Judgement is now the main skill of journalists

Journalists’ main skill was writing. Not any more.

AI can write, and increasingly it can write well. Agents can learn your style, transcribe interviews, interrogate hundreds of pages, find inconsistencies and test hypotheses.

That changes the value of the journalist.

The skill that matters now is judgement. Perhaps it always was. What is the angle? What doesn’t add up? Is the source credible? What is missing? What question comes next?

A good journalist develops a feel for these things over years: experience, curiosity and scepticism. At its best, wisdom.

AI makes that distinction clearer

Writing is the visible product. Behind a good story is something more important: deciding what is worth writing.

AI can read the 200-page report. The journalist decides which paragraph matters.

It can suggest six questions for the chief executive. The journalist spots the hesitation and asks the seventh.

It can find an anomaly in thousands of financial records. The journalist decides whether it is noise or a story.

Caution is justified. AI invents, misunderstands and produces plausible nonsense. Journalists must verify. Publishers must protect credibility, the foundation of reputation management.

But what if being too careful is dangerous too?

At publication, check every fact and quote, and hold the journalist and editor accountable.

Before publication? Experiment. Find out where AI is brilliant and where it is stupid. You learn AI by using it.

And that creates a new divide.

In my crisis communications work, I talk to journalists almost every day, and I ask them about AI. Some are trailblazers; many trail.

Those who experiment daily learn to frame problems, supply context, interrogate answers and spot hallucinations. Those who hold back fall further behind, as does their newsroom.

And trailblazers must keep learning. The journalist who mastered AI two months ago but stopped experimenting is already falling behind.

Publishers should be asking, “Are our people learning to manage AI agents faster than our competitors?”

The paradox: AI makes judgement more valuable

The more AI can do, the more valuable the human contribution becomes.

Reuters Institute has reported that technology companies are employing journalists to train AI systems, teaching them accuracy, clarity and natural structure.

A first draft matters less. Knowing whether it is true matters more. Curiosity, scepticism, courage and judgement rise in value.

AI does not diminish the experienced journalist. Used well, it amplifies one.

A different kind of journalist

Journalism celebrates the maverick, working alone and chasing the exclusive. Yet some of my best journalism was collaborative: producer and reporter, reporter and researcher.

AI is just another collaborator. Not a radical break. Not a big deal.

That suggests two rules for news organisations:

Be conservative about what you publish with AI. Be adventurous about how your journalists use it.

Become an AI native now

AI natives are next: people for whom working with AI is simply how work gets done. Why wait for the next generation?

Question every workflow. Ask not, “How can AI help me do this?” but, “Given what AI can do today, how should I change the way I do this?”

Judgement without adaptation isn’t enough. The journalist who combines both has the advantage.