Miguel Afonso Caetano"How are commissioning editors navigating an environment where anybody can generate an AI alter ego and produce articles at the push of a prompt? On the other hand, how is the ease with which text and images can be created affecting freelancers themselves?
With these questions in mind, I put out an open call to our audience in the hope of hearing from freelancers and commissioning editors on how their day-to-day is changing because of generative AI.
A total of 45 freelance journalists and commissioning editors responded.
The responses surprised me, with many more freelancers than I expected writing in to say that generative AI has helped make them more organized and efficient. There were still some skeptics. But the overall picture was one of an industry slowly adopting generative AI, albeit with caution and caveats.
There was no consensus over whether commissions had increased or decreased since the popularization of generative AI.
Some of the freelancers I heard from attribute a decline in work to AI, while others say they receive more commissions precisely due to the rise of AI. Still others don’t believe the decline they’re experiencing is due to AI, and some note that there has been no change at all.
Many freelancers use AI to organize and speed up their workflows, citing help in research, planning, transcription and, in some cases, drafting articles. Some were enthusiastic about the new opportunities generative AI affords them."
https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/how-ai-is-transforming-freelance-journalism/
#AI #GenerativeAI #LLMs #Journalism #Media #News #Freelancing
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