In this era of technology that makes it almost too easy to create photos and text out of thin air using artificial intelligence tools and photo editing software, it is impossible for us at the Gazette to be too careful as we strive to be scrupulously accurate in our reporting and other coverage of area activities.
A case in point came to my attention almost entirely by accident when I met a former co-worker at a reunion for a company I haven’t worked with since 2008. She asked where The Gazette had gotten last week’s front page photo of the Woodbury Broad Band. My answer was a convoluted thread, as I’d first seen it on Facebook, then been referred to the supposed photographer, who turned out not to be. That person referred me to another person to identify the people in it and the photographer, who turned out to be that person’s boyfriend, or so I’ve been told. My friend then added a twist when she said the photo in the paper included three people who weren’t there when it was taken, but that she’s Photoshopped into it later. It dawned on me that the person who identified the people in it when I asked who was in the photo of the Woodbury Broad Band had said, “which photo was it?” asking that I send it to her. Whatever her intent, I now suspect she knew there were two versions, particularly when her response included the comment, “ignore the red arm,” which is now clearly an artifact of combining several photos into one.
Our deadline was approaching by then and we’d already selected that photo for the front page so, despite artifacts in the photo that would likely have raised a red flag under other circumstances, we rushed through the formatting process, short the volunteer who usually does that work with a skeptical eye.
Have a look at the photo of the Woodbury Broad Band and compare it to last week’s version on the front page there to see whether the composition is obvious.
While we don’t always get things right, I regularly assert that an important mark of our fair and unbiased journalism is that we may not always get everything right the first time, but we don’t hesitate to correct ourselves when we’re wrong.”
In an interesting twist on the use of technology, today as I was contemplating this editorial, I read that the CEO of Europe’s largest publisher, and parent of Politico, among many others, is reported to have said, “As for disclosing AI use as a research and writing tool in articles . . . it would not be necessary any more than when one uses Google to look up information.”
He did, however, say it was a writer’s responsibility to check, double and triple check to be sure what they write is accurate.
Here at the Gazette we use technology to transcribe audio and video recordings, relying on careful reading and editing to weed out errors. But we have only just begun to experiment with artificial intelligence (AI) to do the relatively simple task of formatting writing to conform to our style.
The few examples of using AI to write an article or create a photo for The Gazette have appeared in our April Fool’s Day issues the last two years. We carefully named that use each time.
I expect we’ll continue to let you know when we intentionally use technology to create new content for the foreseeable future. If that policy changes, we’ll make note of that in our editorial box.
Paul Fixx, editor
