{"id":146007,"date":"2026-08-20T10:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T10:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/146007\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T10:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T10:56:13","slug":"student-journalists-ai-is-changing-our-work-and-not-for-the-better-the-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/146007\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Journalists: AI Is Changing Our Work \u2014 And Not For the Better \u2013 The 74"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n

In the nearly four years since generative artificial intelligence began colonizing the academic lives of teens, it has changed the experience<\/a> of school for millions of young people. Perhaps no group has watched their reality shift more than student journalists.<\/p>\n

Just as the technology has rewired the relationship between young writers-in-training and their teachers, it has also changed how student journalists and their editors work together \u2014 or, in some cases, don\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And AI has created headaches for these journalists that mirror those afflicting their professional peers, with school newsrooms struggling to figure out how to respond.<\/p>\n

As with their schools more broadly, student newsrooms have spent these years deploying surveillance software and, in many cases, drafting zero-tolerance policies for AI. Different newsrooms have developed different answers to the same basic question: How much do we trust teenagers to not let a chatbot do their work?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 74 spoke recently to three student journalists from three very different newsrooms about their experiences:<\/p>\n

Cid Frydman, a rising senior at Berkeley High School in California, who writes for the Berkeley High Jacket<\/a>;<\/p>\n

Veronica Mollod, a rising senior and current events editor at Common Sense<\/a>, the student newspaper at the High School of American Studies at Lehman College in the Bronx, N.Y.;<\/p>\n

Tova Weiss, a recent high school graduate in Ann Arbor, Mich., who has split her time between Pioneer High School and Washtenaw Community College<\/a>. Weiss has written and edited for the Youth Environmental Press Team<\/a> and jGirls+ Magazine<\/a>, a publication written by and for Jewish teens.<\/p>\n

Here are eight-and-a-half ways \u2014 including one counterintuitive, not-for-attribution observation \u2014 in which AI is changing their realities:<\/p>\n

1. In a few schools, AI has overturned the culture of newspapers.<\/p>\n

Frydman, the Berkeley student, said strict AI use policies at her publication have bred resentment among student writers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of the people higher up on my paper, and in journalism in general, don\u2019t have a lot of trust in writers anymore, especially with so many AI resources that are out there,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Editors are \u201cvery harsh on writers\u201d over worries that they\u2019ll use AI, keeping strict controls over documents, she said. They\u2019ll poke around writers\u2019 search histories and analyze their typing speed and word choices, matching drafts to previous work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very strict when you put it all together,\u201d Frydman said. \u201cThey don\u2019t have a lot of faith in our ability to actually produce real journalism, and so just assume the worst automatically, which can be a little frustrating when you\u2019re just trying to do your best as a writer.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the Berkeley High newspaper, staffers have been let go over suspected AI use.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RelatedAI Tutors Are Praising Instead of Teaching. Here\u2019s Why That\u2019s Hurting Students<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Frydman sees the high cost of such heavy-handed policies: \u201cWe\u2019re here because we love journalism,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re here to write about things that we\u2019re hopefully passionate about, and the heavy approach of \u2018There\u2019s no tolerance whatsoever,\u2019 and not even giving writers the grace and the trust to make their own decisions and do this work on their own \u2014 just minding it and monitoring it so heavily, I think it\u2019s very discouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n

More broadly, getting caught using AI to write academic assignments carries weighty consequences, she said. You\u2019re unable to get a letter of recommendation from any teacher, Frydman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And a single infraction travels fast: Get caught using AI once, she said, and teachers will tell all of their colleagues \u201cto watch out because this student has used AI before \u2014 they might use it in your class.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. AI is changing how \u2014 and how much \u2014 students write.<\/p>\n

