Journalism’s core promise is simple: what we report is true. Artificial intelligence has made keeping that promise harder than ever. Across their Delhi media tour, Parul University journalism students encountered the same urgent question in newsroom after newsroom: How do you defend the truth when technology can now fabricate it convincingly? The answers were sobering and instructive.
Rajat Sharma’s Warning on Deepfakes!
India TV Chairman Rajat Sharma spoke from direct, personal experience. He described doctored videos that used AI to manipulate his own face and voice to falsely promote products and similar fabricated videos misusing other public figures to push fraudulent schemes, some reaching millions of viewers before being taken down. Yet his conclusion was measured and important for students to hear: the technology itself is not the enemy.
AI as such is not bad. It is we who are misusing it who are committing the crime.
– Rajat Sharma
His only advice is to master the tool instead of holding fear. Use AI as a servant, not a master, and he noted that courts have started issuing orders to remove impersonating content if flagged once. This is the biggest lesson for journalists out there!
Human Judgement Still Wins!
If AI can fake reality, can another tool simply detect the fakes? At the India Today Network, Input Head Parthajit Bhattacharyya, a reporter with around 25 years of experience, gave students a crucial reality check. No single tool, he explained, can match the judgement built over years of reporting. Verification technology is evolving, but so are the fakes, and if one tool could do all the verifying, there would be little need for an experienced input desk at all. His most reliable method remains gloriously old-fashioned: go directly to the source. First-hand information from an authoritative person often provides a clarity no detector can. In the AI era, in other words, human judgment is not obsolete; it is the last and best line of defence.
AI as a Reason for Journalism, Not Against It
Counter-intuitively, the rise of AI-generated misinformation makes credible journalism more essential, not less. As PTI’s editor told students, when unverified content floods social media, a journalist who verifies something and then publishes it gives the public something they can actually trust. AI can flood the world with plausible fabrications; only disciplined, verified journalism can reliably tell people what is real. The deepfake era, paradoxically, is journalism’s strongest argument for its own necessity.
What This Means for the Next Generation
For students entering the profession, the message across the tour was consistent. Learn to use AI tools skillfully, because they are now part of the job. Sharpen the human skills AI cannot replace, such as relationships, judgement, and the discipline of verification. And treat AI, as with any technology, as a tool best directed by capable human judgment, a principle that echoes far beyond journalism, as our guide to the limits of AI explores. The journalists who thrive in the AI era will be those who pair the technology’s speed with a human being’s commitment to the truth. For students looking to understand how stories are created, communicated, and consumed in an evolving media landscape, Parul University’s BA in Journalism and Mass Communication and MA in Journalism and Mass Communication provide opportunities to learn beyond the classroom.
FAQs
How are deepfakes a threat to journalism?
Deepfakes use AI to convincingly fake a person’s face and voice, letting bad actors put false words in the mouths of trusted figures, including journalists, and spread misinformation or fraud at scale. Because journalism depends on truth, realistic fabrications directly attack its credibility, making verification more important than ever.
How do journalists verify content in the age of AI?
They rely on human judgment built through experience, since no single tool can reliably catch every fake, and above all, they go directly to authoritative sources for first-hand confirmation. Multi-source verification, source relationships, and disciplined fact-checking remain the strongest defences against AI-generated misinformation.
Will AI replace journalists?
It is unlikely. AI can assist with tasks and speed, but it also generates misinformation that only disciplined human verification can reliably counter. Skills like source relationships, judgement, and verification remain human strengths. As leading editors advise, journalists should learn to use AI as a tool, not fear it as a replacement.
