• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, March 11, 2024

Here’s a hint for people who doubt that top journalists are using AI: think again. Of 45 finalists for this year’s Pulitzer Prizes, five employed AI while researching, reporting or “telling” their submissions, according to NiemanLab.  

We won’t know who the five finalists are or if they won until May 8. But they made the cut – there were 1,200 entrants overall.  

The Pulitzer Board, after careful deliberation, added the requirement that entrants disclose AI usage, NiemanLab reports. This is the first year. 

The 18-member board sought to learn more about AI. “AI tools at the time had an ‘oh no, the devil is coming’ reputation,” says administrator Marjorie Miller.

This is a serious business. Mark Hansen, the director of the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation, worked with experts from The Marshall Project, Harvard Innovation Labs, and Center for Cooperative Media to create informational videos about “the basics of large language models and newsroom use cases,” NiemanLab continues.  

The Pulitzers aren’t the only big prizes that may have an AI component.  

The George Polk Awards are also considering the issue, NiemanLab continues. 

It’s one thing to require disclosure: maybe the Pulitzers should have a separate category for material researched and/or created with the help of AI. 

And here’s the big question: did AI help these entrants make the final round? Was it an even playing field?

There may be way more than five finalists next time around.