From disrupting traditional newsrooms to shaping future narratives, AI and Gen Z are redefining how media works. This year's AWANI AI Roundtable explores how journalism can adapt, innovate, and thrive in this era of technological and generational change.
00:19Part one is available at Astro Awani's website.
00:23Circle back to journalism here.
00:25Having all these problems that we've shared, that we've mentioned so far about short attention
00:30spans on what was mentioned just now that some, not just young people, but everyone with
00:35the advent of AI is becoming more gullible because I just want to see what I want to
00:39see.
00:39I want to read what I want to read.
00:40And once chat GPT or whatever AI generated content churns that content, I will believe
00:46it 100%.
00:47That includes news as well, which is really, really alarming.
00:50I want to get someone from the newsroom.
00:52And I was told that Razak from The Star has indeed championed AI at The Star and has
00:59one watch as well.
01:00Razak, there's a microphone for you.
01:01So seeing all these challenges, how do you think the newsroom not just should adapt to
01:07survive, but to continue to thrive?
01:10Okay.
01:11Firstly, I just want to thank Awani for inviting me.
01:15And I think it's very important for any news organization to champion Gen Z and ask this
01:25question, what is their role?
01:27Because it brings me to my point.
01:31All throughout this morning, I'm trying to figure out what are the lessons for me that
01:35I can learn from this session.
01:37And I realized a few things from all the comments, especially profs, both of you.
01:44In trying to navigate this from the news perspective, I realized that actually some things stay the
01:54same and some things are always changing.
01:56You have to know the difference.
01:58So for me, for somebody in the news industry, when we say some things stay the same, what
02:05I mean is core skills.
02:07We keep mentioning things like critical thinking, soft skills.
02:12I think this is very important regardless of whether you're Gen Z, Alpha, Boomer, if you
02:17have this, I think you're in good shape to navigate.
02:21A good example is using AI in the newsroom.
02:26I think the most one of the important things that journalists must have when they're using
02:34AI that will decide whether they make good use or not is critical thinking skills because
02:39when it comes to AI, it's how good you prompt, like from engineering, right?
02:44If you don't prompt it well, you're going to get very bad output.
02:48If you can prompt, if you know how to prompt, then you can get good stuff.
02:54And the ability to prompt is derived from, are you critically thinking or not?
03:01So that is a skill that is not decided by, I think, not affected by AI, but is more dependent
03:08on our education system.
03:10Did we come out from school as thinking individuals, critical thinking, you know, questioning things?
03:16So that's one.
03:17So the other thing is about how things always change.
03:25I'm quite scared because the Gen Z representative mentioned about if you're worried about us,
03:36you have to realise that Gen Alpha is coming.
03:38And indeed, yeah, and, you know, here we are trying to figure out how do we survive
03:50and make sure that Gen Z still reads our product.
03:55And I just realised that in the next few years, we're going to have another generation, you know,
04:02we have to cater to.
04:03And it's actually, I was told that they'll be entering universities in the next five, six years.
04:11So this is my point.
04:13The only, in some aspects, the only constant is change.
04:20So get used to it.
04:21So for me, I've been disrupted twice.
04:26I work for a newspaper organisation and like all newspapers, first we got disrupted by social media
04:33who took away all our advertising revenue.
04:36And now we are getting disrupted by AI because with generative AI, nobody is clicking
04:43or fewer people are clicking on our news.
04:46So I think that's the key takeaway.
04:49Anyway, we in the industry must realise that some things change, some things, you know, stay the same.
04:56So if you can tell which is which...
04:57Which disruption have you found harder?
04:59The first or the second one?
05:00The current one?
05:02I think the first one is harder because we spent many years being affected by it.
05:10The second one, we don't know yet.
05:13Is it really going to be the nail in the coffin, so to speak?
05:18Or is it just something that we've already learnt from the first disruption?
05:23So maybe we've learnt how to survive and adapt better, you know?
05:29So in other words, I think it's about evolving.
05:34You like it or not, you have to evolve or else you won't survive.
05:37The days when people could have this, be in their comfort zone, that's well and truly over.
