If you ask Tucker Carlson, we know what he would say. In fact, he already said it.
Category Archive: Media 211
Did you witness the earth-shattering news live? NFL football star Travis Kelce, fresh off a Super Bowl victory with the Kansas City Chiefs, had just taken a private jet to Sydney, Australia to see his girlfriend Taylor Swift. She was on a concert tour stop there. And OMG, you’d never guess what happened next.
This is not a hypothetical question or distant possibility; AI-generated content is already influencing voters. Although many state and federal lawmakers are scrambling to safeguard the upcoming election, a growing number of experts are sounding the alarm, warning that the U.S. is woefully unprepared for the growing threat from AI-generated propaganda and disinformation. In the 14 months since ChatGPT’s debut, this new AI technology is flooding the internet with lies, reshaping the political landscape and even challenging our concept of reality.
You may be surprised to learn that news organizations like The Associated Press, have been using some form of artificial intelligence since 2014.
Many journalists try to be objective in their work, which means they don’t take sides or show bias. But there are renewed calls for journalists to stand up for what they believe is right rather than report from a position of neutrality.
The jury is still out on this question in the long term, but for now, most experts say chatbots will contribute to the spread of misinformation. Just for fun, I asked ChatGPT what it knew about me—and its response was startling.
Protect your sources. It’s the cardinal rule of journalism, and reporters hold this promise of confidentiality in the highest regard. Journalists will protect a source’s identity or withhold details of their conversations when revealing these truths would be morally objectionable or life-threatening to the source. Yet, some journalists have broken this sacred covenant when their own security or safety is on the line.
Ethical journalists act with integrity, seek the truth, and report on it. Telling a story of public interest requires transparency on who provided the information and how the reporter acquired it. Sometimes sources or experts will only speak with a journalist if the conversation is considered on background or deep background. The terms are part of a journalist’s reporting arsenal and should only be used when necessary. But some subjects, particularly those in positions of power, have used this type of attribution to their advantage.
Journalists have a long history of putting citizens first and holding power to account–and that shouldn’t change just because there’s a new owner on the masthead. Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel go even further and say in a Neiman Reports post that this responsibility is “social obligation that can actually override their employers’ immediate interests at times.”
To answer this question, you might go straight to the source. Since launching his HBO series Last Week Tonight in 2014, John Oliver has repeatedly shot down suggestions that his work is a form of journalism. “No, I’m not a journalist at all,” he told CBS News. “Obviously, I’m a comedian.”
