Metro Manila, Philippines – News organizations that replace journalists with artificial intelligence to cut costs risk losing the public trust that gives them a reason to exist, former CNN deputy managing editor Jim LeMay warned.
In an interview on The Newsmaker, LeMay said an AI-driven business model may appear financially attractive to struggling media companies, but audiences can quickly recognize news produced without journalists reporting from their communities.
“If you go all in on the business model that says, ‘Eliminate people, just have AI crank this out,’ you may lose the reason you exist, which is people’s trust in you,” LeMay told NewsWatch Plus.
LeMay acknowledged that replacing newsroom positions with AI could make sense when viewed purely through spreadsheets and operating costs.
The approach, however, could sever the connection between news organizations and the people they serve.
“They’re not really talking to us. They’re not out in our communities. I don’t see them reporting from where I live,” LeMay said.
“This just seems to be information that tends to percolate but doesn’t have connectivity to who we are as a culture,” he added.
LeMay said audiences could eventually reject such content and distrust other reports produced by the same organization.
AI should remain a tool
LeMay said AI can help journalists complete technical and time-consuming tasks, including transcribing interviews, archiving videos and searching large collections of documents.
These uses could give reporters more time for fieldwork, verification and creative storytelling.
AI can also help journalists identify possible story angles they may have overlooked, he said.
A business reporter covering inflation, for example, could ask an AI platform to suggest other angles worth examining. The journalist must still investigate the suggestions and decide whether they are relevant and accurate.
“There are lots of ways to functionally use these tools, but you just don’t want it to take the place of the reporter,” LeMay said.
He warned journalists against allowing AI to write an entire story with little human input.
“That’s a dangerous, slippery slope,” he said. “If you become lazy and let it do everything, you lose your identity. You lose the community’s trust in you.”
LeMay said AI must remain a tool rather than a technology on which journalists become completely dependent.
Drawing the line
Creative thinking, editorial judgment, and sensitivity must remain under human control, said LeMay.
Journalists and editors should decide how to approach a story, which information deserves prominence and how coverage could affect the people involved.
“I think we draw the line in creative and critical thinking, in judgment,” he said.
“There needs to be a collaborative conversation between real people about where the direction of a story should go and at what level we should be sensitive about individuals,” he added.
AI-generated summaries and data analysis must also be independently checked.
“The biggest challenge for all of these tools is verification,” LeMay said.
Single biggest threat
LeMay identified AI-enabled disinformation as the most serious threat facing local journalists.
He warned that malicious actors could fabricate videos, photographs or quotations and pass them to journalists in the hope that a credible news organization would publish them.
Such publication would give false material an appearance of legitimacy.
“There are bad actors, local and otherwise, that are looking to take advantage of your credibility, get you to accept a video or a quote that is totally manufactured, hoping you will then republish it, giving them credibility,” he added.
