Human oversight crucial as AI streamlines newsroom work - nbc

As much as Artificial Intelligence (AI) can ease the work of the newsroom, there must be human touch and verification.

This caution was made by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation's (nbc) Head of Department for News and Current Affairs, Peter Denk, at the conclusion of a week-long AI training where participants learned how to apply AI tools.

The training was attended by a diverse team of the nbc staff members representing different departments.

The programme equipped them with practical skills in AI-driven research content generation, verification, and multimedia production, aimed at improving accuracy, efficiency, and storytelling in modern journalism.

Denk stressed, "Whatever you do with AI, make sure that at the end of the day, there must be a human being that will verify and action what AI is doing. Never allow AI to completely take over. Because if you don't do that, then you run into a danger where AI can control everything that you want. And especially for a public broadcaster, that is very important. That human verification, that human touch, always with regard to what you are doing with AI."

Menesia Muinjo nbc's Chief of News and Programming, added, "Firstly, there is supposed to be a policy guideline that will guide the teams and to look at potential risks, if any, and how to mitigate those. And we have also learned that really AI is a great tool as much as there are risks, which we are able to manage. You can use it to really speed up the process, you know, news production, programming, weather, radio, and television."

Throughout the week, the team engaged in discussions around ethical AI use, combating misinformation, and maintaining editorial standards in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Bahia Albretcht is an AI trainer from Deutsche Welle who co-facilitated the training held at NIPAM.

"We want people to use tools but also be safe in it. We want to have safe data use, and people may be concentrating on being more creative or doing actual work and maybe helping with some workflows. On the other side, I think there are some downsides of AI because we're talking a lot about data security, and the systems are hallucinating sometimes. So you also have to do a lot of human verification. You need to know how these tools work."

Participants were awarded certificates in recognition of their successful completion of the training.