What can B2B media professionals do as we face an onslaught of AI-generated content that threatens to submerge our articles on the internet? To answer this challenging question, the American Society of Business Publication Editors hosted a webinar on July 30, “Be Human: The Power of Voice in the Age of AI Gobbledygook.”
“Do you have more personality than a robot? I sure hope so, because why are you in journalism if you do not?” said Jonathan Maze, editor in chief of Restaurant Business.
The proliferation of AI has led to “a sea of generic content written in a very specific way,” Maze said. “Frankly, it’s all a bunch of nonsense gobbledygook. This presents an opportunity for us, as journalists, to stand out. We are going to tell you how to use your humanity in the production of content.”
Travis Hessman, vice president of content at Endeavor Business Media, provided extensive advice for the audience. He began by describing his background and his use of AI.
“I want to make it clear from the start… I’m an old dude. I’m a curmudgeon… but I do not hate AI,” Hessman said. “In fact, I use AI quite a lot and I like what it does for me and I like how it improves my job. I think that AI is a terrific productivity tool and every editor should be using it.”
For example, Hessman said, AI can help with proofreading. It can help journalists learn about new beats rapidly. It can help create survey and interview questions. It can also help write marketing copy.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, AI has problems. According to Hessman, “It writes… with all the skill of a very talented sixth grader… [and] with the integrity of a freshman comp student. It’s going to make up sources. It’s going to make up facts. It’s going to be plagiarized top to bottom.”
Four months ago, Hessman said, there were headlines about whether journalism could survive AI’s transformation of the news business, including changes to Google’s search technology. He discussed these with his team.
“All of this was going to tear our industry apart,” Hessman said. “AI content farms were going to drown out all real journals … with the volume that they were producing. Nobody was going to click on stories anymore. Organic search was going to bottom out … once our readers started getting all their information straight from Google search. We’d all either become AI content farms and partner with these people or be bought by them.”
Google’s recommendation tool in May showed that AI for search engines is deeply flawed. “It started coming out with some bananas gobbledygook of epic proportions right away,” Hessman said. “The AI overview was recommending that pregnant women smoke two to three cigarettes a day, that you can add nontoxic glue to pizza sauce, that you can unwind and wash stress away [by] taking your toaster into the bath with you, and that running with scissors is great exercise.”
This resulted in people searching for the phrase “turn off AI,” Hessman said. This search was very common. “Research shows that readers perceive news organizations publishing these stories labeled as AI-generated as less trustworthy in general now. We know our whole business is about trust.”
Canned-sounding content generated by AI doesn’t provide a personal touch, raw emotions or real-life anecdotes, Hessman said. Nor do AI tools have the quality, connections, expertise and originality that real reporters can bring. Reporters should leverage these assets that they have so that their work can remain competitive.
Hessman reflected about what humans contribute to the journalism process. AI can take some of the grunt work out of the editorial process, freeing humans up to generate more and better content and engage in deep analysis, he said.
“If you’ve been around … your industries for a little while, you know what’s happened before; you know what’s going on,” Hessman said. “AI can only regurgitate. Interviewing insiders and leaders in your field … is something that a human could do. Any AI bot can summarize a new story.”
Reporters are also more truthful than AI, Hessman said. “The machines keep screwing it up. Truth is a very tricky thing right now. We need to bring that integrity and we need to do things right. Being profound and sounding human are the critical elements right now.”
“If you develop a voice that people will… recognize right from the start… they know you and they trust you and you have a personality. You’re going to be able to make a much more profound impact,” Hessman said.
Hessman defined “voice” in journalism as the writing’s tone and the “impression that tone communicates.” He recommended that writers seeking to develop their voices read voraciously, including studying how other journalists compose their sentences.
For more information on developing your voice to strengthen your journalism, watch the full webinar. Members have free access to ASBPE’s webinar archive. Not a member? Apply today.