Does AI Have a Place in the Newsroom?

 

Declan Evans, an emerging journalist himself, dissects how the current media landscape is responding to AI in the newsroom.

  

His hands were shaking and the knot in his stomach grew bigger as he discovered he was temporarily suspended.

 

March 19, 2026, was a terrible day for Peter Vandermeersch. The Irish Times journalist discovered he had been suspended for using Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated quotes in his articles. In this day and age, does using AI deserve such a punishment? Is this the new normal or will there be implications affecting our journalistic integrity and democracy?

 

Vandermeersch is not the only journalist caught using AI while working in the news industry.

Freelance journalist Alex Preston was fired as a result of using AI to help him write a book review. Without knowing he’d plagiarised a review from a journalist at The Guardian. Aaron Pelczar, reporter for the American newspaper, Cody Enterprise resigned after it was discovered he’d used generative AI to help write his stories leading to fake quotes.

 

How does this artificial source impact our democracy? In an industry based on telling the truth, (AI) this is a worrying thing. “It is the hot topic of the moment,” says Jane Hutchinson, an editor at The Age. "AI is a real threat to what we do as journalists, which is why (our) newsroom is so wary of using it anywhere in the writing or editing process." 

 

RMIT adjunct professor / Nine News presenter Brett Macleod says Channel Nine is integrating more of AI into the newsroom "And I think this is really relevant when we come to... the elephant in the room today for all of you: AI, and where our business, our livelihoods, and our journalism is likely to go," McLeod says. "Channel Nine is about to implement a whole new computer, software, and network infrastructure which is very much AI-based. And that, understandably, leads to a lot of apprehension." 

 

Seven News journalist Blake Johnson agrees, and says that while AI is good for summarising data, "and from there getting pointers", it is vital that journalists double-check AI-generated information for their work. 

 

Andrea Carson, political scientist and Associate Professor in the Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy at La Trobe University, says “reporting is putting facts together into a coherent story. Reporting – but this goes beyond the gathering of information that will be the basis of the report – is writing a story that is compelling”. 

 

Why aren't the journalists fact checking AI? "We haven't got a specific (AI) policy that I'm aware of in terms of news,” says Johnson. “But we do have an overarching policy, and that's to get things right, to tell the truth." He also says "I always take everything ChatGPT or AI says with a grain of salt … In terms of using it to write, it is a very slippery slope and a risky one. It sometimes makes things up,"

 

A report by Reuters Institute shows that British journalists use AI frequently in their work: 30% for grammar checking/copy editing, 33% for translation, 22% for researching stories, and 16% for idea generation and brainstorming. According to an Australian media landscape report (2025) by Media Net, 63% of journalists in Australia have not used generative AI in their work, however the statistic has decreased from 74% in 2023. 

 

How can people trust what they see on the news? "People are gradually losing the ability to critically think for themselves," says Johnson, who is concerned about how reliant people are on things like ChatGPT “They are outsourcing everyday decisions and important life needs - very simple things that could probably be made with a bit of human discretion... I think it is a dangerous precedent."

 

Asked if AI could replace journalists, he says, "[There is] no replacement for objective decisions made as journalists. AI can get some things right but not everything; it is open to manipulation from the AI machines or a model's owner. Who is to know that a particular model isn't told to, if searching for certain news articles, show a specific side of politics, for instance?"

 

There are some benefits to AI in journalism such as transcription and summarising long pieces of information but it's also very unregulated. Hutchinson points to guidelines Nine journalists must abide by: “AI technologies can improve task-based work. 

 

Employees are encouraged to be curious about AI. Accordingly, journalists and editorial employees are allowed to use AI tools where there is genuine benefit in doing so. This may include using assistive AI to do initial research, prompt ideas, analyse data or suggest headlines; published stories must not be written by AI, nor should AI be used to write part of an article.” 

 

A study by The University of Sydney shows Microsoft's AI chatbot, Copilot, features its own news content on MSN. Dr Koskie the author of the study says “ The fact that Copilot not only installed itself on Windows systems without user permission as part of a phased rollout but also instructed users to use it as a news source once in the platform, while prominently featuring its own news content on MSN, is an obvious structural issue”.

 

 Would you trust news that has been generated from AI? Mr Koskie warns AI may impact local news “Without intervention, Australia faces disappearing local news, fewer independent voices and a weakened democracy.” In Robert A. Hackett and Yuezhi Zhao’s article (Towards Public Communication for Sustainable Democracy) they explore the dangers of AI and report “because journalism and democracy are interconnected, both are vulnerable, journalists have a legitimate interest in protecting both activities or spheres”. 

 

Although AI generates information very fast, it’s hard to tell if it's fact or fiction. AI’s algorithms will stop/reduce the exposure to other view points, ultimately impacting news in our democracy. Are we really going to let AI overtake our brains and destroy our thinking? What will democracy become if AI is unregulated?

 

Declan Evans