By Dr Rahim Said
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of spending a morning with a room full of young journalists, editors, journalism students and aspiring columnists at the Royal Lake Club, Kuala Lumpur.
The workshop, organised by Weekly Echo, was devoted to a subject that has generated more excitement, anxiety and confusion than perhaps any technological development since the arrival of the internet — Artificial Intelligence.
The first question from the audience was predictable. “Will AI replace journalists?”
It is the same question that has greeted every technological revolution. When radio appeared, newspapers were expected to disappear. When television arrived, radio was supposedly finished. The internet was said to be the death of print. Social media was going to destroy journalism altogether.
None of those predictions came true.
Journalism survived because journalism has never been about technology. It has always been about people. Technology changes. Human curiosity does not.
People will always want answers to the same timeless questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why?
Today, there is an additional question that matters more than ever: How do we know this is true? That single question separates journalism from content.
Artificial intelligence can produce words at astonishing speed. Journalists produce trust. That distinction will become increasingly important in the years ahead.
One analogy seemed to resonate with the participants. I suggested they think of AI as the brightest intern ever employed in a newsroom. Imagine an intern who has read millions of books, never sleeps, works around the clock and produces an answer within seconds. It sounds like every editor’s dream. Until the intern confidently invents a quotation. Or cites a report that never existed. Or creates statistics from thin air. Would any responsible editor publish that copy without checking it?
Certainly not.
The copy would be edited, verified, corrected and improved before publication. AI deserves exactly the same treatment.
It is an assistant—not an authority. This is perhaps the biggest misconception surrounding tools such as ChatGPT.
People often say, “AI writes articles.” Not really. It predicts the next likely words based on patterns it has learned.
It has no curiosity. It cannot smell smoke at the scene of a fire. It cannot notice the silent grief on a mother’s face after losing a child. It cannot sense tension inside a political rally. It cannot hear hesitation in an interview or recognise when someone is avoiding the truth.
Only journalists can. Those remain uniquely human skills. Ironically, AI may make journalism even more valuable rather than less. Information today is everywhere.
What is increasingly scarce is trustworthy information. The role of journalists is therefore changing. We no longer spend most of our time merely finding information.
Our responsibility is to verify it, interpret it, explain it, provide context and challenge those in power. No machine can replace professional judgement.
During the workshop, I demonstrated how AI responds to prompts. Ask it simply to “write about floods” and it will produce something readable. Ask instead for a balanced 500-word report in Associated Press- style, incorporating comments from government officials, flood victims, environmental scientists and local businesses while explaining the causes, economic consequences and recovery efforts, and the result is dramatically better.
The lesson is simple. Better prompts produce better drafts. Garbage in. Garbage out.
AI rewards clear thinking. Experienced journalists, therefore, possess an enormous advantage. AI has read millions of articles.
But it has never covered Parliament. It has never waited outside a courtroom for an important verdict. It has never spent years cultivating confidential sources over countless cups of coffee. Experience cannot be downloaded. Judgement cannot be automated. Credibility cannot be generated. Columnists should remember this especially.
AI can certainly produce opinions. But it cannot produce your opinions. It has no childhood memories. No political disappointments. No favourite teacher. No embarrassing mistakes. No nostalgia. No sense of humour shaped by lived experience.
Readers return week after week because they recognise a familiar voice. That voice is your greatest asset. Protect it. Use AI as a research assistant if you wish.
Never surrender your identity to it. Naturally, ethical concerns were discussed throughout the morning. AI occasionally fabricates facts, invents quotations and cites people who never existed. That means journalists must never assume AI is correct simply because it sounds convincing.
If a quotation cannot be verified, remove it. If a statistic cannot be confirmed, do not publish it. A journalist’s reputation takes years to build and only seconds to destroy.
Copyright was another recurring question. Who owns AI-generated content? The safest answer remains straightforward. You own your original reporting. You own your interviews. You own your observations. You remain responsible for every word published under your byline. Not the software. Not the algorithm. Not the chatbot.
One point I hoped participants would remember was that AI should not be viewed as a shortcut to doing less work. Quite the opposite.
If AI saves two or three hours preparing a first draft, those hours should be invested in better journalism. Conduct another interview. Double-check another fact. Search for another angle. Write a stronger headline. Produce a podcast. Prepare a newsletter. Investigate tomorrow’s story.
The purpose of AI is not simply to increase productivity. Its greatest value lies in improving quality. The newsroom of the future will not belong exclusively to humans or machines. It will belong to those who combine the strengths of both.
Human curiosity. Human ethics. Human scepticism. Human storytelling. Supported by AI speed, organisation and efficiency. That partnership is extraordinarily powerful.
As I concluded the session at the Royal Lake Club, I reminded the audience that every generation of journalists has faced technological disruption.
Printing presses. Telegraphs. Typewriters. Fax machines. Email. The internet. Social media. And now artificial intelligence.
The tools continue to evolve. The mission does not. Seek the truth. Verify it. Explain it honestly. Write with integrity. Serve the public. So do not fear AI. Learn it. Question it. Master it.
Above all, remember this: Artificial intelligence will not replace good journalists. But journalists who know how to use artificial intelligence wisely will almost certainly outperform those who refuse to learn it.
The future still belongs to those who combine technology with curiosity, scepticism, integrity—and above all, a distinctly human voice.
WE