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AI & Journalism: What It Can Do, What It Can't

Why this session Every newsroom is talking about AI. Half are panicking, half think it will do their job for them. Both are wrong. This session is about what actually works: what AI does well for a journalist today, where it fails badly, and how to think it through before you let it near your work. What AI can do for you, and how Crunch data. Budgets, RTI dumps, annual reports, in minutes instead of days. Upload the file, ask plain questions like "which district got the least funds." No coding needed. Summarise long documents. Judgments, FIRs, policy papers. Upload the PDF, ask for the key points. Read the original before you quote anything. Transcribe and translate. Interviews, pressers, regional-language sources. Use a tool like Whisper or Otter, then paste the transcript for translation. Spot-check quotes against the audio. Prep you before a story or debate. Tell it who you are meeting and why, ask for a brief and the five toughest questions. Play tough editor. Paste your draft and say "I wanted this to achieve X. Did it? Be harsh." Repackage finished work. Social posts, captions, newsletter blurbs. Paste your published piece, ask for the formats you need. Your words in, formats out. Read your audience. Paste a batch of comments, ask what readers are angry about or asking for. Mine that for your next story. What AI cannot do, and should never do Write for you. Not the copy, not even the draft. The byline is a promise to the reader Be your fact-checker of record. It invents things, and it does it with a straight face (you will see this live) Do the ground reporting. It knows nothing that has not already been published somewhere Keep your sources safe. Whatever you paste into a public tool may not stay private Make the editorial call. Fast is not the same as right Be neutral. Every model carries the biases of whatever it was trained on Live demos You will see AI nail one answer, then get the next one flat wrong while sounding just as sure of itself. That is exactly why you never skip verification. Who should attend Every kind of journalist, in print, digital, TV or YouTube, plus editors, producers and journalism students. You do not need any technical background. Come skeptical. That's the right instinct. Format A 90-minute session, then 30 minutes of open Q&A. Bring your hardest questions and the real dilemmas from your newsroom.