference of the Kring van Hoofdredacteuren, the national association of news media in Dutch higher education. This year’s theme was AI in journalism. I consider myself a complete novice in this area. Until last week, I thought I’d never used AI and had no concrete plans to do so. I didn’t realise that DeepL, a translation service I use almost weekly to quickly translate a few sentences (we use human translators for articles), counts as artificial intelligence.
Unsurprising
That wasn’t the only thing I learnt. Experts explained that AI won’t replace us journalists anytime soon; AI tools generate superficial articles, inevitably make mistakes (as they’re fed both “good” and “bad” content) and struggle to replicate creativity and emotion. You still need a human journalist for that. But using tools like DeepL and ChatGPT can make our lives easier. Quickly summarising the main points of a lengthy policy document, transcribing a voice memo in no time, coming up with headline suggestions – they can do it all. We found out for ourselves in a workshop. I asked for ways to get more students to read Observant. The answer was comprehensive but unsurprising: produce a weekly newsletter (check), write articles about students (check), get students on the editorial team (check), and so on.
Field trip mode
A few colleagues, still or again in field trip mode, became a bit unruly as the day progressed. After asking ChatGPT some serious questions (this, I learnt, is called “prompting” in AI jargon), they asked if you can “hit a junior journalist if they don’t do what you want”. The junior journalist who typed in the prompt laughed the loudest when the AI tool informed us that this is “unacceptable and illegal”. Also, “Hitting a colleague can have severe negative effects on the working environment.” You don’t say!
Like you, I suspect, we are just about ready for a break. The last print version of Observant of this academic year will be published this week. From next week, you’ll find the latest news on our website until 1 July. After that, it’s time for the summer holidays. Enjoy your summer and see you in August.
PS ChatGPT came up with five rather underwhelming headline suggestions for this editorial, including “A Journey Full of Insights: AI and Journalism at the Kring Conference”.