Media News

Washington Post tech reporter Harwell on using AI

Drew Harwell

Washington Post tech reporter Drew Harwell spoke with MediaWise director Alex Mahadevan at Poynter’s annual meeting with its advisory board late February about artificial intelligence.

Angela Fu of Poynter writes, “Though Harwell sometimes experiments with AI tools, he doesn’t incorporate them into his reporting and writing process. AI can’t replicate good journalism, he said. It can’t knock on doors, and the content generative AI tools produce tends toward boilerplate.

“‘I think the more we’ll be seeing AI-generated stuff, the more we will appreciate real, human, creative work,’ Harwell said. ‘There’s nothing really replicating good, human writing.’

“Still, Harwell acknowledged that AI could help augment journalism. He highlighted the work of The New York Times’ visual investigations team, which partnered with an AI company to track and analyze a high-altitude Chinese balloon last year. At the Post, the newsroom uses machine learning to test different headlines for stories and track which headline performs the best. Other uses of AI — such as translating stories into different languages or automatically generating transcripts for podcasts — could help journalists reach more people, Harwell said.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

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