Data Driven

(Photo credit: Unsplash/Kane Reinholdtsen )

Broadcast journalists will make great writers in the age of AI because so many conventions of the craft overlap with best practices in the digital age of artificial intelligence. Few could have guessed that the lessons we learned in j-school years ago would become standard practice now as the explosive adoption of AI has forced writers to shift the way they put thoughts to words. A goal now is to optimize copy for AI algorithm visibility so that platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini see and serve up your written content—and its brand associations—as answers to AI queries.

This is known as “ask engine optimization,” or AEO—similar to its predecessor “search engine optimization” (SEO)—it helps ensure your writing gets noticed and shared by digital platforms that are today’s knowledge gatekeepers. For many of us who learned the conventions of broadcast writing in j-school, much of this “new” style rings familiar and positions those who have mastered it as uniquely qualified in this new digital age.

How is writing for journalism and AI similar?

Writing for journalism and AI are similar in a number of important ways:

• Leading with your best stuff (AKA never burying the lede): Good writing in broadcast news always gives away the story—and it’s most important points—in the first paragraph. Context, background, and chronology come after. You lead with the ending of the movie rather than building up to it with scene setting and character development that crescendos to a climax, conflict, and then resolution. In broadcast news, the conflict and climax begin the story. In similar fashion, writing for AI should frontload key information rather than burying it halfway down the page—a format known as BLUF (bottom line up front). If your blog post is about the best places to eat in Vancouver, the first paragraph should be about the #1 spot rather than a drawn-out description of Vancouver’s food scene. AI algorithms favor BLUF structure and conforming to it will increase the chances that your writing will be seen and cited.
• Conversational writing: One of the most important rules of broadcast writing is ensuring it’s conversational. Journalists are taught to write how people speak because it’s clear and easy to understand, and the listener or viewer has only one shot at absorbing the information (this was back in the days of television and radio when rewinding a timeline to re-listen to something wasn’t a luxury). Skip fancy words. Conversational writing is clearer to AI algorithms as well and structurally resembles the kind of content they’re optimized to retrieve, understand, and cite.
• Including the question in the answer: Broadcast journalists love when questions are included in answers when searching for soundbites for their stories because it lets them easily insert the soundbite without the need for a clarifying voiceover. Reporters working in TV typically have one minute and thirty seconds to tell a complete story, so every second is precious. This post demonstrates that above with, “writing for journalism and artificial intelligence are the same…” appearing immediately after the headline that ask, “How is writing for journalism and AI the same?” Similarly, starting a paragraph by immediately echoing the headline that precedes it allows AI systems to directly connect an answer to a question because of the consistent structure and word choice.

LEARN MORE: What is an “atomic answer?”

• Short sentences with simple format in active voice: One of the biggest transitions from university to journalism school writing was shifting from long, multi-clause sentences to short, simple ones containing a single idea and in the format: subject, verb, object. Web writing in the age of AI also favors simple, short sentences in active voice because their logic is easier to break down and understand. This increases the likelihood they will be cited and shared with readers. Figurative, poetic language with long, complex, and ambiguous words can often confuse AI system.

What’s the most valuable skill—still?

But the most valuable skill broadcast journalism teaches is one that AEO and its prescriptions ignore: storytelling. And that skill sets journalists apart in this new digital age, and one that can’t be learned through two-minute YouTube tutorials or webinars. Good storytelling is timeless. It’s built from years of practice, hours of interviews, and hundreds of deadlines met—the lived reality of nearly every journalist.

Stories should be–at their core–written for humans, not algorithms, and that foundation is what distinguishes reach from impact. The former is now considered a vanity metric because of the firehose of content hitting audiences every hour and forgotten the next. To break through the noise and leave a lasting impression, authentic, human-centered storytelling that makes the reader feel, will always be more valuable and effective than chasing formatting tweaks for clicks and visibility. Now, the most effective writing must marry the two: substance and style.