What PR and media teams need to do differently now AI is changing newsrooms

Could this blog have been brought to you by artificial intelligence?

Was that news story you read on the way into work created by a robot journalist?

How about that traffic update you checked on that local news site covering your area?

AI can often feel like it is still in the future.

But it is already here making an impact and changing the news business.

And it is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, it can potentially improve journalism by automating the more mundane tasks and easing some of the time pressures modern reporters face.

But it also poses huge risks and ethical dilemmas.

What does it all mean for media, comms and PR teams?

How is AI being used in the modern newsroom?

We are already starting to live in the future.

You may have already read a story written by an AI journalist or presented by an AI presenter.

If you haven’t, it seems like only a matter of time.

Italian newspaper Il Foglio recently claimed to be the first in the world to publish an edition entirely produced by artificial intelligence.  

The four-page edition of the conservative-liberal daily was wrapped into the newspaper’s broadsheet edition. The Guardian says that “the articles were structured, straightforward and clear, with no obvious grammatical errors. However, none of the articles published in the news pages directly quote any human beings.”

And AI newsreaders are not as futuristic as they may sound.

In Kuwait, an AI persona called Fedha ran through the headlines for Kuwait News. Greece’s public broadcaster ERT unveiled its first AI-powered virtual presenter in 2023 – called Hermes. Zae-In spent five months reading live news bulletins on South Korean national broadcaster SBS.

In the UK, GB News Radio announced last year that its sports reports would be powered by AI and voiced by a clone of a newsreader. The bulletins are created using AI summaries from the latest sports stories on the channel’s website and delivered using the virtual voice of news presenter Tatiana Sanchez.

Regional publishing giant Newsquest now employs 36 AI-assisted journalists. The reporters use an AI-powered CMS to rewrite press releases into stories and are tasked with checking the facts and quotes are correct in the output. The publisher says this “frees up the rest of the newsroom to actually be out pounding the beat, knocking on doors, getting original content that people are willing to pay for”.

News UK – publishers of The Sun and The Times, says a third of staff use AI tools daily. The Times developed an AI-powered content management co-pilot to help with headlines.

There is also a growing focus on using AI to curate content and shape it for different audiences.

The Independent has announced it will use Google AI tools to summarise its journalism for “time-poor audiences”. It says all the content written for its ‘Bulletin’ service will be reviewed and checked by journalists before publication.

The Financial Times uses AI to help provide subscribers with “hyper-relevant articles”. It says: “Being informed no longer means reading every single article that’s published.”

BBC News is creating a new department that will use AI to give the public more personalised content. It is understood measures could include deploying AI to curate stories for users on their phones, based on their previous consumption, in a way that suits those used to consuming content served up by social media.

Further afield, The New York Times uses AI for things like sifting through vast amounts of data for investigative reporting, recommending other articles to readers, creating initial drafts of headlines and making its content more accessible (automated voice technology and translation models).

While in Australia, News Corp has used AI to produce 3,000 local news stories a week. These are typically stories about weather, fuel prices and traffic conditions. The Australian Daily Telegraph is using AI images to illustrate its opinion columns.

What AI means for PR, Comms and Media Teams

Despite those concerns and the uncertainty that surrounds predicting the future. AI isn’t going to go away.

The opposite is true. It’s just the pace of change - and how far it goes - that is open to question.

Here are some key changes, challenges and opportunities comms professionals need to be aware of and prepare for now:

• Your media spokespeople could be better prepared than ever before. Thirty Seven takes the stress out of media interview preparation. It offers on-demand coaching with human-like avatars that simulate real journalist interviews — print, radio, TV, and podcast styles. And each interview is backed by extensive instant feedback based on Media First’s unique media training methodology. It perfectly fills the gap between media training course and your next media interview, ensuring skills remain sharp.
  
  
• Your press release could be summarised by AI. If you don’t like the sound of that, make sure it is short, snappy and easy for time-pressed journalists to understand.
  
  
• Similarly, AI could be used to find the relevance of a press release for the media outlet’s audience. The way to avoid this is by making sure your releases are targeted. This means creating multiple versions of your press release. Maybe AI could help with that?
  
  
• A fast news cycle will get even quicker. With AI able to quickly cut through complex data to find the nuggets, and alert reporters to breaking news and emerging topics, stories could be turned around even quicker. It means you may have to respond ever more swiftly to media opportunities and interview requests. You may also need to act more quickly in a crisis media management incident.
  
  
• You may need to verify the credibility of your spokespeople. A recent investigation by Press Gazette found that some widely-quoted media experts are not who they claim to be. It said that since the launch of ChatGPT, “anyone can generate comment, on any subject, in an instant.” And it added: “It is a technology that appears to have fuelled a rise in expert commentators who have appeared widely in national newspapers but who are either not real, not what they seem to be or at the very least have CVs which do not justify their wide exposure in major newsbrands.” This obviously impacts trust. To rebuild it, journalists may require more background information about your experts, links to their social media profiles and headshots. It may also mean a resurgence of telephone interviews, with the format offering journalists more assurance than written-only comments.
  
  
• Journalists will be freed up to tell the stories that matter. While AI can perform the more mundane tasks effectively, it cannot replace the all-important human touch. Freeing up their precious time can allow journalists to focus on human storytelling and carrying out media interviews. So, make sure that you take advantage of this and have your spokespeople prepared and ready to do media interviews.
  
  
• Better media monitoring. The amount of data on the internet is forecast to reach 181 zettabytes by 2025. I don’t really understand what a Zettabyte is. But, apparently, a zettabyte equals 1 sextillion bytes or the equivalent of storing 250 billion DVDs. That’s a lot of content. AI is likely to be the best way to cut through that noise and find the stories that matter for your organisation, learn what people are saying about your organisation, better manage your reputation and better prepare your spokespeople.

The comms and media landscapes are rapidly evolving, and the role AI plays will only become more significant.

Don’t get left behind.