OPTING for the “cheaper alternative” of artificial intelligence (AI) over investing in human journalists poses a “moral hazard” to Philippine newsrooms, a Reuters data journalist and graphics reporter said in a forum on March 31.
In the Teodoro Benigno Jr. Annual Journalism Lecture, Prinz Magtulis, a UST journalism alumnus and former Varsitarian managing editor, said journalists must remain at the core of newsrooms despite having AI at their disposal.
“If you have this availability, it is a moral hazard for Philippine newsrooms not to spend on journalists because you have AI,” Magtulis said during the forum at the Buenaventura Garcia Paredes, O.P. Building.
“We should be spending more on journalists, we should hire more illustrators, we should hire more data people rather than tell people that there is this cheaper alternative,” he added.
Magtulis, a former UST Department of Journalism faculty member, acknowledged AI’s potential in enhancing data journalism.
However, he advised reporters to first grasp the fundamentals of data-based reporting before employing the assistance of AI.
“I think, one benefit of this generation is you have a lot of tools available. But, at the end of the day, fundamentals matter. So, I would really encourage you to study the fundamentals of this,” he told students.
While the field of graphics and data may be a niche in journalism, Magtulis emphasized that the story remains important.
“One of the reasons why some are hesitant to start is because they feel like they don’t have the desired skill set,” he said. “Find a story in your data.”
Magtulis graduated from the UST journalism program in 2010 before pursuing two master’s degrees: public administration in the Catholic University of Korea (2015), and data journalism in Columbia University (2015) under a Columbia-Nikkei scholarship.
Aside from reporting for Reuters, he teaches data visualization at the City College of New York.
This year’s forum, titled “Show don’t tell – quite literally: Data and graphics in Journalism,” was organized by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) and the UST Journalism Society and Department of Journalism of the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters.
The Teodoro Benigno Jr. Journalism Lecture is one of FOCAP’s flagship events aimed at reaching out to campus journalists. Micah G. Pascua with reports from Carlo Jose H. Ruga