05:48Yeah.
05:49I think it's very interesting because, yeah, you mentioned that before we could even blink,
05:53now Gen Alpha is up and coming.
05:56And then you've got Skibidi and Tung Tung Sahur and I've got my kids watching that crap as well.
06:01So, but the point is that it comes back to the short attention span because people look,
06:08especially younger people, look for instant gratification now.
06:11And I think that's still fine if it's leisurely content or entertainment and you want to look
06:16for instant gratification, your 10-second videos, etc.
06:18But it's really problematic and worrying when it comes to news because then you demand that
06:22news be five seconds as well, seven seconds as well, and which will not do justice,
06:28obviously, to journalism and also will not paint a clear picture because people are quite
06:34lazy to think.
06:36Can I get one more?
06:36Can I get Boss Ashwat to weigh in on this?
06:40Actually, long time coming already.
06:42So, how has the newsroom adapted so far to all these things, instant gratification, short
06:47attention span, etc.
06:49in the age of AI with so many things still uncertain in the years ahead?
06:54Thank you, Luqman.
06:55I guess what we have experienced throughout our 18 years, 17 plus years journey as Astro
07:01Awani, social media really helped us in terms of putting the brand of Astro Awani where
07:08it should be.
07:10And we really enjoy the democratization of information because of the influx of social
07:17media platforms.
07:17And the positive side of it, the best part of it, in which we could really go straight
07:25and have a proper conversation with our own audience through social media.
07:31And yes, in a hyper-connected world, that is the positive side of it.
07:36And this is the negative side of it.
07:39In which, I guess, on the matter of strengthening what matters for media or newsroom at large is
07:50the trust.
07:52Did you manage to get the trust from the society itself as a journalist, as a media personnel?
07:58So it goes back to the fundamental of how or what is the best way to rebuild trust or managing
08:06this trust, rather, among the society.
08:09In a hyper-connected world where misinformation, disinformation, and trust deteriorating, let
08:17alone, you know, I was told there are numbers of politicians here in this room, that's the
08:24least job, by the way, least trusted jobs among the society, not just in Malaysia but across
08:32the globe.
08:33But it's also impacted in terms of journalism because intertwined, the fourth estate as well
08:38as the whole lots of the system bernegara dan pemasyarakat.
08:42And come back to that, and how do we build or rebuild trust is it has to be hyper-local.
08:51You really need to be on ground.
08:54It means you have a proper conversation with each and every individual member of the human
09:02kind, of human race.
09:04And that's how you build trust, strengthening the trust of whatever Astro Awani or you, yourself
09:09as journalists, we are content creators at the end of the day.
09:14For example, like, you know, just a matter of, just a matter of form.
09:18Or, they say that, you know, people don't, audience at large don't really listen to talk
09:24shows anymore because it's a long form.
09:26Or, now you listen to podcasts.
09:28Isn't that the same, podcasts and talk shows?
09:30You know, it's just a matter of form.
09:31And now, because of democratization of information has gone at certain, I would rather say 15 years.
09:39And now we have AI to really anticipate the whole magnitude and the velocity of technological advancement.
09:48It goes back to the question, how do we really forward the human development?
09:51That is our role, to bridge the gap.
09:55Do I have the answer?
09:56I don't.
09:57Hence why we have a lot of roundtables and get everyone together and start to address the gaps
10:02and start to understand what is the real problem with real people that needs a real solution here.
10:10And goes back to the fundamental of what is AI.
10:12AI is just a tool.
10:13So, that's how we approach the use of AI in the newsroom.
10:20Because at the end of the day, how we put several scenario planning in the next five years.
10:25Now, say, for example, we are living in 2030.
10:28How do we imagine, without the proper structure of responding and adapting to AI in terms of strengthening human capacity,
10:38the question here, what's going to happen to the talent?
10:41So, we're going to have a talent, crisis of talent.
10:45What happened to our production cameraman crew, as well as the production group here?
10:54Switcher.
10:55That will be overtaken by robots.
10:57Now, we're talking about human development.
