{"id":8158,"date":"2026-01-18T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/media-execs-end-journalism\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T14:00:00","slug":"media-execs-end-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/media-execs-end-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Execs Prepare for AI to Bring End of Journalism Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Will the slow anaconda crush of AI mean the end of journalism? It\u2019s hard to imagine it completely eliminating the profession outright, unless the machines end up enslaving humanity \u00e0 la the \u201cMatrix\u201d films. There will always be nosy gumshoes meddling in everyone\u2019s affairs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But major media companies are in dire straits, and their executives aren\u2019t sounding too cheerful about the future, which could hold in store the end of the traditional news agency.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to a new survey<\/a> of over 280 media leaders from 51 countries conducted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ). It found that on average, the sample of editors, CEOs, and digital executives expect traffic to their websites to plummet by 43 percent over the next three years \u2014 which would be a disastrous blow to their commercial operations.<\/p>\n

Traffic to news sites has already been plunging, a trend that preceded the AI boom but only accelerated as chatbots like ChatGPT began to replace the search engine. Analytics data cited in the RISJ report shows that web traffic directed to news sites from Google Search has plummeted 33 percent across the globe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With omens like those, Nick Newman, senior research associate at the RISJ, predicts the \u201ctraffic era\u201d of the early internet, which once sustained traditional publishers, may finally be coming to an end.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not clear what comes next,\u201d Newman told The Guardian<\/em><\/a>. \u201cPublishers fear that AI chatbots are creating a new convenient way of accessing information that could leave news brands \u2014 and journalists \u2014 out in the cold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut tech platforms do not hold all the cards,\u201d he added. \u201cReliable news, expert analysis and points of view remain important both to individuals and to society, particularly in uncertain times. Great storytelling \u2014 and a human touch \u2014 is going to be hard for AI to replicate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some publishers seeing the writing on the wall have pivoted to embracing AI tech. But the way it\u2019s being deployed in many cases is almost certainly a miscalculation, imperiling fundamental tenets of good journalism by introducing hallucinating tech into the loop \u2014 which is to say nothing of the coincidentally-timed layoffs that have been hamstringing the industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some cases seem more innocuous. The New York Times<\/em>, for example, has been using AI to help craft headlines<\/a>. But in an alarming recent demonstration of how the tech can go drastically wrong, the Washington Post<\/em> launched a feature last month for producing personalized AI-generated podcasts that would relay the newspaper\u2019s latest stories, which immediately sparked uproar both internally and externally<\/a>. The podcasts were riddled with factual errors<\/a> and in some cases even editorialized on developing stories. The venture was resoundingly mocked online, and WaPo<\/em> staffers fumed against leadership, calling it \u201castonishing\u201d and a \u201cdisaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the logic behind these moves is that desperate times call for desperate, extremely ill-advised measures, and the industry is desperate indeed. According to the RISJ report, only 38 percent of the surveyed media leaders say they\u2019re confident about journalism\u2019s prospects in the years ahead, a staggering 22 percent drop from four years ago.<\/p>\n

To navigate these waters, the publishers emphasized doubling down on some aspects of what makes journalism unique, like original investigations, on-the-ground reporting, and human-oriented stories. On the other hand, they said they\u2019d scale back general news and service journalism, which they expected to be commoditized by AI. They also favored pivoting journalists into content creation, such as making shortform videos, to gain a foothold in social media.<\/p>\n

More on AI:<\/strong> After Being Pillaged By AI Companies, Wikipedia Signs Deal to Get Paid By Them<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The post Media Execs Prepare for AI to Bring End of Journalism Industry<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Will the slow anaconda crush of AI mean the end of journalism? It\u2019s hard to imagine it completely eliminating the profession outright, unless the machines end up enslaving humanity \u00e0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}