Journalism Practice

Smart Newsrooms? Transforming Journalism with AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming newsroom practices and journalistic workflows across the media industry. This special issue examines the growing impact of AI on journalism, with a focus on how it is being integrated into professional newsrooms worldwide. It aims to explore current applications, best practices, limitations, and the future potential of AI-driven tools in news production. Qualitative research (Domínguez-Partida and García-Félix, 2025) evidences integration of AI tools in media outlets optimizes tasks and contributes to content generation. However, challenges remain, including high implementation costs, skepticism toward AI technologies, and a shortage of technical training among professionals.

This special issue sets out to analyze the impact of AI on journalistic practices from the practitioners’ perspective, offering a comprehensive overview of diverse experiences across both public and private media organizations. In doing so, it is intended to promote a deeper understanding of AI’s potential to strengthen local and national journalism ecosystems by showcasing innovative initiatives from a variety of media contexts around the world. 

Alongside showcasing innovations, this special issue also seeks to critically examine the real-world implications of AI adoption in newsrooms. Rather than viewing AI as a purely technical upgrade, contributors are invited to reflect on how it reshapes editorial judgment, affects labor conditions, redefines journalistic autonomy, and introduces new dependencies on external platforms and proprietary systems. We welcome analyses that explore the tensions between efficiency and editorial values, the challenges of maintaining transparency in algorithm-assisted workflows, and the evolving dynamics between journalists, developers, and newsroom managers in the implementation of AI tools.

Adopting a systematic approach, this special issue seeks to analyze how AI is reshaping journalistic routines, decision-making processes, and content. Recent research (Sonni, Hafied, Irwanto, and Latuheru, 2024) highlights key trends in AI adoption, including automated news writing, advanced data analysis, and personalized content delivery. The findings also point to the emergence of hybrid roles, such as the “journalist-programmer”, and the growing importance of “AI literacy” among media professionals. Furthermore, the integration of AI in fact-checking has become a key area of innovation in combating disinformation, with tools increasingly employed to detect misleading claims, automate verification workflows, and support journalists in identifying patterns of coordinated inauthentic behavior. Recent studies (Gutiérrez-Caneda and Vázquez-Herrero, 2024; Cazzamatta and Sarısakaloğlu, 2025) highlight how machine learning models are being used to match claims against existing knowledge bases, flag anomalies in source credibility, and automate cross-referencing tasks as well as identifying images. 

AI also powers synthetic media such as JX Press Corp (Japan), Reuters News Tracer (United Kingdom), News Republic (France), and Videre AI (Spain), which generate news content entirely through algorithmic processes without human journalistic input (Ufarte-Ruiz, Murcia-Verdú, and Túñez-López, 2023). The EBU News Report 2025 highlights a range of innovative experiences from leading newsrooms experimenting with and implementing generative AI tools. This special issue invites empirical research, employing either quantitative or qualitative methodologies, as well as mixed methods, case studies, experimental designs, comparative approaches, or ethnographies on concrete initiatives that integrate AI into the daily routines of newsrooms.

Other topics of interest in this special issue include the application of AI to media archives (Bazán-Gil, 2023), AI-driven news curation and automated journalism (Voinea, 2025), and AI-automated publishing in social media journalism (Petruccio, Neilson, and Stöcker, 2025). Submissions are also encouraged that explore the integration of ChatGPT and other LLMs into journalistic workflows, as well as the incorporation of data science and machine learning into investigative reporting (Fridman, Krøvel, and Palumbo, 2025), slow journalism (Albizu-Rivas, Parratt-Fernández, and Mera-Fernández, 2024), and specialized fields such as sports journalism (Olabe Sánchez and Arias Robles, 2025), underscoring the importance of collaboration between journalists, data scientists, and designers, as well as the growing centrality of AI literacy in these interdisciplinary teams.

Based on this framework, contributions may address the following thematic areas:

1. Integration of AI in Newsrooms

To examine how AI is being integrated into journalistic practices and newsroom workflows across diverse media systems.

2. Impact on Journalistic Practices and Roles

To identify and analyze current applications, benefits, and limitations of AI-driven tools in journalism, including their impact on professional roles and content production.

