World Governments Summit: Media leaders debate future of storytelling in age of AI

There is no doubt that AI has revolutionised newsrooms worldwide. The topic was at the centre of discussion at the World Governments Summit's segment on 'Future of Communication and Storytelling' that was attended by global media personalities.

In journalism, storytelling has always been a purely human endeavour. However, AI has revolutionised newsrooms worldwide. This fact was at the centre of discussion at the World Governments Summit's segment on 'Future of Communication and Storytelling', which saw several media personalities and filmmakers brainstorm on the importance of human judgment and ethics in journalism in the age of AI.

Kalli Purie, Vice-Chairperson and Executive Editor-in-Chief of the India Today Group, stressed that AI cannot replace the human connect reporters bring through on-ground storytelling. However, she underlined that AI could play a crucial role in augmenting desk roles in newsrooms.

"One of the places where we feel we can do a certain amount of augmentation is in the desk roles, where we are rewriting the stories. But we absolutely cannot at this moment in time replace the human connection that reporters bring to the newsroom by telling the story with empathy," Purie said. The World Governments Summit began in Dubai on February 3

The India Today Group's vice chairperson outlined what she called an "AI sandwich" model that was being embedded in the work process. "You have human intent in the beginning, you have AI in the middle to help you augment, and then you have the human decision at the end, which is the final call," Purie said.

Echoing Purie, Mina Al-Oraibi, chief editor of UAE-owned The National, said while AI was useful in terms of news gathering for verification, humans were needed on the ground for feature and human-interest stories.

"AI is great in terms of news gathering for verification, crowdsourcing, sifting through it, but essentially you need humans on the ground to go get the human interest stories and speak to people and have that direct relationship," Mina said.