The Associated Press is getting rid of journalists and pivoting a bit more toward AI. It offered 120 journalists a buyout offer on Monday and it wants to cut 5% globally. [AP] The AP ignored a requ…
  • zogwarg@awful.systemsEnglish
    12·
    4 days ago

    One funny (definition of funny not included, conditions may apply) bit from the AP article:

    The AP is trying new forms of fact-checking, including use of video, and more often putting its journalists in public to explain how they got particular stories, she [Julie Pace, Senior VP at AP] said.

    Call me crazy, but that isn’t fact-checking right? At the most charitable this is education/fact-conveying, not the actual important groundwork of fact-checking and editing.

      • zogwarg@awful.systemsEnglish
        6·
        4 days ago

        🤓☝️ technically AP is a non-profit providing a (worldwide) public utility service. (On paper and mostly in practice it’s a journalist co-op). Her Job is to report factual information correctly, that’s (at least historically) the whole selling point of wire services.

        Looking at her wiki page:

        […] spent two years at The Tampa Tribune before joining the Associated Press (AP) in 2007 as a video producer. She was the AP’s first multimedia political journalist. Pace covered the 2008 presidential election and began covering the White House […]

        Definitely a journalist by training, given her career journey, it makes sense that she champions video content. But still, amongst the six senior VPs at AP, she has title the “Executive Editor”, arguably the most “Journalist” title of all of them. (Chief Technology Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, General Counsel/Corporate Secretary, Executive Editor, Chief Financial Officer, Chief People Officer)