ZHEJIANG, China—Newspaper publications across China has started experimenting with artificial intelligence (AI) two years ago, employing robots to write brief stories on finance, sports and the weather.
The results were encouraging.
Nonetheless, Chen Minwei, deputy director, Chief Editor’s Office of the Zhejiang Daily Press Group (ZDPG), assured members of the media from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations region they will remain employed in the near future.
“You will not go extinct for the next 10 to 15 years,” Chen said. “Opinion [pieces], and those that require deep thinking or in-depth stories, will still require humans to write them. At the moment, AI robots have a complimentary role [with humans].”
She said AI is at the initial stages of application, churning out brief stories of about 200 to 300 words on the three categories of content, mainly opinion pieces.
Input, output
CHEN explained that a robot with AI relies on “Big Data” and the Internet to gather information and, with the proper algorithm, comes out with the required story.
“Although in its infancy, the AI robot is progressing very fast,” Chen said.
She added an AI robot is best when writing financial stories because it has access to previous data and economic stories “and with the changes in input and output, and by comparison, AI comes out with its own interpretation of the current financial situation.”
She said AI is a boost to financial reporters, being able to help them display the links and reports data they need to produce long, in-depth studies of financial developments or forecasts.
“AI robot can also collect similar materials for other media to help reporters,” Chen explained.
Public press
ONCE called the Zhejiang Daily when it started publication in 1949, the ZDPG today is a huge conglomerate and is listed at the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Newspaper publishing is still its core business, coming out with 450,000 copies daily. According to Lu Jianliang, director of the firm’s human resource allocation center, all their copies are paid by subscription.
“We are not available in newsstands,” Lu said.
He added that in China today, traditional media and the “new media” are undergoing transformation because of the change in readership and the easy application of new technology.
ZDPG is a provincial newspaper here, with 10,000 employees of which 1,500 are reporters, 1,000 technicians, 500 management and 160 for administration and logistics.
Communication channel
EIGHTEEN years ago the Zhejiang Daily became the conglomerate it is today, engaged in a host of businesses like banking, radio, WeChat, online business, food, magazine, and many more.
Lu said the firm has more than 30 media outlets and 30 million mobile users. He added the group belongs to the top 500 most valued brand and one of top Asian brands in China.
Lu said the company considers its 1,000 technicians as their most valued employees “because they support the development of new media.”
“With this integration, we found the Internet as a communication channel and our daily paper is an important part of communication,” Lu added.
All the media across China is undergoing restructuring, including the most widely circulated newspapers the People’s Daily and China News Agency.
According to Lu, the media in today’s China is being employed as a tool to promote the “Belt and Road” initiative of the government.
Lu said the Group visits Asean countries to exchange views on the decline of traditional media and the rise of the new media.
He noted he and other staff are scheduled to visit Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia “to talk with our counterparts and to discuss many things including media and the [BRI] of the government.”