Technological innovations have been gradually making their appearance in newsrooms in recent years. What changes do they bring to journalistic practices?
New technologies, such as AI, are used by journalists as tools. They're not used to replace the journalist's job, but as tools that allow journalists to free up time to work on more in-depth elements, conduct more investigations, or do more analysis. For instance, AI enables the analysis of large amounts of data. The journalist's job then becomes taking these ideas, analyzing them, and crafting an article with their interpretation, providing context—something artificial intelligence is incapable of.
The new tools for automatic analysis have added another aspect to journalists" work: getting a better understanding of readers' profiles. When there was no artificial intelligence or information on social media usage, a journalist could write an article without considering the person who might read it. Today, thanks to collected data, we have comprehensive information about our users. Journalists are increasingly aware of the target audience they address.
You mentioned the "awareness of journalists towards their audience.' Does this desire to get closer to readers stem from the need to address their distrust? Referring to Kantar-La Croix's 35th barometer: only 49% of French people trust the media, barely half. Is technological innovation a solution to restore trust?
Indeed, technology needs to become a tool to rebuild trust.We're experiencing a truly global trend: trust in institutions is fading everywhere, and the media suffers from it as well. New tools can help us regain trust by using them wisely. That means reaching out to the public, better understanding their needs, and perhaps targeting content a bit more precisely, leaning towards personalization without falling into the trap of filter bubbles. There's a dilemma in newsrooms today: how to address the public by satisfying both the need for comprehensive information and the need to address different segments of the population. Technological tools can assist because we can more easily create more content by better targeting it. Additionally, with AR and VR technologies, we can create immersive narratives that help better understand the facts. But technology isn't the sole solution to the problem. The solution also lies in involving the public in co-constructing information, considering their thoughts, and providing them with a means to express themselves. Media—especially public service media—should be a platform for democratic expression, not just a top-down information tool.
What do technological innovations bring to informational content?
Technological innovations offer the possibility of better understanding the world around us because we're faced with a lot more information coming from the outside, enabling us to capture trends that we might not have noticed before. We used to have a very top-down flow of information, but now, with technological tools, we can better take into account the external world and react more quickly, deeply, and contextualized because we have a broad vision of things. Taking the concrete example of the conflict in Russia, if our editorial team lacks Russian-speaking resources, today, with highly advanced automatic translation, we can easily consult articles from the Russian national press that reflect the narrative Vladimir Putin wants to convey to his population. This helps journalists better understand what's really happening in Russia, providing us with a more comprehensive view - very European - alongside a perception and understanding of the reality from the other side. This genuinely allows us to contextualize matters and address a topic from all angles. Automatic translation also allows us to easily exchange articles between European newsrooms, as part of the 'Vu d’Europe' project, for instance.
In general, how do journalists perceive the technological innovation in media?
Regarding the reception of these new tools in newsrooms, it's generally positive. At France Télévisions, we have the France Télévisions Université entity that supports this transformation of professions upstream by raising awareness and providing cultural understanding. We approached the subject through concrete use cases, not just the technology, to show what can be done concretely with new technologies and how they can help journalists. We shared the new uses related to these technologies in conferences and practical workshops. Naturally, there's always some initial fear of the new when introducing new technologies, a certain reluctance to start using them. There's also a difference in perceptions among different generations. If it's tools that someone already uses in their daily life, they are more easily accepted in a professional context. By supporting journalists, especially with our MediaLab de l’Information structure, I think we've found an interesting vision. Journalists are increasingly starting to use new technologies, seeing them as tools that facilitate their work, save them time on one hand, and enrich the narrative on the other.
Ultimately, is technological innovation indispensable?
Innovation is essential because the world is changing, technologies are evolving, and the public expects new formats and services. Technological innovation must always serve users and should not merely be about testing new technologies for technology's sake. They should always serve the narrative. All newsrooms are capable of innovating. We don’t have to implement a hyper-sophisticated artificial intelligence system to innovate in a newsroom. Around innovation, what's interesting is collaborating, creating partnerships, and co-building between newsrooms, involving researchers, schools... to share the effort of innovation and be as relevant as possible to our audiences.
Interview conducted by Emma Alcaraz.