3. Innovation in Journalism Ecosystems

To study AI’s potential to support innovation in local and national journalism ecosystems by showcasing empirical research on real-world initiatives and emerging best practices.

4. AI in Fact-Checking and Verification

To explore the integration of AI technologies in fact-checking practices, including the use of machine learning to detect misinformation, automate verification processes, and support the identification of disinformation networks. We also welcome analyses of the epistemological and ethical implications of automated fact-checking: How do algorithmic tools influence the definition of truth in journalism, and what role do journalists play in shaping verification outcomes when processes become partially automated?

5. Critical Reflections on AI Integration in Newsroom Practices

To explore how AI adoption impacts journalistic routines, power relations, and editorial autonomy in real newsroom contexts. This includes studies of decision-making processes, changing labor roles, internal resistance or negotiation, and the influence of commercial or technological partners on editorial practices.

6. AI and Data-Driven Storytelling

To investigate how AI is transforming data journalism practices, including its use in extracting, cleaning, analyzing, and visualizing large datasets. Contributions may explore the role of AI in enhancing investigative reporting, enabling automated narrative generation, and supporting interactive visual storytelling. We particularly encourage submissions that examine the collaborative dynamics between journalists, data scientists, and designers, as well as the importance of AI literacy in these interdisciplinary workflows.

References

Albizu-Rivas, Iban, Sonia Parratt-Fernández, and Montse Mera-Fernández. 2024. “Artificial Intelligence in Slow Journalism: Journalists’ Uses, Perceptions, and Attitudes.” Journalism and Media 5, no. 4: 1836-1850. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia5040111.

Bazán-Gil, Virginia. 2023. “Artificial Intelligence Applications in Media Archives.” Profesional de la Información 32 (5): e320517. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2023.sep.17.

Cazzamatta, Renata, and Ali Sarısakaloğlu. 2025. “Mapping Global Emerging Scholarly Research and Practices of AI-supported Fact-Checking Tools in Journalism.” Journalism Practice, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2025.2463470.

Domínguez-Partida, Guadalupe, and Erika M. García-Félix. 2025. “Entre la eficiencia y la desinformación: La integración de la inteligencia artificial en el periodismo mexicano.” Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico 31 (1): 167–77. https://dx.doi.org/10.5209/emp.99504.

Fridman, M., R. Krøvel, and F. Palumbo. 2023. “How (Not to) Run an AI Project in Investigative Journalism.” Journalism Practice 19 (6): 1362–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2023.2253797.

Gutiérrez-Caneda, Beatriz, and Jorge Vázquez-Herrero. 2024. “Redrawing the Lines Against Disinformation: How AI Is Shaping the Present and Future of Fact-checking.” Tripodos, no. 55: 55–74. https://doi.org/10.51698/tripodos.2024.55.04.

Olabe Sánchez, Fernando, and Félix Arias Robles. 2025. “Divergences in the Use of Generative AI among Sports Journalists in Spain.” Comunicación y Sociedad, e8839. https://doi.org/10.32870/cys.v2025.8839.

Petruccio, Petra, Tai Neilson, and Christian Stöcker. 2025. “‘A Part of Our Work Disappeared’: AI Automated Publishing in Social Media Journalism.” Journalism and Media 6, no. 1: 30. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia6010030.

Sonni, Alem Febri, Hasdiyanto Hafied, Irwanto Irwanto, and Rido Latuheru. 2024. “Digital Newsroom Transformation: A Systematic Review of the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Journalistic Practices, News Narratives, and Ethical Challenges.” Journalism and Media 5, no. 4: 1554-1570. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia5040097.

Ufarte-Ruiz, María-José, Francisco-José Murcia-Verdú, and José-Miguel Túñez-López. 2023. “Use of Artificial Intelligence in Synthetic Media: First Newsrooms without Journalists.” Profesional de la Información 32 (2): e320203. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2023.mar.03.

Voinea, Dan Valeriu. 2025. “Reconceptualizing Gatekeeping in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Theoretical Exploration of Artificial Intelligence-Driven News Curation and Automated Journalism.” Journalism and Media 6, no. 2: 68. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia6020068.