Artificial intelligence is becoming another tool available to journalists and content creators, much like spellcheck, photo editing software, transcription tools, search engines, and other technology we have used for years. At Reservoir Daily News, we believe AI can be useful, but we also believe our readers deserve to know how we use it.
We may use AI tools to help us edit, improve, organize, or correct content before it is published. That could include checking grammar, improving clarity, helping organize information, creating summaries, formatting event information, or assisting with other parts of the publishing process. AI may also help us turn information we have gathered into a format that is easier and more useful for our readers.
What AI does not do is replace our reporting. We do not consider an AI-generated answer, summary, or search result to be a source. Facts, quotes, names, dates, locations, and other important details should come from information we have gathered, sources we trust, official information, or reporting conducted by our team.
AI-Generated Images
Sometimes the best image available for a story is not an actual photograph. We may use an AI-generated or AI-assisted image as an illustration when it helps communicate the subject of a story, event, feature, or other content.
We will not intentionally use an AI-generated image in a way that makes readers believe it is a photograph of an actual event, person, place, or situation when it is not. When an AI-generated image could reasonably be mistaken for an actual news photograph, we will identify it as an illustration or AI-generated image.
Whenever we have a relevant real photograph that better documents the story, that is generally our preference.
Human Responsibility Comes First
AI can make mistakes. It can misunderstand information, omit important context, and sometimes confidently produce information that simply is not true. That is why the responsibility for everything published on Reservoir Daily News remains with us.
AI does not make our editorial decisions. It does not decide what is newsworthy, who we interview, what facts we trust, or what ultimately gets published.
Everything we publish is our responsibility. If AI helps us rewrite a sentence, organize an event listing, clean up a submitted announcement, or create an illustration, we still own the finished product. We review it, we approve it, and we stand behind it.
Most importantly, we will never use artificial intelligence as a substitute for real local reporting. Technology can help us tell a story more clearly or work more efficiently, but it cannot replace talking to people, asking questions, attending events, checking facts, understanding our community, and being accountable to the people who read our work.
Our goal is simple: use new technology where it makes our work better without compromising the trust our readers place in Reservoir Daily News.
As AI technology changes, the tools we use may change with it. This policy may evolve as well, but our standard will remain the same: AI may assist our work. People remain responsible for it.
