Herald deploys AI for editorial, admits lack of rigour
The New Zealand Herald’s publisher NZME says it should have employed more “journalistic rigour” when it used artificial intelligence tools to create an editorial that appeared in the Weekend Herald, online and in regional papers recently.
The editorial about who the All Blacks should pick to play at centre ran first in the Weekend Herald on 20 July.
Truncated sentences and repetition of key words appeared characteristic of generative AI applications like ChatGPT.
Below it was a shorter editorial about the achievements of MMA professional Israel Adesanya.
Both also appeared to draw heavily on articles by Herald journalists – Gregor Paul on 18 July and Christopher Reive on 17 July respectively.
Mediawatch ran both editorials through AI detection tools and several returned positive results.
The very first Editorial in the NZ Herald was calling on white New Zealanders to go to war with Māori, it has always been the voice of the redneck settler cracker and it remains so today.
EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. WEEK.
There’s NEVER been a better time to buy a house, and why is that? Because NZ Herald is a pimp for the Real Estate Industry and draw most of their dwindling revenue from real estate now.
That need to satsosy the Real Estate Pimps overshadows every other editorial instinct.
The NZ Herald has been a mouthpiece for the polluters, for the right and for the Real Estate Industry for such a long time the propaganda blends effortlessly into one long lie about who we are as people and the things we value.
The less said about their disastrous Chinese Edition that literally takes orders directly from Beijing is a national embarrassment.
News that the NZ Herald has walked away from the only thing they had left, an Editorial voice, and left it to fucking AI is an audacity beyond hilarity.
What’s the fucking point ion reading the words of a fucking Robot for our news?
NZME are cutting so many costs now, they’ve just employed AI to do the thinking for them?
Fuck right off you disingenuous banality.
After the implosion of Today FM and Newshub I wake each morning with a hope in my heart that I will see the collapse and end of the NZ Herald as well, maybe, just maybe a decision as disastrous to what was remaining of their reputation like using AI to write their own editorials finally bring the whole paper down.
Martyn – with, or without AI – NZ Herald is good for toilet paper only…after tearing up into small pieces
That is insulting to good toilet paper.
Delboys Robin – Of course…my apologies to good toilet paper.
Unfuckingbeliveable
Yes who wants to pay for AI horseshit instead of journalism?
The herald does know that people can get their own AI summaries done of any topic they like? As useless as they currently are.
Yes they’ve made themselves redundant again over this , but they lost their moral authority and social license when they signed up to be Labours propaganda partners with the public interest journalism fund.
We need strong independent media in NZ, we don’t have it. The public will cheer the demise of each one as they go broke.
As if there was intelligence of any kind there before AI
The herald have been shit for years .I left their site a couple of years ago because of their right wing obsession .They are biased right wing lie repeaters .The fact they cant think to write a real editorial does not supprise me .There links to ZB only makes it worse as they are on the far right extreme and the herald prinst their shit daily as if its real journalisim
This isn’t surprising really. If you have an interest in correct grammar and proper sentences, you’ll have noticed some rubbish in the Herald online recently. I assumed, wrongly it seems, that the printed version would be better.
What a sad and shameful admission from THE newspaper that made such a thing of its own wonderfulness for so long!
They appear to promote Newstalk ZB as well as real estate, so is it any wonder that they have lost all journalistic integrity or credence?
We gave up on the Herald years ago but didn’t realise it had sunk so low. I’m sending this article on to people I know who buy the Herald, to let them know how they are being ripped off and fed mis- and dis-information by a once trusted news source.
good work Joy ,I always tell people not to bother with the herald .
Can report that subscriptions have been cancelled!
NZME use of AI to write their editorials makes NZ Herald utterly compromised and pointless
You have said it all in one sentence, in your heading Martyn.
I have just been catching up on the USA Mr Beast furore. It seems to have been around the desire for excitement freebies, being in the mix of whatever by the people who have nothing in their heads except what has been put there through their devices. He has had 300 million views or like, and has been posting on you tube since he was 14. Here is wikipedia for some calm background and analysis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MrBeast
If the Herlad (sic) is going to print made up things from artificial brains or even real brains either grown in test tubes or shaped by brainwashing, it will become another Mr Beast and regard itself as a success because so many people read it and pay for it. A commercial success – making a profit and that is all that empty-headed modern people think about – money a useful tool all could use to provide their needs and advance themselves, but now has been subverted by the warped!
An attractive path for the Herlad to follow with rainbows (multiple) at the end of it. (Blame the mis-spelling of the newpaper on AI faults.)