On Controlled Change: Generative AI’s Impact on Professional Authority in Journalism

Abstract

Using (generative) artificial intelligence tools and systems in journalism is expected to increase journalists’ production rates, transform newsrooms’ economic models, and further personalize the audience’s news consumption practices. Since its release in 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other large language models have raised alarms within news organizations, not only for introducing new challenges to news reporting and fact-checking but also for what these technologies would mean for journalists’ professional authority. This paper examines how journalists in Dutch media integrate AI technologies into their daily routines. Drawing on 13 interviews with editors, journalists, and innovation managers across different news outlets and media companies, we use <i>controlled change</i> as an interpretative frame derived from empirical data to explain how journalists are proactively setting guidelines, experimenting with AI tools, and identifying their limitations and capabilities. Using professional authority as a theoretical framework, we argue that journalists anticipate and integrate AI technologies in a supervised manner and identify three primary mechanisms through which journalists manage this integration: (1) developing adaptive guidelines that align AI use with ethical codes, (2) experimenting with AI technologies to determine their necessity and fit, and (3) critically assessing the capabilities and limitations of AI systems.

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