IMPACTS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ON NEWS WRITING AMONG JOURNALISTS IN KWARA STATE

Abstract

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping industries worldwide. Journalism, a cornerstone of informed societies, is not exempt from this technological transformation, as it has adopted AI to facilitate journalism practice. Meanwhile, literature has examined artificial intelligence; there is a dearth of study on AI and journalism practice. Hence, the study assessed the impact of artificial intelligence on news writing among journalists in Kwara State. The study was hinged on technological determinism theory. Descriptive research design was used while the survey research method was employed. The questionnaire served as the instrument to gather data from 215 registered journalists under the umbrella of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) Kwara State chapter. Census sampling technique was used to select the journalists. Descriptive statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23 were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that the majority of the respondents use artificial intelligence tools for news writing. Findings further showed that artificial intelligence tools have impacted the speed at which the journalists write their news articles. Findings also revealed that the respondents do encounter minimal difficulty in integrating AI tools into their news writing process. The study concluded that the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) has a substantial impact on news writing among journalists in Kwara State. The study recommended that media organizations should facilitate the enactment and enforcement of ethical guidelines for the use of AI in journalism to address concerns about the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated content.