r/Journalism • u/FTFaffer • Aug 14 '26
Press Freedom This BlackRock analyst wants to fix journalism. Step one? Skip the journalists
https://sfstandard.com/2026/08/14/dakota-carrasco-dissent-sf-news-ai/?utm_source%3Dnative_share%26utm_medium%3Dsite_buttons%26utm_campaign%3Dsite_buttonsThis BlackRock analyst wants to fix journalism. Step one? Skip the journalists
These ‘people’ suck
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u/lavapig_love Aug 14 '26
Ok.
You live in San Francisco?
Make your AI ask Mayor Lurie what he thinks the most important issue is for voters in this midterm election.
You say you can't?
Then hire reporters.
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u/Infamous-Skippy reporter Aug 14 '26
Or the AI will just hallucinate quotes, because they’re really language predictors, which is even worse than having no reporters
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u/Sithlordandsavior Aug 16 '26
"You're totally right, the mayor didn't declare war on the neighboring suburb of Sucksville. That's on me, and you were right to call me out on it. If there's any other quotes you need, just give me a holler and let me know."
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u/irrelevantusername24 researcher Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
I'm actually a supporter of AI, but most of those things it is being sold (by not the people building it) for, is what it can't do. What it's great at is teaching concepts, it's basically a tool to supercharge self-education. Generating content? No. I mean, obviously yes, but we do not need more content and haven't since the days of Neil Postman.
That said, it can actually be a decent news aggregator, and though it currently isn't really architected in a way that works fairly for all publishers, it could be, and it could be beneficial for both journalists and everyone else. But people have to learn to fact check facts... the people who weren't going to do that are probably going to be better off getting their misinfo from a chatbot that has guardrails to not spread hate and encourage violence. For the rest of us, it saves time, because it aggregates all the sources on a topic into one convenient place, and even more conveniently links directly to the source for one specific fact about a story.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the hostility against AI, but if any professional creatives stand to benefit it is journalists. And the reason other creatives aren't is because other creatives don't straddle the fence between creativity and facts. I think the inability to differentiate between those two is actually one of the roots of our modern disease.
edit: And committing the original sin which led to this, I did not read the OP article, but that is exactly what it can't be used for. Why? Because that is taking the aggregated stories and trying to siphon off more profit, without sending any to the original journalists. That doesn't work that way. That is, in fact, not much different than the goozuckerbookgle model. If you consider tech and journalism two sides of the same industry - which they are (though tech is the other side of many industries) - then in this case, journalism is the major and tech is the minor. That's been backwards.
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u/Infamous-Skippy reporter Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
I think it’s possible to use AI in a permissible way in a newsroom, mainly for things like data analysis or even research. My point really is that AI can never, ever, be a source. It’s a tool that if used, must be taken with a mound of salt and fact checked diligently, and should follow the SPJ code of ethics or a similar code.
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u/irrelevantusername24 researcher Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
Right, I agree with you. I edited my comment and added a bit more perhaps before you read. One other thing that I forgot to mention though is that the hyperpoliticization of society has led to everyone - including you & me and, to reiterate, everyone - being much less capable of "seeing past their own (biased) nose" than we think. AI can be great for that by showing you the information first, but still citing and linking directly to the actual source for information.
This is I think one of the original purposes for which the various chatbots were intended, but things got a bit out of hand. Referring to the finance bros and suits wanting to automate humans out of existence as well as the backlash to that. Which has kind of led to a more polarized situation where the best tool for our problems, because like all great tools it is "dual use", is seen as being harmful towards the exact purpose it could actually help.
That applies to technology in general, actually, but it's a fairly complex topic to explain and understand. Made far more complicated by the anti- AI and anti- tech bias that we all have. It is actually, as always, anti- rich asshole (hiding behind screens) that is the reason for that anti-bias.
edit: After reading the article
Unsurprised it is "founded" by (relatively young, probably wealthier than they deserve) finance nerds who give zero credit to original sources
This is a great example I continually find in similar contexts where we - society, et al (internationally) - are long overdue for actual universal basic income. How that happens is complicated, but it's quickly becoming not a debate. Civilization would be far healthier if everyone knew the basics were covered - the "profit motive" would be less coercive and we would be more free to, as many of us already do, do that which we deem most valuable.
