On Controlled Change: Generative AI's Impact on Professional Authority in Journalism

2025-10-22

AI Summary

This study examines the mechanisms through which generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT) integration into journalistic practice affects reporters’ professional authority. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 13 editors, journalists, and innovation managers in the Netherlands—and complemented by empirical cases of AI deployment in news production—the research develops the “governed transformation” theoretical framework. It identifies three interrelated mechanisms—normative recalibration, pragmatic experimentation, and critical capacity assessment—through which journalists actively steer, rather than passively accommodate, AI adoption. Findings indicate that news organizations embed AI in workflows under supervisory governance, ensuring technological implementation aligns with, rather than undermines, professional standards and editorial autonomy. Moving beyond technological determinism, this framework offers the first systematic account of how journalists sustain and reconfigure professional authority amid AI-driven change. It advances media sociology and journalism ethics by proposing a sociotechnical model of professional agency in algorithmic newswork.

Technology Category

• Natural Language Processing: Ethics — Bias, Fairness, Transparency & Privacy
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: AI & Law, Justice, Regulation & Governance
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science

Application Category

• Social Networks and Social Media: Generative AI / large language models and their impact on social systems
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI
• Responsible Web: Algorithmic accountability and transparency on the web

Abstract

Using (generative) artificial intelligence tools and systems in journalism is expected to increase journalists'production rates, transform newsrooms'economic models, and further personalize the audience's news consumption practices. Since its release in 2022, OpenAI's ChatGPT and other large language models have raised the alarms inside news organizations, not only for bringing new challenges to news reporting and fact-checking but also for what these technologies would mean for journalists'professional authority in journalism. This paper examines how journalists in Dutch media manage the integration of AI technologies into their daily routines. Drawing from 13 interviews with editors, journalists, and innovation managers in different news outlets and media companies, we propose the concept of controlled change. as a heuristic to explain how journalists are proactively setting guidelines, experimenting with AI tools, and identifying their limitations and capabilities. Using professional authority as a theoretical framework, we argue that journalists anticipate and integrate AI technologies in a supervised manner and identify three primary mechanisms through which journalists manage this integration: (1) developing adaptive guidelines that align AI use with ethical codes, (2) experimenting with AI technologies to determine their necessity and fit, and (3) critically assessing the capabilities and limitations of AI systems.

Problem

• Examining AI integration impact on journalistic professional authority
• Analyzing controlled change strategies for AI adoption in newsrooms
• Identifying mechanisms for managing AI tools in journalism practices

Innovation

• Developing adaptive guidelines for ethical AI use
• Experimenting with AI to determine necessity and fit
• Critically assessing capabilities and limitations of AI