What an AI sidekick should do in a newsroom
Coding showed the pattern first: let AI handle the maintenance so the person can spend time on the work that requires judgment, trust and a name.
By Ryan Merket · Published · Updated
Primary source: wired.com
Why it matters
AI newsroom economics become more defensible if automation funds human sourcing instead of replacing it. RuntimeWire is testing that division inside a live publication.
The picture most people have of AI and news is super gloomy, it might as well be an episode of Handmaid's Tale. A model writes the story. An editor hides that fact in a note that does not say what happened. The craft dies. Nobody gets paid.
The model I'm arguing for is smaller: a beat with a sidekick. The reporter still has a name and a phone. The sidekick already did the embargo calendar, the transcript, the cap-table scrape, and the sweep of who shipped overnight. The human spends the day on the conversations that required a human.…