AI-created editorials: What in HAL’s name was the Herald thinking?

Integrity is the most valued element of a news organisation’s reputation. Without it, it cannot expect its audience to lend credence to what it publishes or broadcasts. So, the New Zealand Herald has dealt itself an awful blow.

Its admission that it used generative AI to scrape content and then create an editorial about the All Blacks came only after it was caught out by Radio New Zealand. RNZ’s subsequent revelation that it may have found another three robot editorials in the Herald was met with sullen silence.

All the country’s largest newspaper will say its that it should have employed more “journalistic rigour”.

That is not good enough. It does not explain why the paper made the bizarre choice to employ Gen AI to create what should be its own opinion. It does not explain why there was no disclosure of its use (although to do so on an editorial should raise more red flags than a North Korean Workers Party anniversary). It does not tell us how widespread the practice is within publications owned by NZME (the Herald editorial was reprinted in its regional titles). It does not explain why even the most basic sub-editing was not applied to an obviously deficient piece of writing when editorials have previously been checked and rechecked to prevent the most minor of errors. And it does not reveal what went wrong in the editorial chain of command to allow all or any of the foregoing to occur…or not. Continue reading “AI-created editorials: What in HAL’s name was the Herald thinking?” →

Play the game to spread the news

If Albert Einstein could say “Life is just like a game”, who am I to say we shouldn’t treat the news like a game, too?

Traditionalists will say the news is no game. It is a serious matter of fact gathering, verification, and presentation that is not be treated lightly.

However, two pieces I read last week gave me pause for thought: Does gaming have a significant role to play in the future of journalism?

The first piece was an interview that Liam Dann conducted with Dame Wendy Pye for the New Zealand Herald. In it the highly successful educational book publisher said: “I’m really interested in the power of the gaming industry. [Gaming] seems to be occupying a lot of children so what my dream is to have really good educational games … not just something about a giraffe running around with the letter G on the screen or something. Imagine if we can use gaming’s magic and we can marry that with solid education.” She is working with a large Chinese company to develop her idea. If education, I thought, why not journalism?

The second piece was a research report by NZ on Air on Māori audiences. It found that rangitahi (which it characterised as 15 to 24-year-olds), like their Pakeha counterparts, are less likely to engage with television, radio or newspapers and express little interest in traditional news content.They are more likely to consume global online media than New Zealand content. They are arguably harder to reach than other sections of the wider community so present the toughest challenge. However, the same report notes that a third of Māori game online and spend an average of two hours a day doing so. Rangitahi are unsurprisingly the largest gaming group among Māori. That, I thought, could be the key to exposing them to the news. Continue reading “Play the game to spread the news” →

It takes more than global chaos to change the front page

The computer chaos that enveloped much of the world on Friday told us something about almost all of this country’s daily newspapers: Either their deadlines mean they are no longer newspapers, their priorities lie elsewhere, or their ‘news’ values are shot to hell.

I say “almost all” because one newspaper stood out from its contemporaries. The Otago Daily Times was the only paper that led its Saturday edition with the story of the catastrophic worldwide effect of a bad update of security software for Microsoft Windows-based computers.

For the Weekend Herald, it was more important to report on an elderly man’s inability to sell his house – in a story that contained NZME’s magic word OneRoof (its real estate site). The Post thought mouldy old Onslow College trumped global chaos, and The Press was more concerned about contaminated conservation land.

The ODT led with a seven-column story under the headline “Update causes global IT outage”, combining both a local angle on the impact on local airline and emergency services with an explanation of the global outage from an Australian computer science academic.

The Herald relegated the story down page on page 2, despite an intro which read: “A global IT network outage caused chaos last night, downing banking services, disrupting flights, preventing supermarket purchases and causing havoc for public transport commuters”. The Stuff mastheads ran no more than a single column story on page 3, devoted mainly to a measured statement from acting prime minister, David Seymour, saying the government was “moving at pace” to ascertain the extent of the crisis.

I would have thought there were enough pointers there to suggest this was a major story and one that potentially affected millions of people. I would have thought that a paragraph in the Stuff story saying a number of airlines had asked the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to initiate a global ground stop on all flights would have been one of those large, flashing, red pointers. Continue reading “It takes more than global chaos to change the front page” →

Old white male prude wants [expletive deleted]

I have previously admitted to being an old white male (although emphatically denying the other stereotypical label of bully). Now it looks like I will also have to put my hand up for being an old prude.

I am certain that is how I will be dismissed by those who do not share my aversion to the use of profanities.

I cannot claim that profanities have never passed my lips. Traffic cones and bad drivers have been known to cause me to drop my guard. In my defence, the expletives are usually confined to the interior of a VW Golf (not a large space), are loudest when I am alone in the car, and are usually regretted. I say ‘usually’ because traffic cones in Auckland deserve all they get.

There is a difference, however, between these isolated short distance explosions and their use in mass media, where they have been used repeatedly to the point where they are ‘normalised’ as apparently acceptable speech.

As an editor I had no problem with reporters using a string of asterisks to signal the use of a profanity if the context made such recognition appropriate. If a politician used a profanity, it was worth noting. If a foul-mouthed gang member did so, why bother? I did not, however, favour preceding the asterisks with the first letter of the word in question because it was little better than spelling out the word itself.

Now these explicit abbreviations appear regularly in printed news stories. In some media the most common swear words are spelt full out. Continue reading “Old white male prude wants [expletive deleted]” →