11:00Each and every one of them, how are they going to upskill?
11:02The word upskilling is really there.
11:05But as human beings at a certain age, generational factor comes in.
11:08And whether how adaptive you are in terms of pivoting what you have been doing all this while,
11:15throughout 30 years of your career, and suddenly pivoting and asking us to do something else.
11:20So, that is human.
11:22So, approach this AI with strengthening human approach to it,
11:26or human development strategy and tactics has to be done somewhere.
11:32I think there's no magic wand to actually really asking, say, for example, our director, Abang K, for instance, head of production, to pivot.
11:47Say, okay, Mr. K, now is the time for you to change your job.
11:50Now you have to be a journalist.
11:51It's not that easy as one, two, three.
11:54He has been doing the same thing over and over again.
11:56He's been spanning with the same career path for the past 30 years.
12:00So, now, how do we approach?
12:03It goes back to the fundamental of human development and strategy and tactics on how to strengthen that human capacity.
12:12And approach this with full underlying philosophy of humanity at large, strengthening humanity.
12:20I think that is fundamental on where we are at this point in time.
12:23Because we don't have the answer in terms of AI, but we enjoy the ride.
12:27We enjoy social media, but social media kills in terms of advertising.
12:31It goes back to the fundamental of what Dr. Gaya has said, in which it's just a player among the tech power.
12:38And now we have at the same time, it goes along with the line of geopolitical tensions.
12:44Whether this belongs to Deep Six, whether this belongs to ChatGPT, it's a contestation between rivalry of US and China.
12:53And we, as Malaysia, how do we strike this balance and remain stubborn to stay neutral at the same time?
12:58So, a lot of things in common.
13:00I think we address and try to unpack one by one by looking into journalism per se.
13:05I think overall in terms of use case of AI, it's good.
13:11But question here, how do we prepare our society even further, not just Gen Z and our generation millennials as well as Gen X and BB Boomers,
13:20but to close that gap and really advancing the human development is another.
13:35That's going to take some time and effort, no doubt.
13:58But we also have the quick wins, right?
14:00We have things like disclosing AI use in your articles or whatever content.
14:05No, it's funny because I once did, I wouldn't say an academic paper.
14:10I had 10 weeks, so it was barely an academic paper.
14:12So, I did some research about AI and I interviewed a bunch of people in the UK, news outlets in the UK.
14:18And one of them was the Financial Times.
14:20And the Financial Times said that our problem is not really infrastructure, funding, etc., because we have all that.
14:28Our problem is that we are seen as, our content is seen as exclusive because we have a paywall.
14:35You have to pay to get our content.
14:37And we've done some surveys, we've done some studies, and people's perception is that once you put the AI label on it, it no longer feels exclusive.
14:45It feels generic.
14:46So, this is a problem, even for news content that you do not pay for, what more that you do pay for.
14:54So, people, to use a colloquial simple term like T20, they read all this Financial Times and say, I'm paying good money and I don't want AI-generated content.
15:03So, to start with, can I get anyone to answer, does an AI label, is an AI label off-putting for you to read a particular piece of news article?
15:14Is it?
15:15Everyone okay with it?
15:17An AI label.
15:18An AI label AI-generated content or content made with the assistance of AI.
15:23Will that change your perception?
15:24Just a quick comment.
15:27I think the label has to tell me what it was used for and, if possible, what companies they use.
15:34I don't know.
15:35Maybe that's going a bit too far.
15:36But some more information besides this is assisted with AI would help, I think.
15:42What are the examples of you being okay, how AI helped produce your content you're okay with and what you're not okay with?
15:49I think it also depends on the content, honestly.
15:53Like, if I'm reading a novel, I want it to be written by a human.
15:58But if I'm reading, like, a financial report or, like, an annual report of a company, I really don't care who wrote it.
16:05I just care that it's accurate.
16:07And if somebody signed off on it, then I'm okay with it.
16:10So, it depends.
16:11I think, Luqman, fundamental of rebuilding trust or build trust with the audience is that's our guideline in our jiwa or guideline in the use of AI in a newsroom.
