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In the scenic beachside community of Santa Barbara, Calif., the impending bankruptcy auction of the Santa Barbara News-Press stirred deep anxieties among the locals. The fear was selling the digital paper to an opportunistic buyer might transform the beloved 155-year-old paper into a “zombie news” outlet where stories by experienced reporters with local ties give way to AI-generated content and other cost-cutting measures.
The anxiety that hit Santa Barbara is being felt throughout the journalism world as AI demonstrates its tremendous power and begins to make its mark, locally and nationally.
Perhaps most concerning are news outlets like the year-old NewsGPT that relies entirely on AI without any human fact-checkers and the planned Channel 1 featuring AI-generated virtual anchors and reporters. Both are bold steps in reinventing news reporting and presentation that threaten current journalistic practices and value.
Anchor avatars may create virality, but critics are concerned their cost-cutting focus risks the trust and connection human journalists have built with audiences over time.
And we have seen the dark side of AI in the news. Last October, an altered video of Clarissa Ward, CNN’s chief international correspondent, taking cover in a ditch as rockets explode near the Israel-Gaza border went viral. This footage, altered with fake audio that discredited her reporting, underscores the need to understand AI to identify and eliminate malicious misinformation.
CNN had to scramble to disavow the “fabricated and distorted” clip, saying it “irresponsibly distorts the reality of the moment that was covered live on CNN.”
Clearly,