Beyond Algorithms: Why Human Judgment Remains at the Heart of Journalism

By Harry Wu, 21st Century Business Herald, SFC

As AI can instantly aggregate and even perform preliminary analysis of vast amounts of data, the traditional role of journalists as information transmitters is rapidly devaluing.

Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, told 21st Century Business Herald at the 2025 Bund Summit that AI won't generate news on its own. Digging for news requires going places, talking to people, and observing what's happening.

Thus, he believes that journalists' news-gathering role, especially field interviews, remains as important as ever. The same goes for interviewees; politicians won't respond to AI's questions the same way they would to humans.

Even with AI, Martin Wolf believes that people will still want to read interesting thinkers with different ideas and “AI analysis of economic processes is pretty boring. ”

In a world where algorithmically orchestrated information flows can amplify cognitive biases and extremism, what kind of journalism and public opinion are needed to maintain a healthy online space? Is the rise of AI a potential tool for resolving a crisis of trust and a breakdown in consensus, or an accelerator that exacerbates them?

Martin Wolf argues that, like all tools we create, their ultimate outcome depends on what humans want them to do. “While the technological advances of the past two centuries have made our lives better than ever before, they have also given us the tools to destroy the planet. The same is true for artificial intelligence,” he added.