News Corp adopts AI to produce 3000 stories per week
Amid many news organisations planning to adopt AI, with News Corp, an Australian-based news company also announcing to have been utilising AI to produce 3000 stories per week.
Highlights
- News Corp uses AI to update information on weather, traffic conditions and fuel prices
- Bild, a German newspaper recently announced the substitution of jobs with AI, eliminates hundreds of jobs
As per the recent information, Michael Miller, the CEO of News Corp Australia disclosed that the media company actively uses artificial intelligence to produce 3,000 local stories for readers each week.
The CEO stated in a speech to the World News Media Congress last month that employing AI to cover regular topics like the weather, fuel prices, and traffic conditions was also a part of the company's focus on local content to boost subscriptions.
He said, "For some years now, we have used automation to update local fuel prices several times daily as well as daily court lists, traffic and weather, death, and funeral notices.” Miller continued to say that, "I’d stress that all such information and decisions are overseen by working journalists from the Data Local team."
News Corp automates news content
According to Mr. Miller, News Corp will concentrate on ‘hyperlocal’ audiences in the near future in order to increase subscriptions and provide service to 75 mastheads for Australian small towns with fewer than 15,000 residents.
“They are in progressive communities with active sporting, political, business, and tourism interests and lower social media engagement,” he said.
The information from the Australian based media company comes after Google recently introduced a new AI tool, called Genesis, to draft articles.
Mixed opinion of news companies on AI growth
The use of AI in the news industry has gradually increased, with some companies adopting a cautious strategy under human supervision and others diving fully into the technology.
The publisher of Bild, the biggest newspaper in Germany, has embraced the technology by eliminating several hundred jobs and substituting AI for them.
In an email acquired by the German daily, Frankfurter Allgemeine, the corporation stated that it would part ways with colleagues whose jobs will be replaced by AI and/or automated processes in the digital world, or who do not find themselves in this new line-up with their current skills. "Roles such as editors, print production journalists, proofreaders, photo editors, and assistants will no longer exist like they do today, " the company stated.
In the wake of rapid AI adoption, CEO and publisher of Axel Springer, Mathias Döpfner, sent a stern warning about the effects of AI to the workers in March 2023.
Moreover, the world's largest publisher Gannett and newswire provider Reuters have announced that AI will be used in story production, but only under human supervision. In contrast, Fox Broadcasting Company Co-Founder and media magnate, Barry Diller cautioned that AI might have a disastrous effect on newsrooms.