\"\"Cid Frydman<\/p>\n

Frydman said she\u2019s adopting what\u2019s basically a minimalist approach to writing these days, holding back details so she doesn\u2019t draw suspicion from editors or teachers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though she doesn\u2019t use AI for writing, she said, \u201cA lot of times, I find myself sort of slimming down my writing to not go so into detail on things because it\u2019ll be suspected to be something that\u2019s not original. You don\u2019t have a lot of room to be creative in this process, so it\u2019s definitely been a little challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ann Arbor\u2019s Weiss said she\u2019s also seeing many young journalists \u201cadjust their writing voice\u201d to avoid being flagged as relying on AI. Many students, she said, now intentionally add typos to their writing to support its legitimacy. \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely devastating to watch how many people are intentionally damaging or diminishing the quality and authenticity of their work,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At Berkeley High, school-issued Chromebooks are locked down to block access to ChatGPT, Claude and other major AI tools outright \u2014 and any attempt to reach them gets flagged. \u201cIt notifies the teacher through this program that we have called Go Guardian, which is embedded into a lot of the Chromebooks, where they can sort of see what you\u2019re doing and be able to call you out on it,\u201d Frydman said.<\/p>\n

3. A few newsrooms are writing AI policies.<\/p>\n

At Youth Environmental Press Team, where Weiss is an editor, staffers have been talking \u201cin pretty much every director\u2019s meeting\u201d about the implications and problems surrounding AI. \u201cWe are an environmental publication, which means a lot of us are very climate-conscious.\u201d<\/p>\n

The environmental impacts<\/a> of AI data centers are a cause of great concern, Weiss said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RelatedThe End of Homework? Teachers Grapple With Cheating in the Age of AI<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

After fielding a wave of questions from reporters, the publication developed formal guidelines rather than instituting an outright ban on AI. \u201cIt was always very clear for us that we would not publish or even entertain the idea of publishing anything that was written by a chatbot or any kind of generative AI,\u201d Weiss said. But they soon got queries from reporters asking if they could use AI for outlining, for formatting statistics, for interview transcriptions and the like.<\/p>\n

\"\"Tova Weiss<\/p>\n

The policy that emerged prohibits AI-written and AI-edited work, including work that heavily uses tools like Grammarly. But transcription services and basic spell-check are still allowed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The organization, she said, wants to make writing \u201cas accessible as possible so people can have their work published \u2014 but not if that means it\u2019s not really their work, and especially not if that\u2019s at the cost of the environment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

4. Other newsrooms rely on experience and vibes.<\/p>\n

Weiss helped craft the formal AI policy at the environmental journal. At jGirls+ Magazine, by contrast, she said there\u2019s no written policy. But in practice the standard is clear: Submissions and even staff applications that appear to be AI-generated are not accepted. In one case, she recalled, an obviously AI-written editorial board application \u2014 with a stiff style that lacked personal voice \u2014 tested with an AI detector as 100% AI, \u201cwhich was really something none of us had expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weiss said AI detectors should be used only \u201cwhen there is already prior reason to suspect something might have been AI generated\u201d \u2014 a student with a track record of misusing AI, for instance, or because something just simply reads a little \u201coff.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. In most cases, AI detectors are widely seen as unreliable.<\/p>\n

Weiss described a tiered system in the environmental outlet\u2019s workflow, with writers operating on an \u201chonor system\u201d but with student editors flagging \u201csketchy\u201d pieces such as those that are missing statistical sources or those that quote dubious ones \u2014 or writing that doesn\u2019t sound like a typical teenager\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing about student voices is typically each writer has a distinctive style of writing,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re high schoolers: We have typos, we make mistakes in there. And if we\u2019re finding something that\u2019s void of personal style or just generally reads in a way that doesn\u2019t seem like it was written by a student, we\u2019re going to look into that further.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But she and others worry that using an AI detector could unfairly flag strong writing as suspicious simply because it\u2019s polished \u2014 a phenomenon that happens more than you\u2019d think in many schools, Weiss suggested.<\/p>\n

AI detectors aren\u2019t really reliable, said Frydman, the Berkeley senior, \u201cso even if you write something really well, it\u2019ll just automatically assume that it might be AI and your writing will get flagged, which has happened to a lot of my friends.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

