Christmas brought with it the sad news that another Canadian community newspaper is shutting down.
The weekly Thompson Citizen, located in northern Manitoba, is closing after more than 60 years in operation. The community isn’t happy about it, and experts are telling the CBC and other outlets that this is part of a larger trend in that province of community newspapers struggling to stay afloat.
The fate of that Citizen could have been the fate of yours. As owner-publisher Cameron Stolz stated last week, The Prince George Citizen was facing closure a year ago. The paper’s corporate owner had already shuttered other BC publications, and it wasn’t looking good for your community paper. That’s why he and his wife Terresa stepped up and invested in keeping Prince George’s only newspaper going. Close to a year later, we’re thriving.
The largest challenge to newspapers started in 2006 when Facebook and Google introduced news feeds. This led to advertising dollars shifting from local newspapers to US tech companies.
There are, though, new challenges facing legacy media. The latest, and possibly most dangerous, is artificial intelligence.
Two or so years ago, I tested ChatGPT by asking it to summarize the history of the city where I was living and working. Rather than provide an accurate retelling of the community’s well-documented founding and growth, the AI bot quickly told me that it had been founded by people fleeing slavery who sought refuge in central Ontario.
This was not even close to true.
“OK,” I thought. “ChatGPT? Not a threat.”
That’s changed. The software has evolved exponentially and it’s now possible for someone, using the right prompts, to generate news content, which may not be entirely factual, using AI. It’s probably happening more often than you realize. YouTube is full of content that features AI voices reading scripts over AI video and still images. It’s getting tougher to spot.
But you do notice it. Maybe you don’t even realize you’ve figured it out. But AI is robotic, and looks, sounds and reads like it.
When digital special effects look a little off onscreen, we call it “the uncanny valley.” The same thing can happen when you’re reading text written by a machine. Actual journalism is created by people, human beings who know their communities, work with their sources, gain the public’s trust and tell a town’s stories, typos included. When that’s lacking, readers can tell, even if it’s on a subconscious level.
But AI is spreading, and it is becoming harder to know what to trust. As it gets better, we face the possibility that our built-in ability to sniff out the robots will fade. Fortunately, independent, locally owned newspapers serve as a defense against AI-driven spread on social media.
The rapid dissemination of false or misleading information on social media platforms, often fueled by algorithms designed to maximize engagement, can distort public perception and manipulate audiences.
Newspapers and their websites, especially locally owned, community focused publications, provide a much-needed alternative to that digital chaos and act as a counterbalance to the growing power of tech giants, who control much of the online discourse nowadays.
Local journalists have firsthand knowledge of the regions they cover, allowing them to fact-check information more effectively and present nuanced, accurate reports.
As well, we uphold journalistic ethics, focusing on the core principles of accuracy, fairness and transparency. Unlike social media platforms, where posts can be algorithmically boosted based on sensationalism, independent newspapers adhere to editorial standards and employ experienced editors who can scrutinize sources and verify information.
Papers also offer space for critical discussions and diverse viewpoints. AI systems in social media tend to create echo chambers, reinforcing existing beliefs and ideologies. In contrast, a well-rounded independent news outlet offers balanced debates and presents stories from multiple perspectives.
There are a lot of uses for artificial intelligence out there. News reporting is not one of them. We’re proud to head into our second year as a locally owned newspaper, proud that with the exception of our press, every dollar we generate stays in Prince George, and proud that we will always be real people telling real stories about you and to you, no algorithms involved.
Happy New Year.
Kennedy Gordon is The Citizen's managing editor.
