On Feb. 16, the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s editor, Chris Quinn, claimed in a letter that journalism’s future was not determined by the young talent across the world in journalism schools. Instead, Quinn said these journalism schools were teaching students to be afraid of the emerging technology of generative artificial intelligence, while in the same breath, claiming generative AI is replacing the way reporters at the Plain Dealer do what they were taught to do.
Quinn’s letter is full of contradictions. He said the Plain Dealer typically doesn’t hire new reporters straight out of college because of the “heavy training” required, despite the fact the same young journalists often receive that heavy training at the journalism schools he derides.
He also claims AI is saving journalists in his newsroom time by giving them more time to ask questions and pursue stories instead of writing them without acknowledging the ethical implications of feeding someone’s words into an outside source.
Generative AI models take the words users put into them and save them forever; if journalists don’t ask their sources for permission to upload their words to an AI model, they are committing a serious ethical wrong.
There are certainly things to complain about with the state of higher education, especially in Ohio. There are also certainly things to complain about regarding journalism education and AI — at present, there’s a lack of cohesive thought on the matter of AI in newsrooms as the technology continues to change and people learn more about it.
However, it’s bold to assume young journalists are being taught to be afraid of generative AI. In fact, it’s condescending and disrespectful to the intelligence of the students he claims are afraid of this technology to gesture toward journalism schools as the reason for this disdain, and not the myriad of highly-visible issues with generative AI.
Generative AI is easily ideologically swayed, racist and environmentally devastating. These are well-documented facts across research institutions and media outlets. It regurgitates other people’s words to create unoriginal, formulaic and weak writing.
To embrace generative AI is to embrace these faults; to not acknowledge these faults is to enshrine them in workplace practices.
The Plain Dealer’s use of AI to find and write stories will inevitably reflect the biases exhibited by AI models in its reporting, something that just shouldn’t happen.
The emerging technologies out of Silicon Valley are, for a timely reference given the Lenten season, the tantalizing Satan to the media industry’s desert-bound Jesus, except most media executives are far from Jesus in moral attitude.
I can’t fault these leaders of our industry for not being able to live up to the example set by the most important religious figure in history, but I can fault them for being irresponsible. There are obvious problems with generative AI that aren’t being considered despite their appearance across AI platforms.
At The Post, we have an extremely strict policy, stating no use of generative AI. At most, our reporters can use it to brainstorm questions, but that’s it and it’s highly discouraged. However, that doesn’t mean the students in our newsroom don’t learn how generative AI works or how to report on it.
One of the first standards meetings led by our community standards editor was about reporting on generative AI and how it operates.
To be transparent, I hate generative AI. The idea of offloading my critical thinking skills to a third party makes me sick. The amount of water a data center needs to operate makes me even sicker. I stay up at night thinking about the fact I will see water wars in my lifetime due to the planet’s severe water crisis, conflicts that will be spurred on by the over-investment in propping up the AI industry.
In Southeast Ohio and North Central Appalachia, where my family is from and I now call home, data centers represent another highly damaging, extractive industry in line with the boom-and-bust cycle of previously dominant industries such as coal and fracking.
However, professors aren’t lecturing about the dangers of using AI in class while I’m listening, eagerly lapping up their propaganda and thus applying it to my daily work. In fact, it’s quite the opposite at Ohio University’s Scripps School of Communication — many faculty members employ AI in several aspects of their work.
I found this hatred for generative AI while being force-fed the notion that it was going to replace not only my future job but also all the things that make life worth living – the creation of art, human interaction, etc. – all while watching it produce subpar work.
So, to be direct, Quinn, young journalists aren’t afraid of AI. Many of us hate it. We don’t want it to be a part of our reporting. We don’t want it to identify our next scoop or pick an enterprise for us to follow.
We want to do those things ourselves. I hope this column offered you some insights into why the young journalist in the anecdote at the start of your column declined a job with your paper.
Jackson McCoy is a junior studying journalism and environmental studies at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to share your thoughts? Let Jackson know by emailing him at jm049122@ohio.edu.