6. A few simple rules can keep AI from taking over, journalists say.<\/p>\n

Mollod, the New York City journalist, said a somewhat arcane editing rule at her publication basically serves to help keep AI-generated content at bay: At Common Sense, every article is required to include a quote from a student in each grade level \u2014 a structural feature that makes it hard for AI to intrude, since students typically remember what they\u2019ve said to a reporter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RelatedWhen It Comes to Developing AI Rules, Who Asked the Students?<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

7. In a few cases, teachers are using AI more than students.<\/p>\n

The journalists described several instances in which teachers, not students, were the ones turning to AI, relying on the technology to formulate lesson plans, create assignments and grade them.<\/p>\n

One student who asked not to be quoted directly spoke of a teacher who \u201cwill just copy and paste straight off of Chat GPT or Claude, and just give us assignments that are so clearly AI that it\u2019s ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others rely on it for grading assignments, which \u201cleads to a lot of people getting unfair grades, because AI can mess up,\u201d said the student.<\/p>\n

The more teachers rely on the technology, \u201cthe easier it is to just forget that you\u2019re there for a reason, you\u2019re trying to do your job for a reason \u2014 and AI should not be teaching kids Spanish or English or math or anything like that. It can\u2019t reproduce real thinking. So it\u2019s definitely a little dystopian.\u201d<\/p>\n

8. For many students, refusing AI isn\u2019t a school rule. It\u2019s personal.<\/p>\n

Weiss, the Ann Arbor writer, said she has never used Open AI\u2019s popular ChatGPT, due to environmental concerns over data centers as well as personal concerns over AI more broadly. \u201cIt just does not align with my morals at all,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But casual AI use has become normalized among many of her peers, she said, with students openly saying, sometimes within earshot of teachers, that they ran an assignment through a chatbot the night before it was due.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RelatedAnother AI Side Effect: Erosion of Student-Teacher Trust<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The best way to fight AI, she said, is basically to boycott it. \u201cThe strongest way anyone can combat artificial intelligence is just by refusing to have anything to do with it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

While AI-generated writing more broadly can damage the way that people learn and is worth thinking about, Mollod said, she\u2019s not sure that it has gotten to the point where \u201cjust everyone is just cheating, and no one\u2019s really actually taking their work seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Veronica Mollod<\/p>\n

She reads the coverage and believes most people who don\u2019t spend time in schools overestimate how much teens use AI. \u201cPeople not in school are like, \u2018Well, I didn\u2019t have this great tool. If I had it, I wouldn\u2019t have done anything,\u2019\u201d she said. But relying on the technology, which showed up in the middle of her eighth-grade year, isn\u2019t yet common practice for most students she knows.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether future students will warm to it more isn\u2019t yet clear, Mollod said.<\/p>\n

Weiss, the Michigan student, said her work \u2014 especially at the environmental publication \u2014 has taken on a new significance in the age of AI, pushing to celebrate and highlight \u201cauthentic youth journalism and youth narrative\u201d in the face of encroaching technology. \u201cIn my view,\u201d she said, \u201cdemonstrating our talents as humans and as youth is a form of silent protest against AI by proving that artificial intelligence isn\u2019t necessary to produce professional-quality journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonus: Non-AI cheating abides.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On background, one of the students said she thought a lot of the news coverage about AI cheating, while serious, simply misses the point. The old-fashioned kind of cheating, for now, remains much more common. In 2026, students are still relying on copying each other\u2019s homework, just as generations before them did.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMostly it\u2019s just, like, circles of people, where there\u2019ll be a math class and five people do the homework \u2014 and the other 20 got it from this person, [who] got it from this person, [who] got it from this person \u2014 which has always kind of been going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did you use this article in your work?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We\u2019d love to hear how The 74\u2019s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers. Tell us how<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter In the nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2364,24,25,7720,76,2885,66,71818],"class_list":["post-146007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-k-12","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-cheating","tag-education","tag-high-school","tag-news","tag-student-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}