16:26You have to be transparent.
16:28Even though it's not popular, even though it will be hated by the society, but you have to be transparent to your audience.
16:33Say, for example, that's why I think that's the area that the audience will appreciate that more, especially because we are not creating the full generated content.
16:47But it helps in terms of strengthening the content or strengthening the journalistic product.
16:52I think that's why it is important, it is pertinent for us to actually put a label to it in order for us to make sure that the public trust is paramount.
17:04So, it's on top of everything else.
17:05Yeah.
17:05If you have 20, and then 19 are AI systems, that says a lot about the organization, but you have 20, and then fully, because it's some, you know, your routine road stuff, and then you leave, sorry, so out of 20, then 17 are, you're working through, but three are, you know, we do road stuff in, you know, in news reporting, right?
17:26There are some things that just you have to put out there anyway.
17:29Yeah, so if, you know, in addition to where the AI was used, for example, churning the visualization or synopsis or something like that, I think there are also ways in which we can be fair to the companies, because sometimes you need to use that, and also to the readers, to be transparent to the readers.
17:49Again, I think if it's 19 out of 20, I'm wondering, like, what news organization is your aggregator, in that sense, can?
17:55Yeah, yeah, yeah, because we have one news aggregator in Japan, whose content is 100% aggregated by AI, and they're actually doing quite well.
18:02So I wonder whether there's a societal difference as well, but I do, I do take note of your point, Dr. Gaya, and, ma'am, you want to weigh in just now?
18:10Okay, everybody is talking about the challenge and the worry about the different generation, and we have different generation in the room, but I'll get back to what Dr. Gaya said earlier.
18:23AI is a tool to strengthen journalism, not to replace.
18:27So being a journalism teacher, I would say that my worry is a bit low on this, because anyhow, AI is a tool.
18:38But what I can say is, AI is a complement to journalism, where, for instance, talking about the seven seconds video,
18:49so what can we raise up the questions, what can we show on Gaza in seven seconds?
18:57But my experience in my class on this AI and the seven seconds, 30 seconds, the reels on Gaza,
19:06actually, that short clips will drive students, the young people, the Gen Z, to have more access on the research on what happened in Gaza.
19:16For instance, the generation now, they don't really know what happened during the Nakba event and whatnot.
19:22They only know what happened on 7 October.
19:24So with the short clips, actually, will drive them to read more, to have more research on what is happening between Palestine and Israel.
19:35And I can say in all contexts, even in local contexts.
19:39So I think we have to acknowledge the AI as tools.
19:44As I said, it's a complement to journalism, because from that, what I can say that,
19:52daripada we don't know about what's happening in Gaza, that seven seconds, that 30 seconds clips,
19:57will actually be the highlight for these people to really dive into what is happening, what is the conflict it's all about.
20:06And, of course, the information is not right for them to look at that clip.
20:13So what they do is, they go and do more research on what is happening.
20:18So reading the context of the events actually comes from the help of AI with the short clip study.
20:28So I think in the context of journalism, it complement the tools and also the journalistic way of reporting.
20:39They do more work and all the information, because I was telling colleagues here just now,
20:47for example, talking about journalism, my priority is for the young people to know history.
20:55And these people, the young people, we always have the mindset of they are the generation who do not read.
21:03But actually, they read, but not from the books, maybe.
21:06They read from the internet.
21:08They read from online sources.
21:11So what I can do, what I do with my young people, my students is give a topic, give a case study.
21:17For instance, the history of Mamali, Operasi Lalang, and so on.
21:22So they don't know about these events, because not their generation, and they don't really go into books to read all this.
21:30So the question, the case study that we spoke to the young people, they will go back to the AI, the chat, Jeppity, or Gemini, or whatnot,
21:39to get the information, what is this event is all about.
21:43So that's why I would say AI is the complement journalism in the context of way of writing.
21:52That's what I can see on AI as a tool for young people, the Gen Z.
21:57This is an edited version of the Roundtable.
22:01Responses have been abridged for broadcast purposes.
22:13Transcription by ESO. Translation by ESO. Translation by —
