---
title: Writing wrongs (sorry!)
description: Editor of The Plain Dealer makes the case for AI editors
---

[Media Hunter](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter)

# [Writing wrongs (sorry!)](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter/writing-wrongs-sorry)

 Written by [Alan Hunter](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter/author/alan-hunter) | Feb 20, 2026, 5:00:00 PM

**Editor of The Plain Dealer makes the case for AI editors**

Another week and yet again the great and the good of journalism are smarting at a fresh outrage. This time the cause of their apoplexy was Chris Quinn, editor of [Cleveland.com](http://Cleveland.com) and The Plain Dealer, explaining how his newsroom was using AI to write the first draft of stories to allow reporters to spend more time out in the field.

“By removing writing from reporter’s workloads, we’ve effectively freed up an extra workday for them each week,” [he wrote](https://www.cleveland.com/news/2026/02/journalism-schools-are-teaching-fear-of-the-future-letter-from-the-editor.html). “They are spending it on the street – doing in-person interviews, meeting people for coffee. That’s where real stories emerge, and they’re returning with more ideas than we can handle.”

The response was near-universal outrage. Here are just two samples:

“Wow. Talk about getting the whole process backwards. Use AI to help with gathering and processing facts. Use writers to craft those facts into compelling stories. It's like these yahoos are actively trying to cripple journalism” – Eric Deggans, critic-at-large at NPR and now a professor of journalism at Washington and Lee University.

“This is beyond dumb. Reporting and writing go hand in hand. Some reporters take time to learn how to write. That’s the joy, as I discovered when I got knocked into shape at The Sunday Times years ago. The idea an AI bot can get the job done is an affront to good journalism”– Lionel Barber, former editor of the Financial Times.

I think the key word here is “affront”. Quinn’s move goes against all the things we’ve been led to believe are crucial to “good journalism”. But that’s what happens in an age of disruption.

The real question for me is whether the value of journalism lies more in the act of reporting or the art of writing?

Of course, you’re going to answer: “It’s in both – they are inseparable." But what if the economics of the industry no longer allows that and there are tools available to help out.

I agree with Quinn that we should lean in towards reporting. Without good reporting, you don’t have good journalism. But you can have it without good writing.

When I worked at The Sunday Times I used to be one of the people who knocked copy into shape, as Barber describes (though we did not overlap). And those of us who edited news copy knew that we had among our colleagues those that were great story-getters and those that were great writers. There wasn’t often much of a crossover.

One particular story-getter was utterly dedicated to his scoops. He would go out five nights a week, cultivating his contacts at various events relating to his patch. Late on a Friday night, or early on Saturday, he’d tell us what he had unearthed. There were always two or three stories that were worthy of leading a page, and some smaller ones too.

We knew though that when his copy arrived we would have to rewrite it from top to bottom. It just wasn’t what he was good at. I think he knew it as he never used to complain (that) much about the shape his stories subsequently took, even when only the quotes and pertinent facts survived from the original.

I don’t see a huge difference in having their process initiated by AI and then finished by a human editor, as Quinn is doing at his titles.

It feels like an interesting response to the opportunities provided by AI. There are others, of course, and Eric Deggans has a point when advocating for its use in story-gathering (we do that at [Tomorrow’s Publisher](https://tomorrowspublisher.today/), after all).

The thing is that the industry needs to adapt to its new, diminished circumstances and to do so we must try different approaches. To simply say “that’s not journalism” to everything that represents change is both unhelpful and ultimately self-defeating. The world is changing and we have to change too, however uncomfortable that may feel in the short term.

I try to look for hope and I found it buried among the responses to Quinn’s article. It came from a Wall Street Journal reporter, Ben Fritz, who wrote: “AI can't write an enterprise story from my notes, but it helps me write faster. That lets me spend more time uncovering information the public doesn't have but should, which I believe is the most important work journalists do. Writing is simply a mode of delivery.”

[View full post](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter/writing-wrongs-sorry)

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