Readers of the government weekly, MyGov, may have been taken aback by a glaring error in a story in the January 27 issue. The free pullout is carried on Tuesdays in The Star newspaper.
“National ID now just a step away under the Usajili Mashinani Initiative,” the headline said (p.7). “The State Department for Immigration and Citizen Services has launched a hassle-free mobile enrolment exercise for the issuance of national identity (ID) cards, dubbed Usajili Mashinani.” Crisp, succinct intro.
“Usajili Mshinani is a people-centred initiative designed to reduce barriers to registration and ensure that citizens fully benefit from ongoing government projects and social services across the country.”
Flawless prose, precise diction, syntactic coherence, perfect framing. The dazzling magic of artificial intelligence. Para 4: “If you want, I can also make a more concise, news-style version that reads sharply for publication. Do you want me to do that?” The journalist working on the story – and presumably the sub-editor – failed to delete the AI assistant’s response.
As in all sectors nowadays, the rollout of AI in journalism is a global trend. Experts forecast that “2026 could be the year in which newsrooms invest in the infrastructure and training necessary to make the most of what AI already has to offer. This is particularly relevant for small newsrooms, which may not have dedicated roles or investment yet.”
Tshepo Tshabalala, project manager at JournalismAI, says small and medium-sized news organisations will be relying on AI to become more sustainable and save time. “Think of AI being a super-efficient digital intern: it’ll handle the boring, repetitive tasks like summarising long articles, transcribing interviews, and crunching simple data. This frees up the human reporters to focus on the serious, impactful stories for their respective communities.”
The Media Council of Kenya has developed the Media Guide on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Kenya, which every journalist should read and adhere to. The Code of Conduct for Media Practice outlines the law on AI use.
This legal, ethical and practical regulation is necessary, otherwise some users might assume AI replaces human work. The University of Nairobi philosopher George Nyongesa told the People Daily (January 30, p.2) that, “There is substantial evidence that people are thinking less and less. Generally, human beings have settled into a culture of thoughtlessness.
“This problem accelerated with the invention of computers, followed by search engines like Yahoo and Google. Currently, the issue of diminished thinking has become a pandemic due to the spread of technology [like] AI and their upbringing in a thoughtless environment.”
Yale University economist and editor-in-chief of the American Economic Review Pinelopi Goldberg seems to agree with Nyongesa, writing that, with advances in technology, people need to develop more lasting skills than merely knowing how to do specific tasks. “Liberal education emphasises how to think, rather than what to do. It trains students to reason, to read carefully, to write clearly, and to evaluate evidence. These skills will age far better than narrow technical competencies.”
That’s 100 per cent true for journalism. Many media roles are fast becoming obsolete. You don’t need a human being to voice a radio ad. AI can crunch massive data sets in seconds. But the need for original thought through the ability to reason cogently, read carefully, write clearly and evaluate evidence will never be served by machines.
“The students [replace that with journalists] who will succeed are those who can use AI tools effectively to achieve well-defined goals. It is the same with good management: success depends on setting priorities, structuring problems, and deploying available resources wisely. These are conceptual skills, not narrow technical ones,” Goldberg writes.
The BBC Eye documentaries use AI-generated actors in risky investigations to hide the identities of sources for their own safety. But AI can’t plan the story, look for sources, conduct interviews, cross-check and verify claims, or accurately and compassionately convey the emotions of hapless teenage girls trafficked for prostitution. That requires a sharp, diligent and empathetic journalist.
“For journalism, AI is a momentous addition to the most important tools of trade, up there with colour, motion and the printing press. But a tool assists in doing the job; it does not do the job,” former Nation Media Group editor-in-chief Mutuma Mathiu wrote in the Daily Nation on January 30.
“AI will be journalism’s saviour, not by replacing writers, but by making their work easier and better, by helping automate and fasten chores, by enabling faster and better research, by drafting and publishing routine stories that do not require skill or distinction.”
See you next week!
