AI and Investigative Journalism- is this the end?
what does AI mean for investigative journalism?
There has been much alarm about Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking over journalism. And rightly so, for all of journalism’s faults, the profession is an essential component for healthy democracies. In fact, some commentators like Yuval Harari has gone even further, and suggested that AI might be the death of democracy.
Of course, that would also mean the death of journalism since journalism is the servant of democracy. Us journalists, despite our incessant need for bylines and glory, are meant to inform public debate. Our work is meant to help citizens come to an informed decision on an issue.
Our scepticism or wariness towards AI then, is healthy. Hundred years or so, E. M. Forster warned about the absolute domination of technology in The Machine Stops. The story envisions a future where man is wholly dependant on ‘the machine’ and parallels our increasing dependence on AI. Forster is wholly correct in identifying the problem that both AI and his Machine presents to us: reliance on them make us less sentient and removes our independence. However, the idea that machines will take over is not something I worry about; it seems contrary to who we are as human beings.
But in the field of journalism, is AI’s role pernicious? AI is certainly going to replace many jobs in news gathering, especially in wire services like AP, Reuters and others. Those news websites that rely on news aggregation and clickbait, they will no doubt be affected by AI too because much of it can be automated. For instance, writing accurate copy, perhaps even creating graphics for news broadcast can probably be replaced by AI.
But I don’t think that AI can replace the essence of journalism which is encapsulated to my mind in Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s All the President’s Men. Though somewhat dated, their investigation into the Watergate scandal relies heavily on good old door knocking and talking to a wide selection of sources. I just don’t think AI can create or develop those soft skills so beautifully identified by Phillip K Dick in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which was later turned into the sci-fi movie, Blade Runner.
Dick identifies that androids or AI, as perfect as they may be, do not possess empathy and emotion. In other words, those soft skills that journalists rely on. The ability to put aside logic at times, to go with intuition, instinct, the gut, to lower the voice, to raise it a pitch higher for effect- that is part of the journalist’s armoury. Now, I am aware that there are studies suggesting that even these ‘intangibles’ are also choices and calculations that we make in an instant, and that AI can somehow hack that too. But I doubt that AI can pry open the story and gently reveal the human soul in order to tell the story. Man is not just the sum of his parts, he’s not just an algorithm.
I wonder how AI could do the article in Rolling Stone, Guns, Grift, and Gore: The Life and Times of an Arms-Dealing Hustler; the amount of work done to tell that story required so much trust building. Sources would never speak to AI the way they do to another human being. Think about how we dismiss those cold calling us from a call centre in Bombay or Madras, imagine if that was done by AI? I just don’t think AI can mimic the journalists work which relies so heavily on human intangibles. And so the journalist’s art will remain.
There are severals stories that come to mind which would simply be impossible to get hold of without face to face interactions. Consider, Wassim Nasr’s recent visit to HTS territory, northern Syria, for France24 to meet with HTS leaders Abu Mohammed Jolani and Abu Maria Qahtani. The amount of work that Nasr did to obtain the interview cannot be done through AI.
Without sources and knocking on doors, I don’t think I could have made any headway on the Parson’s Green train bombing of 20171. And in the end, it was a source who gave me the break through- a picture of the Parsons Green bomber, Ahmed Hassan. I had cultivated that relationship for several years. But even so, to get the name, to get an idea of who the bomber was, meant knocking on countless doors and shops.
Investigating the story of how a UK ambulance helped piece together the mystery of an IS call to arms (above) could not have been done by AI. The OSINT investigation that you see in the beginning of the of the youtube film, is just a small part of that investigative process.
I got that footage through source cultivation and contacts. Once that was obtained, the investigation could begin. Locating one of the men, interviewing and convincing him to talk on camera needed a lot of persuading. That required soft skills, something that neither AI or journalism school can teach you. Those things comes from life experience, interpersonal skills, languages and drinking coffee with people you may not like.
‘Elite’ level journalism seems to me, to be wholly safe from AI, unless several things happen. Journalist are no longer willing to pound the pavements, willing to interact with the public and the money dries up. Bellingcat for instance, the open source investigations unit, cannot do their stellar work without funding from wealthy philanthropists. Investigative journalism is expensive and need immense financial investment, not just for lawyers, but the resources required to do the digging.
If we take All The Presidents Men as an example again, the two protagonists travelled the length and breadth of America to stand some of those accounts up. But think of the editorial and support staff that was required, the cost must have been exorbitant. Look at the investigation on the Panama Papers in 2016 which exposed how the rich and powerful hide their wealth. The investigation relied on a whole consortium of journalists all over the globe. These ventures then, are not light undertakings and need a specific sort of person who relishes the chase. I just don’t think AI can match that.
But there are of course ethical questions that AI raises in journalism. For instance, how do we deal with AI as a source? If AI has advanced enough to confirm that X was in A at this time, does that satisfy the editors or do we need several human beings to confirm this? Those sorts of issues do not break journalism but merely raises the bar to a higher standard where the journalist has to show his working out.
you can read more on the case in Lizzie Dearden’s book, Plotters: The UK Terrorists who failed (Hurst) 2023
Yeah, I think exactly as you say, the "real stuff" is pretty safe but with so much of the lower level stuff being handled by AI, will people begin to trust it less OR maybe even cherish it more? I hope it's the latter but too many people make me worry that the former attitude will become all too common. I guess we'll see fairly soon eh?!