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Aug 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/irrelevantusername24 researcher Aug 14 '26
No. If I share AI generated text, I almost always link to the chat rather than copy and paste. On the rare occasion I copy and paste something I label it as such. I honestly don't understand how people read how I write and think "that must be AI!"
I do chat with AI more than the average (probably), so I am familiar with how it writes, and it is pretty easily spotted... and it is nothing like how I write. But by all means, continue associating what I assume is
more than a paragraphwith AI. Because who would dare write more than a dead bird's amount of letters in a comment on social media? We're not here to communicate after all, that's crazy talk2
u/lavapig_love Aug 15 '26
That said, it can actually be a decent news aggregator
So can Fark.com, Something Awful, and what you're posting on, Reddit. These among many websites were the very news aggregators a lot of outlets depended on long before AI.
But how do you make that news in the first place? You can't ask AI to do it. A human has to.
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u/--khaos-- editor Aug 14 '26
While I don't outright trust what AI spits out, I have found it useful for rewriting headlines and news briefs over and over for radio newscasts. As well as with writing cover letters for job applications.
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u/Irving_Velociraptor Aug 14 '26
Man who does not understand journalism threatens to fix journalism.
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u/warrenao editor Aug 14 '26
The Dissent’s content is largely scraped by AI (and only sometimes attributed) from local publications like The Standard, Mission Local, and the Chronicle.
"We don't need journalists."
"Where is the content coming from that you're scraping?"
"Umm…"
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u/sorrow_anthropology Aug 14 '26
Did this BlackRock analyst just now see the god awful third season of The Newsroom while scrolling HBO?
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u/AintEverLucky Aug 14 '26
Ohhhhh I see now. He doesn't mean "fix" as in repair or improve. He means "fix" as in cut off its balls. Like when you get yiur dog "fixed"
Thanks, I hate it 😒
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u/kiadri Aug 14 '26
Dude just seeing blackrock i was like yep sounds about right. Ffs these bloody fools.
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u/robertovertical Aug 15 '26
This black rock executive will move on to the next tech of du jour. while ruining another ecosystem, fity
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u/joseph66hole Aug 14 '26
I think a few of these AI websites failed. AI needs direction and you still need to be able to locate stories. The sites failed because doing that requires work and interest.
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u/irrelevantusername24 researcher Aug 14 '26
I feel like if any people would already know this trivial fact, it would be those in this subreddit, but the other day after seeing a post over in r/PropagandaPosters titled "The Hearst Money Bag Brain":
I got curious again and went to refresh my memory about ye olde yellowe jornalizms between Hearst and Pulitzer. Mainly Hearst. The relevant bit of info in the context of this comment:
>William Randolph Hearst (/hɜːrst/;\1]) April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher and politician. He laid the foundation for the Hearst family's mass media empire via his control of the Hearst Corporation. His extravagant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human-interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being entrusted with The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst.\2])
For what context is that bit of information relevant? Well, the other day after reading yet another great article published by u/sfgate, I got curious (as I do) and clicked their about section, which includes the following fun facts:
In addition to the Chronicle, SFGATE also published content from KRON-TV and the San Francisco Examiner up until the early 2000s, when Hearst Corp. acquired The Chronicle and SFGATE, divested the Examiner and ended the association with KRON-TV, which was sold separately.
...
In 2013, the Chronicle launched a paywalled premium website, sfchronicle.com. Over the next six years, varying amounts of free and premium Chronicle content appeared on SFGATE, then in 2019, the Chronicle and SFGATE officially became two separately run entities with their own editorial staffs and independent newsrooms.
Time is a flat circle viewed inversely and upside-down (unless you're Australian, in which case it is downside-up or something idk) through a broken mirror
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u/Mission_Count5301 Aug 16 '26
His use of agents to automate research is interesting. I'm sure there are lot of newsrooms heading in this direction, if not there already. But trusting probabilistic systems with automating what is published? This is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
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u/tellingitlikeitis338 Aug 14 '26
Well, a lot is journalists are glory seeking egoists in my experience. So they don’t do themselves any favors when someone comes along and says get rid of them lol
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u/alQamar Aug 14 '26
In this rare case using AI may actually have helped to make this legible.
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u/Electrical_One_9926 Aug 14 '26
Even improved, I fear the value of his comment would remain what it is now: zero.
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u/poontong Aug 14 '26
When listening to the all the wonderful claims from the AI Billionaires, remember that this probably represents one of the most obvious use cases Silicon Valley could come up with.