2022.May.10

REPORTS

Report on the 4th B’AI Book Club
Francesco Marconi, Newsmakers: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism (2020)

On September 21, 2021, the B’AI Global Forum held the fourth meeting of the B’AI Book Club, where Akira Tanaka, a research assistant, reviewed Francesco Marconi’s book, Newsmakers: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism (2020). Marconi co-founded Applied XL, an information company, and has led the development of AI-enabled content production automation and data analysis methods at the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal. He addresses journalists’ fears of losing their jobs to AI and proposes “iterative journalism” regarding how newsrooms can work with AI.

As for a brief summary of the book review, I chose this book because I thought it is necessary to examine the applicability of artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism, as in the case of the “AIJO” project, which was also introduced in the BAIRAL Research Meeting. The book is impressive as a vital reference for understanding the case studies and the significance of AI applications in newsrooms. Significantly, he argues that news organizations should use AI to augment their conventional operations, in order to rethink the newsroom as a space where interaction between journalists and the audience forms collective knowledge, rather than a closed space by journalists alone. However, it is understandable that the book is divided into three parts: the issue of why journalism should use AI, case studies of AI use, and changes in journalism due to AI use. But the chapters are not sufficiently structured; the issues are intermingled, and it is difficult to understand the logic.

These points were raised in the discussion. It seems that the author’s argument is based on a narrow view of journalism as a news production activity. He emphasizes AI use from the perspective of productivity but does not consider the attendant issues in society, such as group polarization, filter bubbles, and privacy rights. He is a business professional who got his PhD from Columbia Business School, so he may view journalism only from a management standpoint. But criticism from a different perspective may improve discussion about how AI affects journalism as a democratic practice.