By multi-award-winning journalist turned PR consultant Justine Halifax, who is the CEO of multi-award-winning Staffordshire-based Angel Media.
AI has transformed the way many businesses draft, plan, and structure content to promote their businesses across multi-media platforms.
As a former journalist now working in PR, I see the benefits it offers companies every day.
AI can give those who are not seasoned writers the spark of structure and the skeleton of a story when they’re staring at a blank page, unsure of how to articulate the news of the day.
Often, clients use AI as a starting point before sending information on to me, which I then hone into a journalistic, ready-to-use format, ahead of promoting their PR across the West Midlands and beyond.
But somewhere along the way, the ideology that AI can safely and successfully replace the work of professional writers has evolved.
And it’s leading to a recurring accusation that any content which is professional, polished, coherent, well-structured, and well-written must be the work of AI.
That misconception is now hurting real writers – and there’s a cost to that, which is taking both an emotional and financial toll across the media and PR industry.
AI is a helpful tool – but it’s certainly not the be-all and end-all.
AI can help people brainstorm, yes, but it can’t replicate the instincts that journalists develop through years of training, in both lecture theatres and newsrooms, from interviewing people from all walks of life, fact-checking, making sure narratives are legally sound, knowing what makes a story newsworthy, and how to articulate it to a wide audience.
AI doesn’t do these things. It predicts patterns having learnt from online content, including narratives penned by seasoned journalists, who boast years of experience and an array of academic qualifications under their professional belts.
And when I say qualifications, I mean English, media, and journalism degrees to the National Council for the Training of Journalists’ (NCTJ) diplomas, which cover public affairs, media law, court reporting, ethics, shorthand, and journalistic writing skills.
That’s why, in PR, I tell clients that, by all means, use AI to help get you started. However, if you’re looking to get published in the media, you still need a human media expert to shape it into a safe, media-worthy submission that will reap you the ROI of being published.
A real crisis: journalists and professional PR writers are being falsely accused of using AI
But here’s the irony.
While AI has learnt, in part, from our publicly available work, many journalists, professional writers, and PR experts are now facing a serious and disheartening problem.
We’re being accused of using AI when we haven’t touched it – belittling our knowledge and skills accumulated over decades at the cutting edge of the media.
I know dozens of journalists and PR experts, myself included, who have tested the theory after being accused of using AI.
And AI detectors do raise the red flag – but they’re wrong.
Yet, this phenomenon is threatening an industry and the people at its heart, many of whom are already over‑stretched, under pressure, and at risk of losing their jobs.
And this isn’t just anecdotal.
The ideology of professional writers using AI is proving to be professionally damaging
Studies have also highlighted that AI detectors frequently misclassify human writing as AI-generated, making the detectors unreliable and professionally damaging tools.
Writers, like me, are proud of our work and our natural gift in the art of creative writing. We’ve spent years honing our voice and communicating clearly.
So, this ideology being thrown at professional writers is not just frustrating; in some cases, it’s proving to be a genuine threat to careers.
AI is here to stay, and it will continue to evolve.
But, for now, let’s be clear. AI didn’t create the craft of journalism, and it can’t replace it – not yet!
Of course, I’d encourage businesses to continue using it as a starting point, especially for the independents and SMEs who have little or no PR budget, but it certainly can’t replicate the trained expertise and finesse of honed print-ready journalistic skills.
As a former multi-award-winning journalist, now CEO of a multi-award-winning PR company, Angel Media, I’ll continue to champion the value of human expertise, and not just in writing, but in judgement, ethics, and the art of storytelling.
Because these are things algorithms cannot yet replicate accurately – and it’s a point that’s repeatedly emphasised in research papers.
We need to defend human writing from false accusations of being machine-made.
For more about Justine Halifax and her PR Agency Angel Media, visit her LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justine-halifax/ or follow her on Facebook @ AngelMediaPR
